Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and hedgerow: Eight great ways to taste the Isle of Skye
Sawday's Expert
5 min read
When we headed to Skye, looking for places beyond the well-worn tourist trail, we were thinking mostly of alternatives to beauty spots like the Fairy Pools. What we hadn’t anticipated was the range of food and drink options we’d encounter. In among the constellation of glittering award-winners that the island is home to, we found everything from independent coffee shops to East London cafes and a fabulous combination of history and creativity at Skye’s oldest pub. Here are a few of our discoveries for breakfast, lunch and dinner, plus a couple that locals recommended but we were either to rushed or too full to try.
Breakfast
Birch, Portree
Birch’s clean colour palette and pared-back style look distinctly Scandinavian, but founder Niall Munro was actually inspired to create it by visits to Melbourne, a city that knows a thing or two about café culture. The coffee is hand-roasted in small batches and all the beans can be traced right back to the grower, ensuring that it’s good for everyone involved, but especially for travellers in need of a bit of a kick in the morning. Their baked goods are superb and we can personally attest that the peanut butter brownies make a brilliant picnic treat.
Caora Dubh, Carbost
You needn’t worry about going all the way to Portree if you’re in need of a morning coffee stop though, with Caora Dubh in Carbost defnitely giving Birch a run for its money. There was plenty of temptation on display though and the queue of locals waiting to buy drinks and pastries was definitely a good sign. We spent a very happy morning here chatting to the incredible Skye Ghillie and sampling the superb coffee from the benches overlooking the shores of Loch Harport.
Lunch
Café Cùil, Carbost
Café Cùil is the passion project of award-winning chef Clare Coghill. Born and raised on Skye, she spent a few years in East London honing a craft for creating fabulous food. She’d always drawn on Hebridean influence in her cooking and eventually the love of home drew her back, much to Carbost’s gain. This visit, despite rave reviews from our host Iona at Viewfield House making us desperately wish we’d found the time to go, we missed maple and miso glazed beetroot, Scotch pancakes with rhubarb and gingernut crumble, and a whole host of other treats. Next time we’re definitely stopping in for whatever her seasonal menu has on offer.
Oyster Shed, Carbost
You won’t get much from the website or social media on this one, which should tell you a little bit about it straight away, along with the name. A ten-minute walk up the hill from the village of Carbost, we found the unassuming wooden shack that many had told us to visit. For an insanely reasonable price, we took a plate piled with langoustine, oysters and chips and sat outside at a barrel table, eating wonderfully fresh seafood with the shining sea below.
Dinner
The Stein Inn
We arrived at The Stein in time to see the last of the day’s sun paint long shadows on the water. A warm welcome from the bar staff turned into a session of Isle of Raasay whisky tasting and recommendations for the rest of our trip. The views, even as exceptional as they were, got upstaged by food that took Scottish classics and elevated them with beautiful cooking and inventive flavour combinations. Crab served with bread, peaches, tenderstem broccoli, and tarragon yoghurt was messy but fun. Haggis bonbons with whisky cream were earthy and indulgent. The sticky toffee pudding came with a poppy seed caramel that bought a welcome bitter edge to the sweet pudding.
Coruisk House, Elgol
Claire Winskill and husband Iain bought Coruisk House in 2011 and spent two years working it into its current state of relaxed elegance. They offer only a four-course set menu for 10 to 12 guests a night, creating a more sociable, relaxed atmosphere and allowing them to make the menu not just seasonal, but positively opportunistic. A forager friend trained by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) often pops up with ingredients and ideas for using them, leading to on-the-fly menu changes. Everything else comes from as close to the house as possible. What this boils down (or bakes up?) to, is creamy lobster bisque made from shells, with wild garlic sourdough, skate with fennel brit blein, fresh herb tagliatelle, oysters, seaweed butter bread, and a host of other flavours that feel like you’re biting into Skye itself.
Food experiences – going beyond the dinner table
Breeze
Why eat seafood in sight of the sea, when you could be gently bobbing on the water instead? Lunch aboard Breeze, during a wildlife watching boat tour with Jasper of Viewfield House, is a little more extravagant than your normal “coffee flask and a biscuit” affair. We sailed home well fed and not at all disappointed not to have spotted any dolphins.
Skye Ghillie
If sitting at a restaurant table, eating oysters off a barrel, or even being at sea still feels a bit tame for you, then try heading out for a day with forager and bushcraft guide, Mitchell Partridge, founder of Skye Ghillie. He’ll take you to parts of Skye you’d never find on your own (or at least never find your way back from) and get you gathering mushrooms and nibbling on seaweed before you know it.
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Christopher Wilson-Elmes
Sawday's Expert
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