COPPER BOTTOMED

The Mystery Diner visited the Copper Dog restaurant at the Craigellachie Hotel on Speyside, and found a venerable old institution in rude health

Our mystery diner has a dram and a bite at the Copper Dog at Criagellachie

Shortly before bar, restaurant and nightclub owner Piers Adam bought the Craigellachie Hotel just outside the Speyside town of Aberlour, I visited this once legendary fishing and whisky hotel. Faded grandeur would be an appropriate, if gentle, euphemism to describe a hotel built in 1893 but by then in great need of a big shot in the arm.

Fast forward to 2013, and the place was up for sale and in desperate need of a significant infusion of funds. So Adam, who as a boy came fishing here each year with his father, who had been evacuated from London to Scotland during the Blitz, stepped in and spent £3m updating the hotel. Given that the two main reasons for visiting Craigellachie are its proximity to world-class whisky and fishing, a stellar whisky bar called The Quaich was installed, complete with almost 1,000 whiskies, while the rooms were upgraded from spartan to seriously sumptuous.

Adam’s celebrity contacts also gave the place a patina of stardust, with a Burns Night party in 2015 attended by tabloid fodder in the form of Kate Moss, Noel Gallagher, Nick Grimshaw and Sadie Frost, and predictably drawing much attention in the national newspapers.

However, one of Adam’s stipulations of the revamp was that the restaurant needed to be accessible – in all senses – to visitors and locals alike. So the whole bottom floor of the hotel was given over to a couthy and comfortable bar and

restaurant, with a gastropub-style menu designed to appeal not just to high-spending tourists, but to locals as well. The result is a menu which is sensibly priced and consists largely of superior comfort food with occasional fine dining flourishes.

Sadly, the days when fishermen would routinely have the kitchen prepare the salmon they caught that day on the stretch of Spey overlooked by the hotel are long gone, although I was lucky enough to spend a thoroughly enjoyable day on the river with excellent ghillie Dougie Ross. Back in the old days, when the railway that ran past the hotel used to send salmon and whisky direct to London, guests could pay for their fishing (and, if they were exceptionally lucky, their hotel stay) by selling on the salmon they caught.

These days, it is the whisky industry which dominates the area, with the new super-modern £140m Macallan distillery across the river proving a huge draw. So it’s fitting that the hotel’s bar and restaurant is called the Copper Dog in a nod to the hotel’s links with the water of life. For the uninitiated, the ‘copper dog’ was a length of copper pipe, which would have a penny welded to one end, and would be hung from the neck, under the clothing of distillery workers, as a way of smuggling whisky out of the distillery at the end of each day.

When you walk into the Copper Dog, the first thing you see is a big bar. But beyond that there

are tables capable of seating about 60 or so, and throughout the summer the whole place will no doubt be heaving with both tourists and locals. There’s not much mystery to this: the Copper Dog is lively, vibrant (perhaps a little too vibrant when the live bands are on in the bar area), and with its stone walls and wooden floors, manages to pull off the carefully constructed ambience of an old coaching inn without coming over all kitsch.

More pertinently, the locallysourced food is excellent. We ate there on successive evenings and there was a simplicity and uniformity of excellence to virtually all of the dishes.

The starter of wild mushrooms on grilled wastel bread with a duck egg and truffle is the sort of inspired rustic grub which warms my heart. So, too, the gorgeously unctuous pancetta-wrapped haggis with potato puree, confit neep, with a whisky and apple vinaigrette. If the smoked duck with beetroot, pear and chicory paled by comparison, it was largely the compartively tiny portion size rather than a lack of flavour or texture in the dish.

The main courses were equally consistent whether we chose the pub grub or some of the more high-falutin’ dishes on offer. So one night we had some outstanding beef burgers made with local Aberdeen Angus beef, and ridiculously tender (if prodigiously fatty) braised pork belly with a wonderful potato and celeriac boulangere which I can’t wait to make at home.

The next night we opted for an impressively marbled 10oz ribeye steak and a more delicate dish in the form of a pan-fried fillet of cod with capers, new potatoes, mussels and butter sauce. All were good.

The puddings generally lived up to the dishes which had preceeded them. The heather honey cranachan was voluminous, if a little bland, while the milk chocolate tart with cherry sorbet and shortbread crumb was so dense that it could have doubled as a doorstop. But if you like your food honest and hearty, then there’s little doubt that this is the place for you.

Throw in a good selection of wines, local beers and an epic array of whiskies, and you have the perfect ingredients for a long and enjoyable evening. Indeed, it’s tricky to find anything I don’t like like about The Copper Dog, although I am on principle opposed to the practice of automatically adding service to the bill, especially when it’s 12.5%. But that is a small caveat and one that it’s easy to overlook. On the whole, Piers Adam has done Speyside a good turn by buying the Craigellachie Hotel and turning it back into the beloved venue which he used to visit with his father.

Fishing on the Spey can be booked via ghillie Dougie Ross on 07767 886126