WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT.

HIGHLAND GOURMET TRIPS

Introduction

Our individual gourmet trips in the spectacular Highlands of Scotland are specifically tailored to ensure that you will get the best food, in the best restaurants, in the best scenery the area has to offer.

Our itineraries can take you to places that few other travellers can get to or, indeed, would even think of going to. Your guides will seem like family as they take you to places you wouldn't believe.

So, what are you waiting for? Get on the phone and book your ticket to heaven now. You know you want to!

How do I start my fabulous Highland adventure?

You can fly British Airways to Inverness from London Heathrow and be in God's Own Country before lunch. You will be met by your friendly guides and they will offer you a number of options before you have even left the car park!

What are these exciting options?

This is your trip, so the excitement is controlled by you. Your guides can only offer you choice, you must make the decision.

Are you needing to stretch your legs after your flight? If so, it is only a few minutes by car to the beautiful seaside town of Nairn. There you will find glorious beaches with no crowds, just waiting for you to make tracks in the sand. If that is too energetic perhaps you could just stand at the harbour and watch the local dolphins. If you prefer to get away from the sea air, you could go for a short stroll in the magical Cawdor Woods next to the Castle which was once home to Banquo, the Thain of Cawdor and a key figure in the tale of MacBeth.

Alternatively, if you fancy a bit of a drive in the country, a visit to Logie Steading is a great option. Not only is there a nice restaurant serving light lunches, there is an art gallery, kitchen shop, fabulous second-hand bookshop and, my favourite, a fine range of whiskies and gins.

Whatever your choice, you will soon be needing a bit of lunch. In Nairn itself there is the modern Sun Dancer restaurant with views over the beach and out to sea. It's not fine dining, but it is good, well presented modern food and the views are spectacular. You could enjoy Seafood tempura with soft shell crab, calamari, King prawns and a mango and watermelon salad. Or, perhaps, a juicy venison burger.

In Cawdor, you can nestle by the fire and try more traditional fare in the village tavern. This might be the best choice if it has been a bit on the cold side. Typically the menu would include Orkney Ale and beef pie or hot smoked Shetland salmon platter. The Olive Tree Café at Logie Steading offers nice light lunch dishes such as potato, gruyere and chive croquettes or roasted peach, feta and Parma ham salad and you can eat in the sheltered and sunny courtyard.

However, if it is fine dining that you are after, there really is only one choice of venue and that is the multi-award winning Boath House. This fabulous Georgian mansion has held a Michelin star since 2009 and boasts numerous other awards. If you are anywhere near Inverness airport and in need of fine food, this is the place to go. One of the problems with going to Boath House at the beginning of your trip is that you might not want to leave – and there is so much more food to eat and so much more scenery to see.

No matter how much you enjoy your lunch which might include salt cod, capers and fennel, followed by coal fired lamb, onion and kale, you will need, at some point, to make your way to your cosy accommodation. Before you do that, you need to stop off at Connage Cheese Pantry to pick out some delights from their vast range of local and international cheeses. You will find the perfect delicacy to follow the fine evening meal that your guides will have prepared for you. We will pass Castle Stuart on the way home. The Castle has given it's name to the nearby golf course, which has hosted major championships in the recent past.

Have a good night's rest because tomorrow the adventure really begins.

DAY1

Breakfast

Don't rush to get up in the morning. There is no need. Your breakfast will be made for you as and when you need it. You can choose from freshly prepared fruit, yoghurt, home-made muesli or porridge. There will be a choice of cooked delicacies – Stornoway Black Pudding, potato scones, Quality Guild butcher's sausages, home-cured streaky bacon and eggs as you like them. If you would prefer a lighter choice you could try avocado crushed on newly toasted home-made bread, all topped with ham and a poached egg, for example. You can look forward to home made bread, toasted if you like, with a choice of home-made conserves, all washed down with your choice of teas or coffee. You can enjoy this feast while watching the flowers and birds in the garden.

On the road.

Once you are ready to start out on the road, we will leave Inverness and head North across the Kessock Bridge and onto the Black Isle. This is where you need to make the major choice of the trip – do you want to go east and then north, or do we go west and then north? Either way, we will do a circuit of the north Highlands back to Inverness. This will be based on the famous North Coast 500 route, with the added interest that only a local guide can give you.

If you want to see dolphins at close hand, we can go to Chanonry Point. This is the best place on earth for watching dolphins from the beach. Sighting cannot be guaranteed, but it will be the best chance you might ever get. From there, we can drive to the pretty village of Cromarty, which has a fascinating number of buildings to see and streets to wander. There, you can also have one of the best pizzas in the Highlands at Sutor's Creek. How does Parma ham, artichoke hearts, spinach, olive and garlic sound?

