Undiscovered Scotland

 

The dining experience at the Four Seasons Hotel is an outstanding one that amply justifies their award of 2 AA Rosettes. A range of dining options is on offer. A room service menu is available for much of the day and evening, and lunch is served in the Tarken Room. Guests may also order packed lunches. Afternoon tea is available every day. Supper is served in the Tarken Room while dinner is served in the Meall Reamhar Restaurant. You can read our hotel review for The Four Seasons Hotel here.

The obvious choice that emerges from this is between supper in the Tarken Room and dinner in the Meall Reamhar Restaurant. It is perhaps reassuring to know you are unlikely to be disappointed whatever your decision. The Meall Reamhar Restaurant occupies a significant part of the frontage of the hotel and offers more of a fine dining atmosphere and the menu to go with it, while the Tarken Room has the more informal feel of a smart bistro and comes complete with an elegant bar. Both are comfortable, and both offer the hotel's trademark views along Loch Earn.

The two menus do not overlap for the starters or main courses, so the overall range of choice on offer is exceptionally wide. The Tarken menu runs from soups and dishes such as pigs' cheeks and ham terrine, through fish dishes such as mussels and Thai cured Shetland smoked salmon to steaks and a slow cooked beef Bourguignon. As well as the main menu, there's a blackboard of "Today's Specials".

In the Meall Reamhar Restaurant guests select from a fixed price four course menu, preceded by canapés and followed by petits fours and coffee. The hotel boasts two signature dishes, and both can be recommended without reservation. Pan seared west coast king scallops with cauliflower and vanilla purée and dried Parma ham are available as a starter or a main, and are simply superb. And the main course gateau of Angus/Limousin beef fillet served with a brioch crouton, shallots confiture, foie gras and bordelaise sauce is a meal to remember, and order again on your next visit! We also liked our grilled sea bass, celery, walnut and red amaranth salad starter and a pan fried rose veal tournedos main. The sweet choice is enticing and we enjoyed an iced custard parfait nougat and a trilogy of (mainly) Scottish cheeses. It is typical of the attention to detail at the Four Seasons that the cheeses may be ordered at the start of the meal, to allow them time to come up to room temperature.

Breakfast at the Four Seasons Hotel is an outstanding experience. It is served in the Meall Reamhar Restaurant. A cold buffet course is followed by a cooked main course served from the kitchen. The choice at the buffet is unusually wide, especially in terms of the range of fruits and teas on offer. And the fried breakfast emerges as one of the best you are likely to find anywhere: perfectly cooked using your choice of superb ingredients. Also on offer is porridge with double cream and brown sugar (and, if you wish, Drambuie): which can also be very highly recommended. Other options include kedgeree with creamed curry sauce; and scrambled eggs with smoked Shetland salmon (which can be served with champagne). You can read our hotel review for The Four Seasons Hotel here.