A trip to Dunkeld is always a pleasure but this time it was even more so because I hadn’t been back to my birthplace for the last two years.
I was born here, in Dunkeld, in 1959, and the ironmonger shop that my dad ran is still there on Atholl St, along with the vast flat above which was my home for the first six years of my life.
The shop isn’t actually that different from how I remember it, when I’d climb down the stairs from the flat to see if my Dad needed any help. It turns out he did need help, but not the kind a five-year-old boy could offer.
Dunkeld at the time was a hard drinking, hard living kind of place, and my Dad was all too happy to keep the local bars in business. When I was old enough to know what it meant, I realised that there was a word for people who drank like my Dad, and that Dunkeld was full of them.
I assume that had my Mum stayed in Dunkeld with my Dad I would have become either an ironmonger, an employee of the forestry commission, or a fellow alcoholic.
When Mum and I left Dunkeld one rainy night in 1964, we left to a drunken chorus of “let the buggers go” from men outside the local pub, which is actually my earliest memory.
Our piano had to be given to a local bar to pay for my dad’s drinking bills.
Dunkeld then wasn’t the foodie place it is now and its gentrification certainly hadn’t begun.
My mum had four jobs and all of them involved food. She worked diligently in Menzies’ grocer’s shop, in the chip shop, in a local restaurant, and she was a barmaid in a local hotel.
She worked while my Dad drank.
It’s impossible for me to return to Dunkeld without it turning into a bittersweet experience.
This time the big surprise about my birthplace was how food orientated it had become!
Fairly regular visits pre-Covid had given signs that this was happening, and it was always great to see The Scottish Deli (formerly the Menzies of my boyhood) and Dunkeld Smoked Salmon continually fly the flag for quality produce in the town.
This time I noted that The Scottish Deli now has competition from Dunkeld Fine Foods, the new home of the excellent Dunkeld Smoked Salmon.
I had already been to The Aran Bakery, which opened in 2017. On this visit, the bakery was thronged with customers, because it is hard to walk past a place that offers such delights as a bacon roll with rhubarb ketchup (£4) and a buttered leek and brie toastie for a fiver.
It’s actually now quite difficult to escape the vision of Aran’s owner Flora Sneddon, at 19, the youngest semi-finalist on Bake-Off in 2015, and obviously a woman of great taste, because she also has the fantastic Lòn Store on the High Street.
This is the loveliest food shop I can imagine – like a Scottish version of the equally brilliant Leila’s shop in London’s Bethnal Green.
Here you will find a perfectly curated selection of stuff to eat, things to eat them on, and artefacts to surround yourself with as you congratulate yourself on your immaculate taste.
I could have bought the whole shop but restricted myself to some Abernethy butter, Cacklebean eggs (the best eggs you can get and quite hard to find without going to the source), and Aran sourdough.
I resisted the cookbooks because I already have most of their tightly edited selection of modern classics, including the wonderful Towpath cookbook.
I could have spent hours and most of my disposable income in this shop and, on my next visit, I intend to. Top stuff!
By now, we were hungry.
We’d done culture with the Cathedral (where I once announced to Mum that I’d like to be buried before she reminded me that I wasn’t actually the Bishop of Dunkeld), a bit of shopping in a great nearby charity shop (Conran cookbook for £2), and purchased tap washers and oven gloves in my Dad’s old shop.
We needed to eat.
The Atholl Arms is in quite an enviable position at the end of Thomas Telford’s beautiful bridge over the Tay.
They have tables stretching down to the river, although this wasn’t a day
for alfresco dining – not least because David and I were accompanied by his father and stepmother, aged 87 and 83 respectively.
We needed warmth, comfort, and a table that was easy to walk to from the entrance.
In truth, my first impression of this place was coloured by the fact that the waiter I’d asked about reserving a table for later seemed remarkably unbothered about helping.
In fact, he walked off while I was asking him where we might sit given that David’s stepmother has mobility issues.
Before his rushed exit I was told they didn’t take reservations and that we should just turn up, which aren’t words I love to hear when trying to book lunch for two octogenarians.
