Having had a wonderful time going on a Cask Draw & Tasting Experience at Talisker, my birthday fun continued with our friends taking us out to dinner at The Three Chimneys restaurant on Skye.
Over the course of its history, The Three Chimneys has won dozens of awards and appeared on lists of the best restaurants in the world. We were therefore all greatly looking forward to dining there that evening.
We ordered a taxi to take us there and bring us back afterwards so that we’d be able to enjoy some wine with our meal. The taxi driver was a lot of fun and he kindly took a photo of us outside the restaurant just before our meal.
Seeing as it’s an in-demand restaurant, you’ll want to make reservations beforehand which our friends had done. Shortly after arriving, we were shown to our table.
On the table was also a note for me:
There was a drinks menu with all kinds of cocktails, mocktails, wine, spirits, etc. Knowing that you can select a wine pairing flight for each of the courses – and having had whisky at Talisker earlier – I declined an initial drink. Shae and Megan both got a cocktail – a rhubarb bellini and an Evergreen which contained gin, elderflower and more.
n.b. the drinks menu is far more extensive than what’s shown below.
The Three Chimneys has five and seven course set menus for £120 ($165) and £140 ($192) respectively. They also have five and seven course meals for vegetarians at slightly cheaper prices of £100 ($137) and £120 ($165) respectively. None of us are vegetarian, so we all ordered the standard seven course meal.
The wine flight pairing is optional; Shae, Megan and I decided to live it up, while Mark stuck with having a beer with dinner. The wine pairing is £90 (~$123.50) for the seven course meal; I’m not sure how much the pairing for the five course meal costs.
The meal started with an amuse bouche of…something. It wasn’t listed on the menu and I forgot to make a note of what it was when they described it. It was good though, with a crispy outside and softer interior.
We had one server bringing out our dishes, while a different server brought out our different wine pairings. The wine to go with our first course was a rosé. I didn’t take photos of each glass of wine, but they were each very good.
Our first course was citrus-cured halibut, blood orange and verjus. This was pretty good, although the fish wasn’t quite as flavorful as I thought it might be.
Next up were black garlic, onion and oregano rolls (seemingly an unofficial course). These were delicious and came with a tasty butter, so it was hard to limit our intake, especially when they offered more later in the meal.
Our second course consisted of asparagus, Jersey Royal potatoes and potted butter which was nice.
The third course was a Sconser scallop served with rosemary & Raasay whisky – a dish that was also good.
One of my favorite dishes of the night was our fourth course – cod with gem lettuce & warm tartare sauce. The cod was cooked perfectly and also came with some small crispy potatoes which were delicious; I could’ve happily eaten a bowlful of those.
One of my other favorite courses came next. That contained Vatten Croft lamb, gem lettuce and wild garlic. There were two types of lamb – loin(?) and something that was like pulled lamb. The part that was like pulled lamb was particularly rich, plus it came with a potato gratin-esque side. I was particularly fortunate because Shae isn’t a big fan of lamb, so after trying some of each part of the dish, she let me finish hers off.
Our penultimate dish was somewhat of a palate cleanser – goose egg custard, rhubarb and ginger. I enjoyed this and soon came to wish that this had been the final dish.
Part of the reason for that is because I was so full and the other part is that I wasn’t a fan of the final dessert. To be fair, none of us enjoyed it.
It was a marmalade soufflé that was served with bitter chocolate. Both parts of the dessert were extremely bitter, so it wasn’t a particularly pleasant taste experience. Some other kind of soufflé with bitter chocolate might’ve been fine, or a marmalade soufflé served with milk chocolate might’ve been good too. The two together though weren’t very pleasant, so I don’t think any of us finished that dish.
Other than the final dessert, one negative aspect was the service which wasn’t to the level we’d anticipated for it being a fancy, award-winning restaurant.
Our wine server seemed a little frazzled that night. However, she was very nice and was clearly working hard and doing her best, so that was fine as she was making an effort.
Our food server on the other hand was extremely poor. When we were being seated when we first arrived, we were advised that our server was new and that he normally works at a sister bar or restaurant. We therefore weren’t expecting things to be as polished as they might normally be and we didn’t have a problem if that ended up being the case.
However, he gave off vibes of not wanting to be there, presenting dishes in the most lackluster way possible. If he’d been making any kind of effort whatsoever, we wouldn’t have begrudged having him as our server. However, it felt like he made zero effort, so that was a shame.
Still, overall we had a great meal and an incredibly enjoyable evening.
Saga 2025 Trip To London, Liverpool & Scotland – All The Posts
Here are links to all of the posts in this series:
- Saga 2025: Trip With Friends To London, Liverpool & Scotland – An Intro
- Saga 2025 Day 1: London – Police Station Hotel, British Museum, Dinner In Darkness & Abbey Road
- Saga 2025 Day 2: Liverpool – Cavern Club, Hard Day’s Night Hotel, Cocktails & More
- Visiting The Kelpies In Falkirk, Scotland By Day & By Night
- Saga 2025 Day 3: Falkirk – Kelpies, World’s Only Rotating Boat Lift & More
- Saga 2025 Day 4: Drive From Falkirk To Fort William – Castles, Distillery, Monument & More
- Hotel Review: Inverlochy Castle Hotel In Fort William, Scotland
- How To Watch The Jacobite Steam Train On Glenfinnan Viaduct (Harry Potter Hogwarts Express Train)
- How To Find 6 Harry Potter Filming Locations Near Fort William, Scotland
- Jacobite Steam Train Review: What It’s Like Riding The Hogwarts Express
- Saga 2025 Days 5-7: Fort William – Harry Potter, Castles, Waterfalls, Mountains, Distillery & More
- Review of The Two Byres – Vacation Home On The Isle Of Skye, Scotland (Booked Via Cottages.com With Wyndham Points)
- Talisker Cask Draw & Tasting Experience – Fun, Tasty & Strong!
- The Three Chimneys Restaurant Review
- Saga 2025 Days 8-9: Isle Of Skye – Whisky, Fairies, Castles, Waterfalls, Views & More
- A Tearoom Where You Can Feed Highland Cows? Yes Please!
- Saga 2025 Day 10: Skye To Inverness – Coos, Castles, Nessie, Another Whisky Experience & More
- Saga 2025 Day 11: Inverness To Aberdeen – Standing Stones, Pyramid, Castle & More
- Saga 2025 Day 12: Aberdeen – Time Travel, Castles, Coos & More
Man, does everything look amazing!
Yep, it was presented really nicely!