Highland life: escape to a romantic loch-side retreat

The first thing that struck me about the Scottish countryside, driving north from Glasgow, skirting lochs and slicing glens, is that it’s not just the Scots who wear tartan. The hillsides are a patchwork of bottle-green pine forests, bright orange shrubs and pale purple heather so alive with tartan setts and tweed colours that it’s suddenly apparent why the country’s clans identify with the age-old fabric. We were heading to the county of Argyll and Bute, the traditional stomping ground of Clan Campbell and its Black Watch tartan.

It was the clan’s Colonel Archibald Campbell who built the 19th-century grey-stone mansion Ardanaiseig (pronounced ar-den-ass-ay), that was to be our bolt-hole for the weekend. Now a hotel owned by London antiques dealer Bennie Gray, Ardanaiseig has all the trappings of a castle, with numerous chimneys and turrets plus some quirky — mainly gilded — additions courtesy of Bennie. Standing regally on Loch Awe’s western shore, beneath the looming peak of Ben Cruachan, it was a welcome sight and made the approach — a ten-mile single-road track across wild moorland — worth every bump.

The roaring fire in the wood-panelled reception, the friendly hotel manager Marcel, and a parade of wellies ready for use were equally welcoming but we couldn’t settle in just yet. Ardanaiseig has won awards for ‘Most Romantic Hotel of the Year’ and we were staying in its secluded love nest, the Boat Shed, a short walk from the main hotel. Built on the foundations of the original Victorian boat shed, the one-bedroom mezzanine suite has a private jetty with a rowing boat moored to it and a floor-to-ceiling window that lets light — and views of the mighty, snow-capped Ben Lui across the loch — pour in.

The next morning, we woke to find Ben Lui peering at us, willing us to explore. Lacking the crampons and pickaxes necessary to scale the vertiginous Munro, we chose to accompany the hotel’s chef-de-cuisine Gary Goldie on one of his foraging excursions. On paper, Gary has a triple AA Rosette rating; in person he is a foraging fanatic who has scavenged for René Redzepi during stages at Noma. After a couple of hours in his company we learned to recognise herbs and fungi with fabulous names such as lady’s smock, scurvy grass and scarlet elf-cup mushrooms, all of which assumed a mythical sound in Gary’s Glaswegian accent. He told us about mushrooms that taste like watermelon, and herbs that taste of cinnamon, while we picked yellow gorse flowers that smelled of coconut, to be crystallised for the evening’s panacotta dessert.

Dinner at Ardanaiseig is a grand affair. We joined other guests in the bar by an open fire for a gin and tonic apéritif with salt and pepper squid — a teaser for the five-course set menu. The dining room looks over the loch and contains some of Bennie’s more bizarre touches: we ate wild sea bass with spring white truffle, and hand-dived Oban scallops with wild leek, under a re-worked 18th-century oil painting of Mick Jagger, Frank Sinatra and Henry Kissinger in heated debate.

To truly enjoy Gary’s gastronomic concoctions, it helps to walk up an appetite. We ventured to Glencoe, a mountain-lined glen that makes you doubt that you’re still in the UK, and the setting for James Bond’s return to his family home, Skyfall. As the sun shone on the snowy peaks we clambered into the steep-sided Lost Valley of Glencoe where the MacDonald clan hid cattle stolen from the Campbells. We met only one walker in the vast, hidden valley who, as we stood sizing up the landscape, said it reminded him of a recent trip to the Himalayas. That may be true of the high, snowy peaks but I bet you don’t get the tartan landscape there.

Rooms from £140; the Boat Shed starts from £275 per night. The hotel can be hired for exclusive use for corporate and private events, including weddings (01866 988 233; ardanaiseig.com).easyJet flies to Glasgow from Gatwick, Luton and Stansted. Prices start from £34.49pp, one way, based on two people on the same booking (easyjet.com)