Food and wine

"Familiarly abundant...utterly wonderful" (Atlanta Journal)

We have two elegantly furnished dining rooms. Tables are automatically reserved for residents and non residents are welcome to book for dinner. We serve a set menu, with no choice, but with notice we can provide for most dietary needs and we take particular care to cater for vegetarians.

We aim for natural, skilled cooking of the ingredients most immediately available, especially the island’s fish, shellfish, lamb, beef and game. We grow our own herbs and salads and some vegetables and carefully source organic, local or home-grown vegetables wherever possible.

We bake our own bread and cakes and make our own jam, marmalade, ice cream and yoghurt.

We have an interesting list of about 80 wines with prices from £12 to £120, with most bottles in the £15 to £30 range. Our suppliers include Les Caves de Pyrene, Goedhuis, Domaine Direct and Whirly Wines.

Of course it would be extremely difficult to run a restaurant in the Outer Hebrides without sourcing supplies from further afield. Tea, coffee or olive oil aren’t produced locally for example and at certain times of the year fruit, salads and vegetables have to be imported from the mainland. However, in recognition of the care that we take in sourcing and preparing our food, we were one of the restaurants (and the only one from the Outer Hebrides) to be featured in Alastair Sawday’s Eat Slow Britain.

We are also listed in the Michelin Guide; the Good Food Guide; the Good Hotel Guide; Alastair Sawday’s Special Places to Stay; and the AA, which has awarded us 2 rosettes for food and the AA Breakfast Award 2011 “in recognition of a very special high quality breakfast”. We are one of The Times top 10 best places to eat by the sea.

Sample Dinner Menu

Velouté of Jerusalem artichokes
with Uist peat-smoked scallops
and Puy lentils

* * *

Fillet of Stornoway landed halibut
with Champagne and chive sauce
and garden vegetables

* * *

Chocolate and Lagavulin sorbet
with Chocolate mousse
and a beignet

* * *

Scottish farmhouse cheeses

* * *

Coffee or tea and petit fours

Breakfast includes:

Freshly squeezed orange juice

Fruit compôte, yoghurt, pink grapefruit, cereals

Muesli with oats, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, raisins, cranberries,
blueberries and almonds toasted in honey

Organic oatmeal porridge with cream

Ayrshire bacon, local sausages, Stornoway black pudding,
white pudding, tomatoes, mushrooms, local eggs

Inverawe kippers, Uist flaky smoked salmon

Click here to contact us and reserve a table

Scarista House
Sgarasta Bheag, Isle of Harris, HS3 3HX
Phone (+44)(0)1859 550238 fax (+44)(0)1859 277