The Herald - The Herald Magazine
EATING OUT AND DRINK
EILEAN DUBH
THE man looks at me with incredulity. “Chips, sir? We don’t know how to spell chips here, sir.” This is said in a rich, rolling and very creamy Black Isle accent that makes the word “chips” sound more like “chiii-ihps” and which stirs the table of Americans who have been until now peacefully grazing on platters of fresh monkfish scampi. Served with what looked from here like chips.
“We haven’t bought chips in for 20 years, sir,” continues mein host, grinning, as we head towards the punchline that even I realise is coming like an express train down a tunnel.
“We grow our own potatoes, sir, and make our own wedges.”
Wedges, I don’t say. Wedges. Who eats wedges in the 21st century?
If I tell you that in all honesty Haircut 100 are playing on the sound system right now and the Thompson Twins were on moments ago you’ll be thinking I’m going to mention the 1980s to him. Instead I wisely shut up and we get on with scooping up forkfuls of rich, oozy melted Clava Brie, from the Connage Dairy at nearby Ardersier, paired with an excellent and nicely balanced homemade chutney that makes me realise how hugely overpowered most chutneys are these days.
There are scallops rolled in pin oatmeal on the table, too, served with broad bean in yogurt and some weird and completely unnecessary bits of fried onion. More seasoning in the broad bean thing would probably not have gone awry incidentally but we’ll, ahem, not mention that.
The rolls were made on the premises this very day and taste like it, not always the case with restaurant-made breads, and if the two big, fat and juicy roasted mackerel fillets I’m having later weren’t whipped from the Cromarty Firth moments ago, well, they could have been.
If you’ve not twigged by now, they take pride in their sourcing at Eilean Dubh. There’s pork on the menu from their own farm, and we’ll later enjoy a clean, fresh and not over-sweet vanilla ice-cream made locally, and the beef is from those Black Isle fields we drove through to get here.
From our window table we can watch the sun setting on Fortrose as mini traffic jams ebb and flow every time more than one car tries to drive down the main drag. Before we came here we took a little tour through the golf course with its Danger: Golf Balls signs and on to Chanonry Point to see if any dolphins were frolicking about the Moray Firth for us tourists. There weren’t.
Enough tourism schtick. The monkfish scampi has arrived and these are big, meaty tail chunks: firm textured, moist, different from the usual processed guck.
And the wedges? Homegrown potatoes or not they are quite good, but I would have preferred crisp, freshly-salted chips preferably from Golden Wonders which I’m sure would be grown on the rolling farmland around here.
Now, so far I haven’t mentioned the decor, though in the spirit of full disclosure I’ve got to say it’s pretty much the first thing that strikes us as we leave the car and peer towards the restaurant’s huge windows. It seems impolite even now to mention it as the owner chap is a nice chatty guy.
He’s good fun – bustling about the place with his staff, geeing everybody up – but I’m pretty sure that pub-style list of drinks