If dolphins and pizza are not your idea of fun, we will head to the west coast and the delights of Wester Ross.

If we do that, we should drive towards Lochcarron, another delightful village on the shores of a sea loch. You will see seals here rather than dolphins. Lunch would then be at the Carron Restaurant on the south side of the loch, with it's lovely lounge for sitting and relaxing in before, or after, you have your meal overlooking the loch. It has a fine chargrilled selection of foods. From there we might visit Attadale Gardens, with their dedicated request railway halt and sculpture garden.

This might give you some inner calmness before we tackle the vertiginous Bealach na Ba road. This is probably the most spectacular road drive anywhere in Britain. It is a single track road rising from sea level to over 2000 feet. You will never forget this experience. The road takes us to Applecross, a place of remarkable peace and fine food. You really are spoilt for choice here. You can stay and eat at the Applecross Inn or at a cottage that is related to the Walled Garden restaurant. Another option might be to stay at the Inn and have dinner there, but have breakfast at the Walled Garden. Either way you are guaranteed some very fine food – especially the seafood. The Inn offers starters such as pigeon breast with crispy bacon and pine nuts, then whole Applecross Bay prawns with lemon and garlic butter. The Walled Garden suggests local chef caught squat lobsters and pork in a sweet chilli sauce followed by Roast cod with spinach, potato rosti, braised fennel & sauce vierge.

Looking back down the Bealach na Ba.

If we did go to see the dolphins, we would be heading up the east coast to stay in one of the many hotels in Dornoch. Dinner would be at Luigi's on the Main Street. The hot smoked salmon ravioli with dill butter sounds pretty good. Dinner would only be possible after we had a stroll along the beach at Embo, or a look around some of the fine shops in Dornoch. The Cathedral is well worth a visit.

DAY 2

It will only make your choice impossible if we continue to jump from east to west or vice versa. So, to help you retain your sanity, we will continue on the west trail. Suffice to say, that because this is a circuit, we will visit the north and east coasts eventually, bringing us back to Dornoch and on to Inverness.

So, after breakfast at the Inn or the Walled Garden, we will continue north around the Applecross peninsula. There are some wonderful views here across to Skye and Raasay. This road is relatively new, having only been built in the 1970's. Before then there was no road access to the isolated communities here and you can still see the path that the Postie walked every day to deliver the mail.

The view to Raasay and Skye from the Applecross peninsula.

We are heading to the beautiful little village of Shieldaig. Now, you can eat in Shieldaig and you can even eat and watch White-tailed Sea Eagles flying from their nest on the island in the bay. We might even do that at Nanny's over a plate of langoustines caught by the chef's husband. However, if the weather is good we could take a fast RIB trip across to Diabeg and eat lunch of a gourmet sandwich and a sharing platter of Highlands and Islands cheeses at Gille Brighde. Either would be good, but the second one would be something special.

Loch Torridon from the Shieldaig road (above)

Our next stop is a real highlight –the stunning Torridon Hotel.The food matches the hotel and the surroundings. You cannot pass this by, so we won't. We will be staying here and havinga sumptuous dinner in the evening.I can never forget the spelt grainrisotto with home cured ham andparmesan. The whole experience was a real joy.

Torridon Hotel from the village (left).

Now, it would be possible to cut the tour short here and go back to Inverness the next morning. But why would you want to do that?

DAY 3

After breakfast at the Torridon, you will have to drag yourself away from the luxury and head further north to Gairloch, but we will make a wee detour for lunch at the Badachro Inn. Another fine place to sit and eat next to the sea , with fishermen unloading their catch on the pier in front of the Inn.

Gairloch beach from the golf course (above).

Whilst Gairloch is a very fine place and it has a magnificent beach which we might walk along, we will carry on to the idiosyncratic Pool House Hotel in Poolewe. Again. It sits right by the sea and the food is supposed to be very good. We wouldn't be going there if that wasn't the case. The menu might include Roast Venison fillet with sweet and sour parsnips, local heritage beans and Pommes Anna. You can watch seals and otters while you eat.

Once more, we could head back to Inverness in the morning, but why would you?

DAY 4

After another fine breakfast, we would head for Ullapool – a real gem on the west coast. It is a vibrant town, with lots of artistic connections and a ferry to the Western Isles. Our lunch suggestion is the Frigate on the main street,again, right next to the sea. Just the place for a nice light lunch – the fish platter is exceptionally good. You'll like Ullapool, most people do.