Strangely, when I called the hotel to check that this was the case, I was told that they do, in fact, take bookings.
We turned up for an early-ish lunch at half past twelve, reasoning that we might be able to bag a table before the hordes descended (Dunkeld is full of tourists, even in November), but the place was quite empty.
We sat in the bar area of Z’s Amazing Bar and Bistro because it was the closest to the door.
There’s a choice of other areas to dine as well. I’d probably choose to sit in the room located a few stairs from the bar there next time. I wonder whether the word “amazing” is used wisely when naming your restaurant.
The food
The food is reasonable pub food which isn’t a criticism because that’s what we expected.
What I didn’t expect was the pricing which seems, at best, rather hopeful even for a self-styled amazing bistro in such a touristy town.
My lobster linguine with garlic butter and pesto – the blackboard special of the day – cost a staggering £18.95, and it just wasn’t worth it.
J Sheekey, one of the oldest and best fish restaurants in London, charges £25 for half a lobster mayonnaise served in the most wonderfully classic setting right in the middle of the city.
You’d probably eat this at a table next to Bryan Ferry or a famous West End actor, basking in the warm glow of dining in one of the capital’s most beautiful and enduring rooms.
Here in Dunkeld, £18.95 for a pasta dish containing a fish element mainly comprised of prawn (I had to search for the lobster) seems exorbitant, even given that food prices are rising everywhere.
It tasted good though.
Bob, David’s dad, had a good steak pie with chips (£16.50), although the beef seemed a bit mushy to me and the pie crust a game of two halves given that the bottom and the top didn’t seem to connect to the middle. Not so much a pie as an allegory for modern life, maybe.
David’s margherita pizza was £12.95, and he ordered some fries to have with it which were exuberantly priced at £5.
The pizza was fine – nothing to write home about.
Ruth’s macaroni cheese (£13) came with a successful upsale of bacon at £3; again, quite a strident price for such a humble addition. It was fine.
If you’re detecting a note of being underwhelmed about all this, you’d probably be right.
It wasn’t that there was anything wrong here.
There was nothing so bad that it had to be sent back, although I’d advise the waiters to write orders down so they don’t forget things like our order of extra olives for the pizza.
The main issue I have with this place is the pricing which I think is too high for what is offered.
The hotel is nice – charming even, in that slightly dated way. The bar area
has an ambient wood burner, albeit unused the day we visited, and enough Scottish ephemera to charm the tourists.
Service is fine, although all a bit Dalston generic in that you get the feeling that the staff doesn’t really care either way or another if you’re having a good time. Everyone is addressed as “guys” in that matey way that can either feel good or mildly annoying.
The verdict
To be honest, I just felt a little bit meh about the whole experience. While we started the day wishing that we had a place like this in our village, we ended with the conclusion that it was a restaurant we wished would do better.
Was this partly our fault because we ordered traditional pub food? Maybe. But the bulk of the menu is just that.
Their menu “aims to infuse the classic with modern dishes” and, of course, they “serve classic dishes with a modern twist”.
What does this even mean when the first things you see on the menu are cliched meal titles like haggis bonbons (£9.95) and chilli cheese nachos (£11). Cullen skink is a sporran twisting £11.
To their credit, the restaurant does have a section on the menu titled Salads and Veganism(?), with seven items, including a warm superfood salad for £16.50.
The ingredients – couscous, squash, spinach and beetroot – might indeed be super, but they’re also remarkably cheap to buy and assemble.
Maybe this is what you get when a picturesque town becomes so foodie that the old post office is now a great-looking wine bar.
The upside of this change is that locals and visitors can trot happily between a myriad of shops selling glorious things.
The downside is that a lunch like ours, though pleasant, for me, didn’t adequately reflect the breadth of ingredients available in the surrounding shops.
Information
Address: Atholl Arms Hotel, Bridgehead, Tay Terrace, Dunkeld, Perthshire PH8 OAQ
T: 01350 727219
W: www.athollarmshotel.com
Scores:
- Food: 3/5
- Service: 3/5
- Surroundings: 3/5
Price: starters from £6.25, mains from £12.95, dessert £8.50
