• A romantic and intimate island hotel
• Comfortable guest lounge and restaurant
• Superb, beautifully presented food
• One of the best breakfasts you will ever eat
• Sailing trips on the hotel's private yacht

Intro

Toravaig House Hotel is a small hotel on the south east coast of Skye's Sleat Peninsula offering guests a warm welcome and and equally warm fire on cold days in the comfortable guest lounge. The hotel has 9 en suite rooms, some with sea views. The real highlight of any visit lies in the restaurant, where the superb and beautifully presented food amply justifies the 2 AA Rosettes the hotel has been awarded, and in which the breakfast is as outstanding as the dinner. The hotel can also offer guests yacht trips on its 42ft private yacht, Solus na Mara.

Character and setting/location

Toravaig House stands on the south east side of the road from Broadford to Armadale on Skye's Sleat Peninsula, in a location which gives views south west to the ruins of Knock Castle and Knock Bay beyond it. The hotel was built as a large private house in the 1930s for the sister of Osgood Mackenzie, the man who developed Inverewe Garden near Poolewe. The house has avoided major redevelopment or expansion over the intervening years, and as a result it retains the lovely feel of walking into a welcoming home. Ample parking is available in the hotel's car park, which is conveniently located immediately in front of the main door.

Public rooms/spaces

The front door leads into the hall which runs through the ground floor of the hotel, with the reception desk off you your left. Off to your right is the guest lounge. Here you find a range of comfy sofas and chairs, with ample table space for your afternoon tea or evening drinks. The window end of the room is dominated by a baby grand piano, while the rest of the room has as its focus the impressive green marble fireplace and, on cold days, the equally impressive wood fire within it.

From the guest lounge you can see through closed glass doors into the hotel's second main public room, the Iona Restaurant, which is accessed from the main ground floor corridor. The dining room is subdivided by an internal wall pierced by two arches, giving an already intimate and attractive space additional flexibility and creating a semi-private area at one end. A corner of the restaurant is home to a small bar offering a range of drinks.

The restaurant and lounge, like the corridors on both the ground and first floors, are attractively decorated with paintings and other artworks.

Guest bedrooms

The nine en suite guest bedrooms are all on the first floor of the hotel, and enjoy a variety of outlooks. All are named after Scottish islands. It is worth noting that the Hotel Review Scotland review visit was in April 2009, and that plans were in place to upgrade the fixtures, fittings and décor of the guest rooms later in 2009, and to decrease the number of guest rooms from 9 to 8.

Nonetheless, a description of some of the rooms at the time of our visit helps give a sense of the range of accommodation on offer at the Toravaig House Hotel. Rooms included the Eriskay, a large double with an oak sleigh bed and a bathroom with an overbath power shower; the Colonsay with a bay window overlooking the garden and, more distantly, Knock Castle and Knock Bay, plus a power shower in the bathroom; and Islay, a twin.

Guest services

Guest bedrooms come complete with tea and coffee making facilities with Brodies and Twinings tea and coffee, plus a telephone, a flat screen TV with Sky channels, a clock radio, a hairdryer, bottled water and bathrobes. The bathrooms are equipped with Arran Aromatics toiletries.

Room service is available from 12 noon to 10.30pm and includes soup and sandwiches, with other, hot, food available during restaurant opening hours. Free WiFi is available throughout the hotel, and it is worth noting that the Toravaig stands in one of the better spots along this coast for mobile phone reception.

Disabled access is not straightforward because of the scale of the ground floor accommodation, and all the bedrooms are on the first floor, so inaccessible to anyone unable to tackle the stairs. Guests likely to experience access problems are directed to the Toravaig's sister hotel, the Duisdale House Hotel, which offers better access and is located about three miles to the north east.

Restaurant and dining experience

All dining takes place in the Iona Restaurant. Food is available most of the day at Toravaig, including lunches or a bowl of homemade soup and homemade bread in the afternoon. The heart of any stay at the hotel, however, is dinner, served from 7 to 9 each evening.

Your dining experience starts in the lounge, where you can peruse the four course table d'hôte menu and wine list while enjoying an selection of canapés. When you move through to the restaurant you are offered an equally impressive choice of homemade bread rolls, some with unusual but fascinating flavours, and an amuse bouche: in our case a mouthwatering hot tuna in sesame oil.

