Monachyle Mhor

The single lane road to Monachyle Mhor at times seems to almost run into Loch Voil. The passing bays are few and far between and the irregular times you meet a sheep or a tractor coming the other way can lead to some fairly Olympian reversing. We had gone past the tiny 5 house village of Balquhidder and the church where Rob Roy was buried and were beginning to think that we would be stuck in midge infested wilderness all night before we finally came across Monachyle Mhor. The road continues past the hotel for about another 2 kilometres before petering out altogether. This hotel really is in the middle of nowhere and gives a new definition to “off the beaten track”.

Still if you are after great food and funky interior design with beautiful mountain and loch views then Monachlye Mhor is for you. Rob and Jean Lewis took over the farm in 1983 and ran cattle and sheep on the 2000 acre estate as well as using the farmhouse as an occasional B&B. Their children, head chef Tom and his siblings Melanie and Dick, have gone much further turning the farm into one of Scotland’s best and most highly praised gastro hotels whilst building a Mhor empire in nearby Callander and Balquhidder. The award winning Mhor Fish in Callander do a truly wonderful burger (of farm reared highland cow) as well as great chips and fresh fish caught that day on the west coast anyway you like it. If you can tear yourself away from the comforts of the hotel there is a Mhor tea shop in Balquhidder as well and the enterprising trio have also set up a bakery in Callander. A host of mostly South African youngsters are employed at these various outposts – not all of them seem to appreciate either the food or the isolation (the poor boy in the tea shop was going out of his mind with boredom).

The beauty of this empire is that combined with the pigs, sheep, wild venison and cattle from the farm and the eggs from the hens Tom Lewis is able to produce sensational food that is about as regional and organic as it comes.

The restaurant is in a conservatory that overlooks the loch and the mountains and it was a great pleasure to watch the swiftly changing, wind and cloud swept weather display from the warmth of this restaurant while we sipped a nice red and tucked into a five course dinner. Tom Lewis is a self taught chef and credits much of his education to his mother. He has a playful attitude to food and gives you an amuse bouche to start the meal (in our case this was a shot glass of a delightfully intense parsnip soup). This was followed by the biggest scallop either of us had ever seen served with a sublime, intensely fishy sauce and then some venison that had been roaming the hills but days before hand. The farm butchers its own meat and they also smoke and home cure on the premises. For committed carnivores like us this was a real pleasure but vegetarians may find the straight forward farming attitude a bit hard to take. Dessert was a fabulously high soufflé which my partner thought was cheating as the raspberry element was served separately with it as a pour on sauce – still it looked and tasted fine and I had a rather good crème brulée.

Luckily we didn’t have far to stagger to our room following this fabulous meal and indeed our main challenge during our stay was finding the will to leave it. The decor in our classic room included a fabulous free standing stone bath and a steam room shower in the bathroom, as well as a colourful couch and a stove. The room was well stocked with magazines and the bed was exceptionally comfy. If you are planning a Highland Fling or a weekend away to impress a lover this hotel ticks all the boxes!

During our stay Scotland put on one of its usual displays of appalling weather and all our high hopes of walking and climbing Munro’s (Scottish mountains with a height over 3000ft/914.4m) vanished in the fog and rain. We went for a tour with the farm manager one afternoon in the land rover instead, and had a fascinating insight into how the farm was run. With the help of his binoculars and practiced eye we spotted some deer high up in the hills and we ended the tour sharing a dram of whisky and eating some homemade fruit cake while enjoying a spectacular view of the loch. On our second afternoon we had the fire lit in our room and curled up with tea and one of the library DVDs. We had dinner at the restaurant twice and both times we were very impressed with the service and the food. On our third night we tore ourselves away but still gave our cash to the Mhor Empire by eating a super burger at Mhor Fish in Callander.

Breakfasts were good but not in the league of dinner. Cooked breakfast servings were attractively presented but very small, and (even as a committed scone lover) I found the idea of fresh baked scones at breakfast a little bizarre. My companion also had an unfortunate encounter with haggis that I will spare the reader from.

Nevertheless Monachyle Mhor has become one of our favourite foodie retreats and we would definitely go back. The combination of cutting edge urban room design in such a rural setting with outstanding locally sourced food is a winning one all round. Congratulations to the Lewis clan and long may their empire reign.