Port of Menteith

Lake and Lakeside Table

Scotland calls its inland waters lochs, with one exception, and the exception is here. The Lake of Menteith curves along the north-east edge of the village, wooded islands sitting out on the water and farmland running down to the shore. It is gentler country than the narrow glens deeper in the Trossachs. Ospreys work the lake in spring and summer, geese take it over in autumn and winter, and trout anglers have it for much of the rest.

Two kitchens anchor the place. The Karma Lake of Menteith is a lakeside hotel with a traditional country pub attached: oak beams, an open hearth, a wooden deck out over the water, and a Malt Vault holding 135 whiskies. The head chef, Giacomo Gulisano, cooks Scottish sea trout, Highland chicken, a Sunday roast and a pappardelle, and describes the food as farm-to-table. You eat looking at the water the curlers once played on.

Lochend Estate Kitchens

A short way round at Lochend Estate is Nick's at Port of Menteith, the restaurant Nick and Julia Nairn opened in 2021. Andy Turnbull is executive chef. The pizzas are thin, Roman-style and high-fired; the à-la-carte menu changes daily; in summer the shellfish and seafood come off outdoor grills. Vegetables and herbs are cut from the kitchen garden and carried in by Nick and Jim, the gardener. Well-behaved dogs are welcome in the covered, heated outdoor area.

The same estate holds the Nick Nairn Cook School and Julia's home-and-lifestyle shop. Classes take a maximum of twelve people and sometimes begin by harvesting salad and herbs from the polytunnel before anyone touches a pan. What you cook depends on the day: salmon and avocado sushi, chicken ramen, sea-bream ceviche, monkfish-and-king-prawn moilee, venison kofta.

Arrivals and Nearby Trails

This is a place you drive into for a meal or a walk rather than a weekly shop; Aberfoyle, five minutes away by road, covers the rest. Stirling is the nearest railway station; the roads in come off the A811 at Arnprior or through Aberfoyle from the west, and a weekday bus, the C61, links the village to Callander and Aberfoyle.

From the shore a path climbs over the Menteith Hills to Loch Venachar, about five miles each way on well-defined track with both waters in view. North of Aberfoyle, the Lodge forest has shorter waymarked loops — the mile-long Waterfall Trail, the lichen-rich Oak Coppice through ancient oakwood — with a café, toilets and Go Ape for anyone travelling with children. Out on the flat carse, Flanders Moss has a boardwalk to a viewing tower over the bog, with lizards and dragonflies in summer and geese in winter.

Church and Island Priory

The parish church stands back from the water, built in 1876–78 by John Honeyman on the site of older buildings. Its square belfry carries eight bells under a pyramidal cap; inside are a white-marble font on an onyx pedestal, a west gallery on cast-iron columns and Stephen Adam's stained glass of 1879. The churchyard keeps a few seventeenth-century markers.

The real draw sits offshore. A boat crosses to Inchmahome, the largest of the lake's islands, where Walter Comyn founded a priory for Augustinian canons around 1238. Robert the Bruce came here; Mary, Queen of Scots was hidden here as a small child. The chapter house still stands roofed, holding the double effigy of Walter Stewart and his countess, and three sweet chestnuts on the island may have been planted in the 1500s.

The Grand Match

The lake has form as a stage. On a February morning in 1979 it froze hard enough to hold a curling match of 2,400 players, marked out in 330 rinks that formed, from above, an arrowhead pointing at the hotel. The organiser remembered "a perfect day, the sun shining from start to finish." The lake has not hosted another Grand Match since, but on a still morning you can stand on the shore and see why they tried.