A review of Tàrmachan Cafe in Crathie, Aberdeenshire - YOU Magazine Fashion Beauty Celebrity Health Life Relationships Horoscopes Food Interiors Travel Sign in Welcome!Log into your account Forgot your password? Password recovery Recover your password Search Sign in Welcome! Log into your account Forgot your password? Get help Password recovery Recover your password A password will be e-mailed to you. YOU Magazine Fashion Beauty Celebrity Health Life Relationships Horoscopes Food Interiors Travel Home Food Tom Parker Bowles Tàrmachan Cafe review By Tom Parker Bowles - May 15, 2022 Tom tucks into the taste of the Highlands at a Scottish cafe with serious food credentials. Review Tàrmachan Cafe It sits just off the main Ballater road, a mere caber’s toss from Crathie church, barely bigger than a crofter’s hut. OK, so the Tàrmachan Cafe is hardly a tumbledown hovel, rather a sleek, single-storey wooden building, melding elegantly into the Cairngorm hills, designed by architects who have the office next door. There’s a clean, modern simplicity to the place, from the font of the ‘CAFE’ sign outside, to the discreetly blonde wooden tables, gleaming concrete floor and pristine white walls. You can get the excellent Williams & Johnson coffee to take away, along with serious homemade cakes, and a mighty venison, apple and fennel sausage roll. Pies come from nearby Wark Farm: small, handheld and heavenly. They change according to the seasons, but are consistent in their brilliance. Today, it’s lamb and apple, enclosed in that peerless pastry tasting of rolling hills, heather-covered moors and a life very well lived. The food at Tàrmachan Cafe ‘matches the glorious setting’. Image: Ben Addy If you are going to sit down – and I strongly recommend you do – there’s a daily stew and soup, chalked up on the blackboard. Ingredients are mainly local, yet this is never rammed down your maw. Flavour always comes first. We eat a rich, tomatoey lentil stew, gently spiced with harissa and dotted with blobs of wild garlic pesto. Simple, but deeply satisfying. A sharp, bright ginger and lime coleslaw provides merry crunch. Toasted cheese sandwiches, made with their own sourdough bread, are barely able to contain molten rivers of Connage Highland, which ooze from thin, crisp, burnished crusts. To make things better still, there’s a subtle layer of kimchi, adding a quiet, vinegary heat that not only tempers, but cossets, soothes and flatters all that delectable dairy excess. Oh, Great Chieftain o’ the Sandwid’ race! It’s the sort of dish that could make an Englishman climb astride the table, fork held triumphantly aloft, roaring ‘they may take our lives… but they’ll NEVER take our freedom.’ This, though, is a civilised sort of place. And they’re all out of woad. Tàrmachan Cafe is owned by Caitlin Donald, from just down the road in Kincardine O’Neil. And her husband, Tom Checkley, from, well, England. But they make a mighty pair. Not so much the Auld Enemy as the blessed union, with food to match the glorious Highland setting. If only all cafes were this good. About £15 per head. Tàrmachan Cafe, Crathie, Aberdeenshire; tarmachancafe.com RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR Kids can eat for free at these restaurants during October half-term How to make the viral negroni sbagliato with prosecco at home 7 Halloween recipes with serious hex factor Popular in Food Gabriela Peacock 14-day plan Anytime baked eggs May 23, 2021 Joe Wicks’ maple-glazed chicken thighs with Asian slaw June 6, 2021 Mary Berry is returning to TV screens for a brand new June 15, 2021 Eleanor Maidment My summer taste notes July 4, 2021 Uyen Luu’ s sticky mustard marmalade ribs July 25, 2021 Annie Bell’ s white peach bellinis recipe August 8, 2021 M& S has launched a new crunchy Caramilk-inspired golden chocolate spread August 24, 2021 Deliciously preserved pickle and jam recipes September 19, 2021 Gordon Ramsay’ s bang bang cauliflower October 3, 2021 Wow right now Clodagh McKenna’ s speedy family dinners October 24, 2021 Popular CategoriesFood2704Life2496Fashion2240Beauty1738Celebrity1261Interiors684 Sign up for YOUMail Thanks for subscribing Please check your email to confirm (If you don't see the email, check the spam box) Fashion Beauty Celebrity Life Food Privacy & Cookies T&C Copyright 2022 - YOU Magazine. All Rights Reserved