{"id":447567,"date":"2026-02-27T00:23:26","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T00:23:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/447567\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T00:23:26","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T00:23:26","slug":"my-30-year-love-affair-with-gleneagles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/447567\/","title":{"rendered":"my 30-year love affair with Gleneagles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Favourite hotel in Scotland? If I had a pound for every time I\u2019ve been asked that question in 30 years as a hotel reviewer\u2026 let\u2019s just say I wouldn\u2019t be writing this from The Times\u2019s office in Glasgow. I\u2019d 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<\/a>. In short, I would be at Gleneagles.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the food that does it. I get that people love the falconry and golf and shooting and so on \u2014 Gleneagles is basically Center Parcs for people who wear Barbours \u2014 but who needs more ways to feel worn out at the end of your working week? <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The historic Gleneagles estate \u2014 a \u201cCentre Parcs for people who wear Barbours\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Strathearn dining room, featuring fluted columns and elegant art deco influences<\/p>\n

RICHARD GASTON<\/p>\n

What I want from a weekend away is not action \u2014 it\u2019s great food and delicious drink, served in magical surroundings by staff who look like they\u2019re enjoying their job. I\u2019ve reviewed hotels in Oman and Australia, the Maldives and the Caribbean \u2014 and nowhere, as I\u2019m reminded on a visit in December, does it better than Gleneagles.<\/p>\n

The service thing hits us the second we\u2019re 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\u2019re in for a treat \u2014 but not so much of a treat that we need to be grateful. \u201cSo what if I\u2019ve hosted a G8 summit,\u201d Gleneagles says. \u201cNo need to mind your ps and qs here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Dormy has three tandoor ovens and is staffed by specialist tandoor chefs<\/p>\n

The tone at reception is the same, with smart, tweeded, relatable staff all seemingly up for a chat. What helps \u2014 and bear with me while if I briefly go a bit Farage<\/a> \u2014 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 \u2014 otherwise you might as well be in Auckland as Auchterarder.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Estelle Manor: inside the Cotswolds hotel of the super-rich<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cBe yourself, we tell staff,\u201d 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\u2019re immediately greeted by a twinkly-eyed 19-year-old waiter from Elgin who strong-arms us \u2014 in the sweetest, gentlest possible way \u2014 to have afternoon tea. \u201cBest scones you\u2019ll ever taste,\u201d he promises. He\u2019s not far wrong. Later he brings us a free bowl of shaved strawberry ice when he spots us ogling the next table\u2019s dishes. The hotel has just spent \u00a32 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 \u2014 it makes a difference.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

The Birnam, an orangerie-style brasserie delivering an Italian-leaning menu<\/p>\n

\"Sliced<\/p>\n

The Birnam provides a more casual but still high-quality alternative to the Michelin-starred Restaurant Andrew Fairlie and theatrical Strathearn<\/p>\n

As for the food\u2026 blimey, you\u2019d 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<\/a>. The good news is I\u2019m not going to turn all food reviewer on you \u2014 there isn\u2019t space and, frankly, I don\u2019t 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: \u201cThe best meal I\u2019ve eaten in Britain,\u201d she declared when she reviewed it for Alba<\/a> in 2023. <\/p>\n

\u2022 21 of the best spa hotels in Scotland<\/a><\/p>\n

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 \u201clet\u2019s have champagne\u201d glitzy, glammy theatricality, it\u2019s got to be the Strathearn. <\/p>\n

\"Poached<\/p>\n

A signature dessert dish from the Gleneagles kitchen: poached Rhubarb and Rhubarb sorbet with a baked warm vanilla and almond mousse<\/p>\n

Entered via vast fringed drapes, the high-ceilinged, ambient-lit Strathearn is an elegant riot of art deco influences. Fluted columns, velvet banquettes, puddings flamb\u00e9ed at your table, and a jazz trio transport you straight back to the Roaring Twenties, when the hotel \u2014 billed as the \u201ceighth wonder of the world\u201d \u2014 was built as one of the great railway hotels of its day. It\u2019s not cheap, mind (there are a staggering 1,500 labels on the wine list, and we have to look quite hard for anything under \u00a370), but they could serve beans on toast here and you\u2019d go to bed giddy.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Meet hotel boss who taught Tom Hiddleston how to be the night manager<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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. \u201cHave you had a good weekend?\u201d 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 \u201cyes\u201d? <\/p>\n

Jeremy Lazell was a guest of Gleneagles (B&B doubles from \u00a3525, gleneagles.com<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Favourite hotel in Scotland? If I had a pound for every time I\u2019ve been asked that question in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447568,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-447567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}