Favourite hotel in Scotland? If I had a pound for every time I’ve been asked that question in 30 years as a hotel reviewer… let’s just say I wouldn’t be writing this from The Times’s office in Glasgow. I’d be sipping tea in an art deco lounge; being massaged before my two-Michelin-star dinner; hitting golf balls into heather-backed greens that have hosted a Ryder Cup. In short, I would be at Gleneagles.
It’s the food that does it. I get that people love the falconry and golf and shooting and so on — Gleneagles is basically Center Parcs for people who wear Barbours — but who needs more ways to feel worn out at the end of your working week?
The historic Gleneagles estate — a “Centre Parcs for people who wear Barbours”
The Strathearn dining room, featuring fluted columns and elegant art deco influences
RICHARD GASTON
What I want from a weekend away is not action — it’s great food and delicious drink, served in magical surroundings by staff who look like they’re enjoying their job. I’ve reviewed hotels in Oman and Australia, the Maldives and the Caribbean — and nowhere, as I’m reminded on a visit in December, does it better than Gleneagles.
The service thing hits us the second we’re ushered in from the cold by kilted doormen, one opening the door, the other grabbing our luggage and leading us to reception. The welcome is warm, friendly and human, towing a just-right line between making us feel we’re in for a treat — but not so much of a treat that we need to be grateful. “So what if I’ve hosted a G8 summit,” Gleneagles says. “No need to mind your ps and qs here.”
The Dormy has three tandoor ovens and is staffed by specialist tandoor chefs
The tone at reception is the same, with smart, tweeded, relatable staff all seemingly up for a chat. What helps — and bear with me while if I briefly go a bit Farage — is that they all seem to be Scottish (70 per cent of front-of-house staff, I am told, are from Scotland). I like my hotel staff local. It adds terroir — otherwise you might as well be in Auckland as Auchterarder.
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“Be yourself, we tell staff,” says the director of food and beverage, Daniel Greenock. He also says the hotel hires more on character than experience. It shows. Nosying about the elegant Glendevon lounge, we’re immediately greeted by a twinkly-eyed 19-year-old waiter from Elgin who strong-arms us — in the sweetest, gentlest possible way — to have afternoon tea. “Best scones you’ll ever taste,” he promises. He’s not far wrong. Later he brings us a free bowl of shaved strawberry ice when he spots us ogling the next table’s dishes. The hotel has just spent £2 million on staff accommodation, which now includes a gaming lounge and gym. You get the feeling the people serving your food are happy to be here — it makes a difference.
The Birnam, an orangerie-style brasserie delivering an Italian-leaning menu
The Birnam provides a more casual but still high-quality alternative to the Michelin-starred Restaurant Andrew Fairlie and theatrical Strathearn
As for the food… blimey, you’d best bring trousers with elasticated waists. There are four restaurants in all, including Restaurant Andrew Fairlie, one of only two two-Michelin-starred restaurants in Scotland. The good news is I’m not going to turn all food reviewer on you — there isn’t space and, frankly, I don’t have the skills. What I can say after a seven-course taster menu that feels like a magical mystery tour for the senses is that I am 100 per cent with Chitra Ramaswamy: “The best meal I’ve eaten in Britain,” she declared when she reviewed it for Alba in 2023.
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Next best restaurant at Gleneagles? Well, we have really good meals at the Birnam (a plant-filled, orangerie-style brasserie with an Italian-leaning menu) and the Dormy (it has a tandoor oven and specialist tandoor chefs), but for sheer “let’s have champagne” glitzy, glammy theatricality, it’s got to be the Strathearn.
A signature dessert dish from the Gleneagles kitchen: poached Rhubarb and Rhubarb sorbet with a baked warm vanilla and almond mousse
Entered via vast fringed drapes, the high-ceilinged, ambient-lit Strathearn is an elegant riot of art deco influences. Fluted columns, velvet banquettes, puddings flambéed at your table, and a jazz trio transport you straight back to the Roaring Twenties, when the hotel — billed as the “eighth wonder of the world” — was built as one of the great railway hotels of its day. It’s not cheap, mind (there are a staggering 1,500 labels on the wine list, and we have to look quite hard for anything under £70), but they could serve beans on toast here and you’d go to bed giddy.
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Speaking of going to bed giddy, we end both our nights at the American Bar. All low lighting, lacquer and louche glamour, with walls lined in lavender-coloured cashmere, it’s the sort of place F Scott Fitzgerald might have lost a cufflink and found a third wife. We work our way through the Rose Compendium cocktail book, sipping margaritas laced with Abernethy chillies in glasses hand-painted by Andrea behind the bar. “Have you had a good weekend?” she asks, and I falter. I feel a bit tipsy, slightly euphoric, full of beef wellington, and spoilt extremely rotten. How do you cram all that into a simple “yes”?
Jeremy Lazell was a guest of Gleneagles (B&B doubles from £525, gleneagles.com).