Book review: Fifty Years Kinloch Lodge

For the past 50 years Kinloch Lodge has served visitors to the Isle of Skye. It started life as a shooting lodge before being transformed into a luxury hotel with a focus on sustainability. To mark its 50th anniversary, founder Claire Macdonald and chef Jordan Webb have written a recipe book with author Alisha Fernandez Miranda, who once worked as an intern at Kinloch. The result is a lush and regal book showcasing the story of the lodge through food.

This book is ideal for the professional chef who is looking for an insight into another kitchen. The recipes showcase accomplished cooking techniques, but instructions are comprehensive enough to be appealing to those less aware of the ins and outs of classic cookery. You’re given building blocks, such as shellfish stock, herb oil and butter-fried breadcrumbs to be able to understand the flavours on which Kinloch Lodge’s restaurant thrives. Then you can work your way up to crafting beautiful dishes which wouldn’t look out of place at a Michelin-starred establishment.

There’s a recipe for pumpkin tortellini with toasted seeds, which can be served as an autumnal starter or sized up for a main course, and there’s an intriguing recipe for langoustine ceviche and lobster tian topped with a gnarly squid ink tapioca crisp. Recipes are split up into sections according to where the kitchen finds its ingredients: forest, field, coast and garden. The staff are keen foragers, so many recipes contain mushrooms and seaweeds from the local areas.

Webb describes how the crystal clear waters in the area provides a bounty of langoustine, along with his favourite spot to forage wild garlic. There is a section about the extended family of Kinloch Lodge and how everyone who has worked for it over the years has become part of its history. But if you just want to get to the good stuff, the pages are jam-packed with food. After 50 years in the business Kinloch Lodge is looking good, and it’s exciting to think what the next half-century will bring to this Scottish establishment.

Fifty Years: Kinloch Lodge by Claire Macdonald, Jordan Webb and Alisha Fernandez Miranda (Kinloch Lodge, £35)

Recipe from Fifty Years: Kinloch Lodge: Venison loin, green peppercorns, red cabbage and game fondants