Delicious food and unforgettable Scottish scenery: Inver isn't just a hotel, it's an experience

The last time I went for dinner at Inver, I drove from an unusually hot Edinburgh during Festival time, straight into the horizontal rain that I suspect surrounds Loch Lomond 363 days of the year. Such is Scotland: I always need a raincoat, but going always make me happier than anywhere else in the world. 

As I arrived, the clouds cleared, the setting sun bathed the ruin of Lachlan Castle in golden light, and I was left with a view from my table of the vivid moss and golden weeds around Loch Fyne. Then it got better. I had the best meal of last year in this unprepossessing whitewashed cottage, from potato broth that tasted like a buttery jacket spud to a blackcurrant leaf mousse with chunks of milk crumb.

Immediately after coffee, the spell was broken: I was going back to a nearby B&B for the night. It was a long way to Inver and there was nowhere else to stay. Ever since the time I turned up at an old presbytery in Ulster and the visibly shaken landlady asked, with sitcom desperation, if my husband who was with me might, in fact, be my son, brother or – please God – any other male blood relative, B&Bs have been my bête noire.

• The real Deal: Inside The Rose, the coolest new boutique hotel on the Kentish coast

This summer, Inver’s chef Pamela Brunton and co-owner Rob Latimer opened four en suite bothies next to the restaurant. Given what they represent, they are some of the most prized rooms in Scotland: unsurprisingly, they’re booked out every weekend as far as the eye can see. Instead, I went on a Thursday, snaffling endless bacon sandwiches and red wine on a four-and-a-half-hour Pendolino picnic from London to Glasgow and soaking up the sun-drenched scenery before… BOOM – a monsoon for the subsequent 90-minute drive to Inver. But, as I got to Loch Fyne, the clouds cleared and magic happened again.

The scenery and dinner at Inver was every bit as good as I remember, but having a room of my own on the loch gave me the opportunity to enjoy it anew. I walked to the castle ruin, past purple irises, bright yellow gorse and cavorting geese and lambs, then settled in my bothy to drink complimentary sloe gin out of pretty little vintage glasses. 

The design of the cabins fits the Inver aesthetic perfectly. Brunton is an alumnus of Noma and Fäviken, and there’s a Scandinavian modern slant to the bare timber panels and simple fit-out. The visual flourishes are on point: cushions made from hand-dyed Hebridean wool by Ailidh Lennon and colourful screen-printed abstract artwork by Adam Gale. I had a turntable and Miles Davis vinyl, a bathroom with chic hexagonal tiling, sheepskins from Cary Farm, Tighnabruaich, and a nice curve to the bothy roof that framed the view out across the loch. 

These are rooms designed by people with infinitely better taste than I will ever have. But then I knew that from my previous visit to the restaurant, with its white walls, wood Ercol furniture, candles and stag antlers on the wall. 

• 'Like staying at a chic occult temple': Inside the new Principal London hotel in Bloomsbury

Inver is all about ambience as well as aesthetics. The music for dinner came from a vintage record player at the entrance, by the basket of sourdough: King Creosote’s modern Scottish folk and Springsteen’s The River. Again, every course was delicious, simple but alchemical with foraged twists: oxtail buns; bright green hedgerow soup; halibut and aged beef with scurvy grass, a cress-like plant that grows near the sea and is rich in vitamin C. 

Inver is one of my happiest places, but it isn’t a hotel, it’s an experience. I would have liked windows that opened at my bothy, and shelving in the shower. And I always think an 11am checkout is too early and a 4pm check-in too late, but I can see why, with a skeleton staff at Inver, they need the extra time to turn the rooms. Those same staff also drop off breakfast – a basket with coffee, orange juice and a heavy-as-hell and twice-as-delicious bacon fat rowie (“Scottish croissant”). On balance, between the food and the view I enjoyed while eating it, it might be my favourite breakfast ever. The colour of the landscape and the sunlight on the water that morning was impossibly beautiful. Everything was so clear, so perfect. Needless to say, 10 minutes after leaving the loch, black clouds descended and hail lashed at the windshield the whole way back to Glasgow.

Bed and breakfast £160; dinner, bed and breakfast £255 (based on two people sharing). There are no fully accessible guest rooms, but one bothy has a walk-in wet room.

Mark C O’Flaherty travelled as a guest of Virgin Trains from London to Glasgow. Tickets cost from £30 each way. 

• Read the full review: Inver, Scotland