Kinross Restaurant Guide

2021 Review: A bright Indian street food design is laid on strong at this large yearling, serving a variety of boldly flavoured bites. One or two encouraging early reports of “amazing flavours” win it an inclusion, but too few reports for a rating as yet.

2023 Review: “A seafood restaurant that never fails to please, with constantly changing menus that reflect what is available seasonally”. That’s the take on this small (24 covers) family-run fish restaurant and ‘seasonal hotel’ which sits on Hawkcraig point, with views of Edinburgh and the islands of the Forth. “The owners really do pull out all the stops to give a nice dining experience. Great for that special occasion!”

“This real gem” on Auchterarder’s high street has just celebrated 25 years’ serving “fine food at good value for money”. It’s “a short drive from Gleneagles” – where “lovely friendly owners” Jon (chef) and Fernanda Lewin used to work – so “you must go when staying”, but “booking is advised because it is small”.

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”.

2022 Review: This “little piece of France” – down to the terrace under a red awning along the streetfront – has earned a strong local reputation over more than a decade as a haven of classic Gallic cuisine.

This wood-paneled “gem” occupying a seventeenth-century building, from the husband-and-wife team of chef Andrew Moss & FOH Karen Milne, celebrates its 10th anniversary this year – the “exceptional cooking and wine list are a joy”. We’ve rated it on relatively thin feedback – more reports please.

“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.

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”.