Restaurants worth travelling for: 1887 at the Torridon

Tradition is a kind of blanket; in it we find the soft comfort of familiarity. A tradition of mine is to visit Scotland in the winter. Up there I have found many favourite places: Gleneagles, yes, but also the Station Hotel in Rothes. Years ago I stayed in the Eagle Brae cabins, fairytales found off a winding B-road going from nowhere to the middle of nothing. Sometimes, when I imagine time could be reversed, I wonder about going back there.

The Torridon might best them all. It is quietly famous, the Torridon, partly for its easy sell: here is Britain’s most northerly five-star hotel. Whether you like its looks will depend on your taste for the gothic; it is an old hunting lodge with a clock tower, built from dark red sandstone. Against the green of the forest and hills that surround it, it seems all turrets and black magic. There is something beguiling in this. In front of it is a loch; beyond that mountains climb endlessly into the sky. The clouds do not always clear their peak.