Auchterarder, Scottish Restaurant Guide

“Beautifully cooked food in an opulent setting perfect for a special occasion” wins nothing but praise for this legendary property’s traditional dining room (which leaves the culinary showing off to Restaurant Andrew Fairlie, and concentrates on more old-school luxurious fare). Well… almost nothing but praise – a couple of reporters do note that while it’s “a very good restaurant, we are in Perthshire, not Mayfair or St James’s” and notwithstanding its many virtues the experience can still seem a tad “overpriced”.

“Just sublime!… Couldn‘t fault it in any way!… The highlight of my year… and have booked again for 2025!” – “Andrew Fairlie may no longer be with us, but his legacy is in good hands and lives on” at this famous dining room bearing his name, where chef Stephen McLaughlin (who worked with Andrew for 26 years before the latter passed away) creates what many diners consider to be Scotland’s finest cuisine (“there’s no getting away from the fact that this has to be up there with the best gastronomic experience we have ever experienced”), with “each fabulous course a testament to the skill of the kitchen brigade”. GM Dale Dewsbury presides over “a team of the loveliest people” who breathe life into this elegant (if windowless) chamber at the heart of this famous property.

2021 Review: Set up in 2007 by Slow Food aficionado Graeme Pallister, who trained at Kinloch House Hotel and the restaurant at Gleneagles, this elevated Scottish dining room, on the western banks of the Tay, remains a Perth gem that’s “exceptional value early evening”.

2024 Review: No reports as yet on this spring 2023 newcomer – the latest opening in the expanding empire of MasterChef: The Professionals 2018 finalist Dean Banks. But The Scotsman’s Gaby Soutar is a fan – in her February 2023 review she noted that the “foraging theme only seems to extend as far as the branding” with a menu that only “features the prerequisite pub classics, like fish ’n’ chips, Sunday roast, pies” along with some “fancier bits”. But she concluded that “Scotland has another excellent country pub”.