CARRAIG MHOR RESTAURANT

Shore Road, Lamlash
Contact: Peter Albrich
Tel: 01770 600453

It's a confusing exterior. A smart looking family villa on the main street, but inside is a well-established restaurant with a high reputation for quality cuisine. First, you climb a twisting stair to the lounge cum snuggery where there are neat little sofas and sea views from a small window across Lamlash Bay. The menu is presented. And while you make choices from a fixed price menu - three courses: £23.00 or two courses: £18.50 - there are attentive, friendly staff serving pre-prandial drinks.

I chose a fishy meal: a salad with squid and fennel to start - the seas round this coast are teeming with squid. The Arran lobster main course was cooked in the house style (£6.50 extra) with a sophisticated and well made sauce. The cooking throughout was flawless.

It's one of the few restaurants on the island with a hand written menu which makes it clear that the chef changes it daily, according to freshness and availability of raw materials. The menu is also short for the size of the restaurant, signalling freshness and quality ingredients. The dining rooms are to the front of the house at ground level where the style has been subtly influenced by the Austrian nationality of the chef/proprietor. No nationalistic flag flying, but dark warm colours in the decor blend with antique wood panelling and subdued lighting to create an atmosphere reminiscent of an auberge in the Austrian Alps. Booking is advised.

Open all year except from 1st Sunday after New Year to Mid-February.
Dinner 7-9.30pm. Closed Sunday.