Northwards again, to Achiltibuie. This is a bit off the beaten track, but it is worth the drive for the scenery alone. Stac Pollaidh is one of the best Highland Mountains. A bed and dinner at the Summer Isles hotel will just complete the day. You can depend on some very fine food here – wild Scottish mushroom ravioli followed by Pan fried cod, saffron potatoes, smoked pancetta and baby leek ragout finished with a Chablis and chive cream.

Stac Pollaidh in the foreground (above).

From Achiltibuie you could head to Ledmore junction and turn right to get you back to Inverness, but that would mean missing out on the real wild west.

DAY 5

We would take the back road from Achiltibuie to Lochinver via the strange, but enchanting Inverkirkaig bookshop. Lochinver was a busy fishing port. It still is, but not to the extent of the boom days of the 1980's and 90's. It has 2 Michelin starred restaurants, but we won't be staying there. We could have lunch at one of them, but one of the reasons to come to Lochinver is to visit the pie shop and restaurant. Sometimes a pie is exactly what you need and they have a huge range. How about Pork, chorizo and manchego or chocolate, pear and almond. After lunch, a visit to Highland Stoneware to look at some grossly expensive, but very nice, ceramics would be in order.

Our bed and dinner option would be the Kylesku Hotel. A great place with fine food, and even finer hospitality. We would get there on the Drumbeg road, which is very narrow and twisty, but it also passes some of the best and quietest beaches you will ever see.

Clachtoll beach and a stag on the Drumbeg road. (above).

The hotel is a real oasis of peace and calm next to the old ferry pier and you can watch all sorts of wildlife as you sit in the restaurant or lounge. I had the home cured gravlax of salmon with Ullapool Oaties, honey and mustard crème freche and pink grapefruit followed by the best fish and chips I have had in a long time.

A short boat trip would take you to the highest waterfall in Britain or once again you could head back east to Inverness.

DAY 6

We are really heading into the wilderness now, so choices become a bit more limited. We would suggest light lunch at the Old School in Kinlochbervie. Not fine dining, but you could have a nice bowl of Cullen Skink and a locally caught crab sandwich.

Next stop would be Durness – John Lennon used to go on holiday there! You have to stay at MacKay's rooms – no dinner, only breakfast. You can apparently have a fabulous, if quirky, dinner at the Whale Tale cafe, so that's what we would propose. No menu, but lots of pictures of langoustine and lobster on their Facebook page.

When we are in Durness a visit to Balnakiel Beach is a must as is a walk down to Smoo Cave (photo below). The Vikings liked Durness a lot and so will you.

It is a bit of a drive from Durness back to Inverness, so you will just have to carry on along the north coast, perhaps to Tongue. It doesn't stick out as a place to visit, but the north coast is actually quite special – lovely beaches, cliffs and quaint crofting townships. It really is a different world.

DAY 7

Enjoy the special place that is the north coast. You will really feel at peace here, and you are quite a long way from anywhere – and that's a good thing.

Melvich beach and the wild coast of the north (above).

The Tongue Hotel offers a bit of old style Highland Hotel accommodation and food and not in a bad way! Lunch should be OK here. Dinner and bed would be at the Melvich Hotel, which is less formal and getting a pretty good reputation for it's wood-fired pizzas, such as mini Dexter beef meatballs, haggis, chorizo and jalapenos.

Now, you could go back to Inverness via Forsinard and down to Helmsdale. A bit of a drive, but it takes you through some of the saddest parts of the Highlands where the Clearances were at their worst.

If you did that you would miss the unique place that is Caithness. This is where you find the biggest skies in the Highlands, because Caithness is a very flat county. It really is different from anywhere else. You should pay a visit.

DAY 8

From Melvich, you are on the way along the north coast to John O'Groats. Not as exciting as you might think, but you have to go there. It is not actually the furthest north you can go, but we can take you to the real northmost point at Dunnet Head before we start heading south. That gives you the chance to visit the Dunnet Bay Distilery, home of Rock Rose Gin, one of Sharon's favourites. They have a very nice visitor centre and lots of gin to taste and buy.

Caithness has two large towns, Thurso and Wick. Lunch in Wick would be best at Bord de L'Eau. No menu – another Facebook site rather than a proper website, but lots of good reviews. From there we go down the coast to Dornoch and an evening meal at Luigi's and a stay in a nice hotel before going back to Inverness In the morning.

Of course, that isn't the end. Inverness has a growing and exciting restaurant scene. There are any number of fine places to eat in the city and your guides know them all. However, if you missed out on Boath House at the start of you adventure, or you simply have to go back – that could be arranged.

I'm sold on this fantastic adventure – what do I need to do?

How could you not want to do this? So, just leave your comments below. We will sort out the details if you tell us how long you want to linger and when you want to start.