The Isle of Skye has around 10,500 residents and about 650,000 visitors a year. Local campaigns like the #Skyetime campaign asks people to stay longer, see less, and experience more. It is the right question. The point of responsible travel on Skye is not to stop visiting. It is to stop doing the thing where everyone rushes to take the same photographs at the same time of the same rock in the same six-hour window.

The rest of this piece is an honest account of where your money goes if you spend two nights at Coruisk House in Elgol, and what that means for the island.

The Local Seafood

Iain’s kitchen has four suppliers for fish and shellfish, and all of them live within forty miles of the kitchen door. If we have a langoustine or a mussel on the menu on a given night, this is where it came from.

Peter MacAskill runs Loch Eishort Mussel Culture on the north side of the Sleat peninsula, about twenty miles from Elgol. Rope-grown mussels. The same ropes get checked, the same lines come up, the same crew has been doing it for years. Small operation. The mussels get to the kitchen often within hours of coming out of the water.

David and Ben Oakes hand-dive scallops off Sconser, about twenty-five miles north. Dived, not dredged. The difference is that the sea bed is not ripped up. David and Ben know where the scallops are and go there, which dredgers do not need to. When you eat a scallop here it has been on the sea floor a short drive then onto your plate.

The langoustines, lobsters and squat lobsters are creel-caught in the water you can see from Elgol. Loch Scavaig, between Elgol and Rum. Creels are baited, laid, lifted. Anything undersized goes back. Landed at Elgol pier most mornings in the season. The route from boat to plate is less than a mile.

None of this is new. It is the only way a kitchen like Iain’s can work this far out, and it is also the way most Skye kitchens worked before the mass-import food system turned up.

From the Land

Ross MacRae stalks wild venison in Edinbane, on the north-west of the island. Wild deer, managed across a big land area, a percentage number taken each year. Venison on the menu at Coruisk is not farmed. It is stalked. The herd on Skye is part of the island’s ecology rather than a commercial enterprise.

Ivor MacDonald at Linicro Larder supplies lamb from Linicro, in north Trotternish. Same idea. Known animals, known farm, known life.

Iain cures pancetta in the kitchen from local hogget and mutton. Nothing comes through a distributor.

Bread, wine, and the names that matter less to the reader

Clare bakes the bread daily. Sourdough on a long fermentation. It is on the breakfast table and the dinner table, all made in house.

The wine list runs to over fifty Burgundies, alongside Rhônes, Clarets and Italian wines. Iain has visited many of the producers. Not always the biggest, but ones that complement the style of cooking we are passionate about on Skye. The list has a sibling retail site: SkyeFineWines.com. Buying a few bottles to take home or give as a gift is a real option.

Our team

Iain Roden, chef. Trained as a lawyer. Studied philosophy. Conducts the Skye and Lochalsh amateur orchestra in his time off. He builds the menu around what arrives that week, what’s available on the island and what is in season.

Clare Winskill, owner, host, baker. Advocate for sustainable tourism in the Highlands and Islands, which in this context means a lot of phone calls and committee meetings about how the island manages its visitors.

Andy Bennett, front of house, cocktails. Married Kirstie in Torrin in 2016. Bought their cottage in Torrin in 2021. They live five miles down the road.

Kirstie Bennett, housekeeper. Painter. Her paintings hang on the walls of the house and are for sale.

The boats, and what you ride

Misty Isle Boat Trips is run by the MacKinnon family, who have lived in Elgol since the 1300s, given land in the area by Robert the Bruce. Regular sailings from Elgol pier to Loch Coruisk have run since 1969. A single-family business on its third and fourth generation. A 3-hour round trip with an hour and a half ashore at Loch Coruisk is their usual offer. Booking is strongly advised because boats fill quickly in season.

AquaXplore runs faster RIBs to Canna, Rum and Soay from the same pier. Bella Jane runs seal-colony and Coruisk trips year round. All three businesses are based in Elgol.

If you take a boat trip during your stay, the fare stays in the village. A small coastal community thriving on visits from all across the world.

The things responsible travel on Skye actually looks like

Book two or three nights in one place, not one night. Spend in the village you are staying in. Try to plan your visits to Fairy Pools and the Quiraing earlier in the mornings or evenings. Visit the big sights at dawn or dusk, not lunchtime. Drive the single-track roads slower than you want to. Use the passing places both to pull in and to let cars behind you through. Leave nothing behind. Do not light fires on peatland or when the conditions are extremely dry. Wild fires on Skye are a real risk. Keep dogs on leads where livestock are present, both for you and them. Dogs have been known to chase deer into the glens and get lost, it often a good idea to keep dogs on a lead when exploring more deeply along Skye’s trails

If you are doing two nights with dinner at Coruisk, ask the kitchen about where a particular dish came from. We source close to home wherever we possibly can.