Travel: Ardeonaig Hotel, Perthshire

A REBORN Perthshire hotel offers fantastic fare and access to the best countryside Scotland has to offer

Iknew I was in a little piece of heaven the moment I looked out of our cottage suite window at the Ardeonaig Hotel, with the sun dappling the slopes of Ben Lawers on the far side of Loch Tay and the squalls sweeping down the loch like squadrons of cavalry. And it got even better when I woke next morning to find the top of the Ben dusted in snow – this was the first week in October: it wasn’t just the cold that took my breath away.

People have been living in this corner of Highland Perthshire for millenia, many of them on the enigmatic crannogs whose remains lie scattered around the loch’s shallows, but the hotel has a shorter history, having begun life as a drovers’ inn in the 1650s. In its present incarnation, Ardeonaig Hotel has existed for just a few months, after being taken over by the Adamo Hotel Group and reopening in September. It is already making a name for itself.

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The hotel, which has 25 beautifully appointed rooms, five thatched shieling lodges and two cottage suites, is tucked away at the head of grounds that slope down to the south shore of the loch. It’s only a couple of hours from Edinburgh and Glasgow, but with a sense of remoteness that makes it special, and the seven-mile single track road along the loch side merits your full attention as it carries you away from the hustle and bustle of the “real” world and forces you to slow to a less-frantic pace.

So what makes it worth the effort? Location, of course; Scotland doesn’t get much better than this. As well as the tranquility of the area, the hotel offers intimacy, charm and cosiness. But the element that completes the Ardeonaig package is the quite exceptional food.

Chef Ross Miller boasts a CV that includes time with the Roux brothers at La Gavroche, with Martin Wishart and at the Champany Inn, but at 26 he saw the reopening of Ardeonaig as an opportunity to make a name for himself.

Miller’s seven-course tasting menu is a masterpiece of tastes, textures and balance, beautifully presented and cooked using classic techniques. On the first night we were served a morsel of intensely flavoured ham in stock, followed by silky smooth foie gras, halibut with langoustine, squab pigeon, and the finest beef I have ever eaten; a combination of astonishingly succulent beef cheek, a cube of marrow and slice of fillet – all from a beast personally selected by the chef from the Boquhan herd of Adamo owner Euan Snowie. Follow it with a razor-sharp gin and tonic sorbet and contrasting chocolate combination and it sounds just too much.

But Miller’s art is in not just producing gastronomic quality, but in the perfect quantities he serves. A selection of the same dishes is available on the a la carte menu, which also includes a must-try starter of half a lobster, cooked to perfection and presented in its shell.

If you can drag yourself away from the hotel, Perthshire is a well-known country sportsman’s paradise and staff can organise angling and stalking (the photographic variety, though there is plenty of the real thing available in the hills around), with a good chance of a salmon or the sight of a stag. There’s also golf at Killin (nine holes), Taymouth and Pitlochry. For walkers, nearby Ben Lawers and Schiehallion provide the greatest challenge, but gentler outings to Glen Lyon, the Birks of Aberfeldy or the Hermitage are also within easy reach.

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This is clan country, with a castle in every glen and history on every corner. The Rob Roy Way passes the hotel’s front door, but don’t ask a McGregor to buy a drink for a Campbell in the bar, because 500 years of feuding don’t die easily.

And if you’d like to see how the original residents of Loch Tay lived, take a tour of the Scottish Crannog Centre near Kenmore, and you might be lucky enough to see a man make fire with a stick, a piece of string and a few wood shavings – in a downpour and a force eight gale!

• THE FACTS

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Ardeonaig Hotel, South Loch Tayside, Ardeonaig, FK21 8SU, (tel: 01567 820400, www.adamohotels.com/ardeonaig). Rooms start at £120 a night for B&B in a standard double. Include dinner and the package starts from £200. The seven-course tasting menu costs £60, vegetarian tasting menu £55 and the three-course a la carte menu is £45.

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