Kylesku Hotel: Dining Review

The View from the Dining Room

There are many good reasons to visit or stay at the Kylesku Hotel, one of which is the outstanding dining on offer. You can read our hotel review for Kylesku Hotel here. Whether you eat in the Kylesku Hotel's restaurant or the bar you can be assured of superb food, with a strong (but not exclusive) emphasis on seafood and an even stronger emphasis on local sourcing.

Dining In the Bar The Seafood Platter Landing Seafood at the Slipway

And by "local sourcing" we really mean local. The Kylesku Hotel's list of suppliers includes fishermen based at the small jetty at Kylesku itself who land langoustines, lobsters, crabs and other delicacies destined for the hotel. Meanwhile many of the mussels come from the loch you can see from the hotel itself and scallops are hand dived off the Summer Isles; while salmon comes from a high quality farm at Scourie further up the coast and much of the whole fish comes direct from the fish market at Kinlochbervie. It is sometimes a cliche to say that while you are sitting enjoying your food you can see where what you are eating was born and bred: but at the Kylesku Hotel it is, at least in part, literally true. Though to be strictly accurate, the seafood being landed at the slipway in the image on the left was not itself actually destined for the hotel...

For much of the season you can eat dinner in the hotel's restaurant, with its superb views out over Loch Glencoul and Loch Glendhu. This is open during the evening from Wednesday to Sunday, and for most of the period of the year during which the hotel is open. The menu varies depending on what is available, but a typical restaurant menu might comprise five starters and five mains with a strong seafood emphasis, and four desserts, plus vegetarian options. Dinner is on a set price two or three course basis and the restaurant is justifiably popular: booking is essential.

Meanwhile the bar menu is available from lunch until the end of dinner seven days per week, and for a slightly longer period of the year than the restaurant menu. If you find yourself visiting at a time of day, or day of the week, when the restaurant is not open, you can still be assured of truly outstanding food. When we visited the bar menu comprised seven starters (including three seafood dishes) and thirteen mains (including eight seafood dishes): plus specials posted on blackboards which added four more starters and six more mains. Plus the hotel's signature dish, the "Kylesku Platter", which deserved a board of its own. And sweets of course.

Our non-seafood starters, "grilled goat's cheese" and "home made venison and rabbit terrine" were both exceptional. But the main courses were even better. The "beer battered local haddock, chips, peas and home-made tartare sauce" was, quite simply, the best fish and chips we have every tasted. And then there was the Kylesku Platter. The composition of this varies, even during a service, as ingredients are consumed or become available, but you need to think of the most magnificent seafood platter imaginable, and then expect better. Think of two plates full of delights like scallops, gravadlax, langoustines, mussels, crabs, haddock goujons, and Glendhu spineys (a sort of tiny lobster). The Kylesku Platter cannot be recommended highly enough for lovers of seafood, though eating it is a more highly interactive experience than most dishes, and the crab crackers, pick and finger bowl you are issued with are all essential.

Breakfast at the Kylesku Hotel is served in the restaurant and is excellent. The starter course is self served and comprises fruit juices and fruit or cereals. Main course options include west coast kippers and salmon, and porridge is of course available. The Scottish breakfast can be highly recommended, especially when it includes an unusual type of Lorne sausage that was absolutely delicious: more in the physical form of a burger than the usual fritter. You can read our hotel review for Kylesku Hotel here.