The menu changes from day to day, so a detailed account of a particular dinner can only be an indication of the sort of food you might expect. What seems unlikely to change is the exceptionally high quality of the preparation, the care to source locally wherever possible, or the wonderful presentation. This is art on a plate, but never overdone: the food is always given space to speak for itself.

We found the starters of “Trio of Salmon Specialities” and the “Goats Cheese and Pickled Walnut Panna Cotta” to be excellent, as were the second course options of “Spring Pea and Oak Smoked Haddock Soup” and the “Peach Melba Sorbet”. The main courses were equally enticing, including lamb sourced (like much of the Toravaig's red meat) from Macbeths of Forres competing with fish dishes whose ingredients were sourced on Skye itself. And as for sweets... suffice it to say that the “Trio of Chocolate Specialities: Chocolate Brownie, Macaroon, White Chocolate Sorbet” could easily be one of the best desserts we have ever eaten.

Breakfast

The superb dinner will have given you high hopes for the quality of the breakfast. However high your expectations, they will be surpassed. The first course, unusually, is served at your table and includes fresh fruits and home made muesli, plus excellent porridge. Main course cooked options include scrambled eggs and smoked salmon; oak smoked haddock; traditional kippers; and smoked haddock kedgeree. You can also choose from the usual elements of a traditional Scottish breakfast, which is also excellent, and superbly presented.

But what really sets breakfast at the Toravaig apart is the signature dish, the “Chef's Trilogy Breakfast”. This combines bacon, mushroom and muffin; black pudding, poached egg and crumpet; and scrambled egg, smoked salmon and croissant, and the result looks as good as it tastes.

Meetings and events facilities

Toravaig House Hotel offers a range of facilities for small conferences and private business meetings of up to 20 people in meeting rooms overlooking the garden. Team building activities can be arranged within the grounds or nearby and the use of the hotel's private yacht, Solus na Mara can add an extra dimension to business functions.

The hotel's intimate and romantic atmosphere also make it the ideal location for a small wedding, and the hotel is licensed to hold weddings both on the premises and on its private yacht, Solus na Mara. Exclusive use bookings can be arranged for those wishing to have the hotel to themselves and their guests.

Leisure

The Isle of Skye is all about leisure, and the opportunities on offer range from horseriding to birdwatching, and from short and simple walks to the challenges offered by some of the most demanding mountains in the UK.

Staying at the Torovaig Hotel and its nearby sister hotel the Duisdale House Hotel also opens up a further option. From April to September the hotel's private yacht, Solus na Mara, makes sailing trips which allow guests to explore a wide range of destinations within easy reach of the Sound of Sleat including the Isle of Rum, Loch Hourn and Loch Nevis, and a chance to view some of the wildlife which abounds in these waters, including whales, seals and otters.

Service highs/lows

What really sets a stay at the Toravaig House Hotel apart is the excellent service you receive from everyone you meet, combined with the sense of intimacy that comes from the small scale of the operation and the romantic presentation of the public rooms. And, of course, the food: the dinners are superb, and quality of the breakfast is equally good. Guests also have the unique opportunity to sail on the hotel's private yacht.

Local points of interest

Toravaig House Hotel stands roughly mid way down the mainland-facing south east coast of Skye. This places the hotel about 17 miles from the now toll free Skye Bridge which links the Isle of Skye to the Mainland, and about 4 miles from Armadale, which is the embarkation point for the ferry to Mallaig on the mainland and home to Armadale Castle and the Clan Donald Centre. In recent years the roads in this part of Skye have been improved out of all recognition, with the result that the hotel is only about 20 minutes away from Broadford. This has made it an excellent touring base for much of the southern half of the Isle of Skye. Find out more from the Undiscovered Scotland guide to southern Skye.

Target/ideal markets

Toravaig House Hotel is the ultimate romantic destination. For a cosy weekend away there can be no better place to stay. Guests rooms are well furnished and comfortable, public rooms welcoming, the dining experience superb and the service attentive but not intrusive.

For both young and old this is a winning combination. Add to this the option to be married here, or alternatively, on the hotel's own yacht and you also have all the ingredients for a most memorable wedding.

In addition, Toravaig provides a great base for an activity holiday, with the hotel offering its own archaeology breaks, which include talks and site visits, and the option to arrange other activities over the course of your stay.

Facebook

Stumble It!

Delicious