Pitlochry has about three thousand residents and rather more restaurants than that would suggest, because it has been feeding visitors since the railway arrived in 1863. Almost everything is on Atholl Road, the Victorian high street that runs the length of the town, with a handful of better places tucked away by the river and up the hill at Moulin.
The range is wider than you expect in a Highland village: Scottish cooking at the top end, a Thai restaurant on a railway platform, Italian, Indian and Chinese, and a hotel brewery. What it is not is cheap in the summer, when the town is full.
Knockendarroch, on Higher Oakfield above the town, is a small hotel with the most serious kitchen in Pitlochry — a short, seasonal Scottish menu, and the place to book for a proper dinner.
Port-na-Craig Inn, on the far bank of the Tummel by the Festival Theatre, is the pleasant one: an old ferryman’s inn on the riverbank, reached across the suspension bridge, doing good food in a very good setting. It fills before and after theatre performances.
Fonab Castle, on the loch shore south of the town, is the grand option — a Victorian baronial pile now a hotel, with a restaurant and a view over Loch Faskally.
The high street covers most of the rest. McKays is the largest and busiest, a hotel bar and restaurant in the middle of the town. Pietro’s is the Italian. The Wee Choo Choo, on the railway station platform, is a Thai restaurant in a converted waiting room and one of the best-rated places in Pitlochry — which is the sort of thing that happens in a village of three thousand people.
Prince of India on Station Road and Chinese Village on Atholl Road cover the takeaway end, and there are bakeries, delis and cafés the length of the street.
The Red Deer on Golf Course Road is the local pub and restaurant away from the visitor strip.
The older village a kilometre north of Pitlochry, at the foot of the Ben Vrackie path. The Moulin Hotel has its own microbrewery, an eighteenth-century bar with flagstones and a fire, and substantial food. It is where walkers finish, and it is the best pub within reach of the town.
Two distilleries within a couple of kilometres of the high street. Blair Athol on the southern edge of the town is one of Scotland’s older working distilleries, with tours and a shop; Edradour, up a single-track road to the east, is among the smallest in the country and a completely different scale of visit. Both are covered in our whisky guide.
The town’s hotel bars carry a serious range of Scotch, and several offer tasting flights.
Iain Burnett, the Highland Chocolatier at Grandtully, six kilometres west, makes truffles on the premises with a window into the kitchen, runs tastings and has a café. It is a destination in its own right and it posts worldwide, which tells you something.
The Grandtully Hotel by Ballintaggart, at Grandtully, and Ballintaggart Farm at Logierait are both serious food destinations within ten kilometres and both need booking.
Blair Atholl, ten kilometres north, has a working watermill with a tearoom, and the castle has a restaurant.
Dunkeld and Birnam, eighteen kilometres south, have a cluster of good places and are an easy evening out.
Perthshire produces well. Venison from the estates, Highland beef, Tay salmon — the river outside the window is one of the most famous salmon rivers in the world — and raspberries and soft fruit from the Carse of Gowrie to the south, which is one of the best fruit-growing areas in Britain.
Cranachan, made with those raspberries, oats, cream and whisky, is the local pudding and is not a tourist invention.
Booking. The summer season, the theatre nights and October — when the autumn colours and the Enchanted Forest bring a large crowd — all fill the town. Book ahead in all three.
Timing. Kitchens close earlier than city visitors expect. Coming off Ben Vrackie at nine on a June evening, you may find the choice limited.
Theatre suppers. Several places do pre-theatre menus, and Port-na-Craig in particular is timed around the performances.
Out of season. Pitlochry does not close in winter — the town keeps a year-round trade — though some places reduce hours from November to March.
Pitlochry’s walking is the reason a good number of visitors are here, and the town is set up for people coming off a hill at an awkward hour. The Moulin Hotel, at the foot of the Ben Vrackie path a kilometre north of the town, is the definitive answer — flagstones, a fire, its own beer and substantial food. Port-na-Craig is the equivalent for anyone finishing on the loch circuit, since the path passes its door.
The practical warning is the same as everywhere in the Highlands: kitchens close earlier than city visitors expect. In June, when it is light until eleven, coming down at nine and expecting dinner is optimistic.
Pitlochry has two high seasons rather than one. Summer is the obvious one, with the theatre in repertoire and the coach trade at its height. October is the other: the autumn colours and the Enchanted Forest between them fill the town for a month, and the restaurants and hotels fill with them.
Both need booking. Between and after them the town stays open — unlike many Highland villages, Pitlochry keeps a year-round trade — but hours reduce from November to March.
Pitlochry does daytime eating well, largely because it has been feeding coach parties and walkers for a century and a half. The Festival Theatre café on the far bank of the Tummel is one of the pleasantest places in the town to sit, with the river and the Explorers Garden outside. Hettie’s and the tearooms along Atholl Road cover the traditional end, and there are bakeries and delis the length of the street.
Out of town, the café at the Highland Chocolatier in Grandtully, the 1717 Coffee Shop at the Logierait Inn, and the tearoom at Blair Atholl watermill — where the flour in the scones was milled on the premises — are all worth a detour.
A large share of Pitlochry’s visitors self-cater, and the town is set up for it. There is a supermarket, a butcher, a fishmonger and several delis, and the farm shops and food producers of Perthshire are well represented: Ballintaggart Farm at Logierait, the Highland Chocolatier at Grandtully, and a scattering of smokehouses and bakeries across the county.
For a walk lunch, a Pitlochry bakery and the deli counter will do considerably better than a supermarket sandwich, and there is nowhere to buy anything at all on Ben Vrackie.
Knockendarroch for a proper dinner; Port-na-Craig for the setting by the river; the Moulin Hotel for a pub meal after a walk.
Port-na-Craig Inn on the Tummel, across the suspension bridge, and Fonab Castle above Loch Faskally.
The Moulin Hotel, which brews its own beer, and the Red Deer away from the main street.
In summer, on theatre nights and throughout October, yes.
Venison, Tay salmon, Perthshire raspberries, and cranachan made with all three of the last of those and some whisky.