Tom Parker Bowles & Olly Smith: Eating out
Tom tucks into the taste of the Highlands at a Scottish cafe with serious food credentials
The food at Tàrmachan Cafe ‘matches the glorious setting’
It sits just off the main Ballater road, a mere caber’s toss from Crathie church, barely bigger than a crofter’s hut. OK, so the Tàrmachan Cafe is hardly a tumbledown hovel, rather a sleek, single-storey wooden building, melding elegantly into the Cairngorm hills, designed by architects who have the office next door.
There’s a clean, modern simplicity to the place, from the font of the ‘CAFE’ sign outside, to the discreetly blonde wooden tables, gleaming concrete floor and pristine white walls. You can get the excellent Williams & Johnson coffee to take away, along with serious homemade cakes, and a mighty venison, apple and fennel sausage roll. Pies come from nearby Wark Farm: small, handheld and heavenly. They change according to the seasons, but are consistent in their brilliance. Today, it’s lamb and apple, enclosed in that peerless pastry tasting of rolling hills, heather-covered moors and a life very well lived.
If you are going to sit down – and I strongly recommend you do – there’s a daily stew and soup, chalked up on the blackboard. Ingredients are mainly local, yet this is never rammed down your maw. Flavour always comes first. We eat a rich, tomatoey lentil stew, gently spiced with harissa and dotted with blobs of wild garlic pesto. Simple, but deeply satisfying. A sharp, bright ginger and lime coleslaw provides merry crunch.
Toasted cheese sandwiches, made with their own sourdough bread, are barely able to contain molten rivers of Connage Highland, which ooze from thin, crisp, burnished crusts. To make things better still, there’s a subtle layer of kimchi, adding a quiet, vinegary heat that not only tempers, but cossets, soothes and flatters all that delectable dairy excess. Oh, Great Chieftain o’ the Sandwid’ race! It’s the sort of dish that could make an Englishman climb astride the table, fork held triumphantly aloft, roaring ‘they may take our lives… but they’ll NEVER take our freedom.’ This, though, is a civilised sort of place. And they’re all out of woad.
Tàrmachan Cafe is owned by Caitlin Donald, from just down the road in Kincardine O’Neil. And her husband, Tom Checkley, from, well, England. But they make a mighty pair. Not so much the Auld Enemy as the blessed union, with food to match the glorious Highland setting. If only all cafes were this good.
About £15 per head. Tàrmachan Cafe, Crathie, Aberdeenshire; tarmachancafe.com
DRINKS: Olly’s vegetarian wine picks
Surely all wine is vegetarian? Not quite. Some winemakers use animal products for clarifying their vino, and current laws don’t compel them to list their fining agents. These days, filtering the wine using options such as bentonite (clay) allows producers to label their wine as suitable for vegetarians. You could also look for ‘unfiltered’ or ‘unfined’ on the label. Ahead of National Vegetarian Week starting tomorrow, Majestic, Co-Op, Waitrose and M&S all have decent selections, but try my wine of the week from Aldi for a total steal ‒ it’s even vegan friendly.
WINE OF THE WEEK Specially Selected Austrian Zweigelt 2021 (13%), £6.99, Aldi. Perfumed as roses, this scented red is a summer stunner to try lightly chilled.
Loved & Found Castelão 2019 (13.5%), £6.99, Waitrose. A Portuguese bargain for your first barbecue, spicy and deeply scrumptious.
Yalumba The Y Series Sangiovese Rosé 2021 (11.5%), £8.25, thewine society.com. Terrific firm and fresh rosé. Serve with tuna steak for maximum impact!
Étoile de Timberlay CrÉmant de Bordeaux (12%), £9, M&S. This bright fizz bargain is a strawberry glitterball packed with fruity finesse.
Domaine Lombard ‘Azalée’ 2020 (13%), £14.95, yapp.co.uk. A floral red with balletic nimble cherry nuances, irresistible for its elegant delight.
