I have been a frequent guest for two decades, you would once have found an extremely positive review here. A visit in 2021 saw the food and experience go down several notches, then a return in 2024 compounded that: it was extrememly disappointing.
The hotel was sold after my 2021 visit, and I returned hoping its former glory may have been restored. Sadly that was not to be. The food was quite good, albeit the multi-course tasting menu having changed to a much more casual format, but the new owners obviously saw a new direction for Airds: no longer a member of Relais & Chateaux, changes to the interior were at best functional, but no longer luxurious.
I have stripped most of my earlier review as it no longer applies. I presume Airds is a work in progess, and that progress is badly needed based on this evidence.
The only thing that hasn’t changed at Airds are the spectacular views from the dining room and some of the upper floor rooms. Some rooms at the rear look over the car park, but wherever you sleep, silence is guaranteed.
The Setting
Did I exagerrate the views from Airds? Well, this is what you’ll see from dinner or from loch-facing bedrooms. The hotel lies 19 miles north of Oban on Scotland’s west coast, down a winding single track road to the Port of Appin. It is an old white-washed building, originally a ferry inn. A short walk round the coast brings you to the village shop, another seafood restaurant, and the little foot ferry over to the Isle of Lismore.
The restaurant
I had booked – and paid for in advance – a package that included ‘A seven course tasting dinner each evening with coffee and petit fours served afterwards.’ If booked separately, and as described when I booked, the dinner was priced at £85 per person.
On arriving I was informed in a very take-it-or-leave-it manner that the restaurant had changed, no longer offered a tasting menu, and we now had a £40 ‘allowance’ each evening to put towards dinner. I certainly made my feelings known about this, but given we had driven from Glasgow and had made firm plans for the two days in the area, could do nothing other than accept. I had meant to report this fraud to the appropriate authorities on my return home, but instead wrote it off.
Replacing the always excellent multi-course tasting menu was a rather pedestrian menu now featuring burgers, fishcakes, steaks and the like. Thankfully there are still a few nods to finer dining, in 2024 a good venison carpaccio, and fine venison wellington were really the only highlights over a couple of nights. I wouldn’t travel many hours from home for a burger or fishcakes, and 75% of the menu held little appeal.
The wine list at Airds is much less extensive than it was once was in its heyday too.
The low down
Two decades of annual visits are now a thing of the past. Having paid £85 for a tasting menu including after dinner coffee, but instead getting a £40 ‘allowance’, the final straw was an extra charge for coffee on my bill. I did not pay that.
R.I.P. the Airds of old. Caveat Emptor.