AA 3 Rosette Restaurant explains the Tasting Menu

Food is our passion at Knockinaam Lodge. Our guests, many who return again and again to experience our tasting menu in our AA 3 Rosette Restaurant share that passion too. But what if you are not familiar with a tasting menu?

We have discovered that some guests are uncertain about what to expect from a tasting menu restaurant. Some feel it will be restrictive, since it is a set menu or they may be served dishes with ingredients they don’t like, which will affect their hotel restaurant experience, and wonder if it will be the same set menu every night. We want to dispel any concerns that you may have to ensure that you look forward to your tasting menu experience at Knockinaam Lodge AA 3 Rosette Restaurant

What is a Tasting Menu?

It’s a combination of art, theatre and incredible food! A tasting menu should take you on a culinary journey. It’s more than just sitting down to a meal. A tasting menu is an experience to savour. But I hear you ask, will it fill me up or will it be too much? The art of a tasting menu is to present a collection of several dishes, in small portions, that give you the chance to experience different food, flavours and textures, but this is your main meal of the day, so you need to feel you have received sufficient sustenance. Our portions are large enough to ensure you feel sufficiently well fed, without feeling your dining experience in our restaurant is too much. But remember, since you are dining in a hotel restaurant, you don’t have far to go to kick off your shoes and lay back relaxed after a great restaurant meal

Is it pompous or pretentious? No, it’s a way to enjoy the best restaurant experience. You put your trust in the chef to choose the highest quality ingredients and through the knowledge, skills and experience of the kitchen team a tasting menu is devised to present to you the best restaurant experience, savouring in the freshest produce, bought from the best producers close by to Knockinaam, including our own kitchen garden

If we’ve won you over already click here to book your stay and discover for yourself the delights of a tasting menu at Knockinaam Lodge. If you need more convincing, read on…

Is a tasting menu an award-winning chef’s indulgence?

A little, yes but why not. You dine in the best restaurant to experience the skills of the chef and kitchen team. Think of a tasting menu as a talented chef showing off all their best honed skills, in the same way you go to the theatre to see the performers showing off their best talents. The chef, kitchen and hotel restaurant front of house team want to give you the best restaurant experience possible. Their ultimate aim is to please you; not indulge themselves

At Knockinaam Lodge, our star performer is chef Tony Pierce. He has been honing his culinary skills in our award winning AA 3 Rosette Restaurant for over 21 years. Tony was the youngest chef to receive a Michelin Star in 1994 and won Scottish Chef of the Year in 2015. It’s also worth noting that our AA 3 Rosette Restaurant is the only one in Dumfries & Galloway. Knockinaam Lodge is also graded a Five Gold Stars Restaurant with Rooms from VisitScotland

Tony’s style is Classic French, with Scottish ingredients and his dedicated team at Knockinaam Lodge continue the reputation of excellent food while they push boundaries with what they can create to delight our dining guests. We are a small team and thrive on our guests enjoying one of their best hotel restaurant experiences ever. Tony and his team always want to know what you think, and your feedback will be encourage

The art of a set tasting menu in our hotel restaurant

Our utmost aim is for you to enjoy the hotel restaurant experience at Knockinaam, therefore we do not want to serve you anything you cannot eat or dislike, that’s why we take so much time to get to know you. We also think that with this knowledge and your trust in our talented kitchen team, we will offer you a tasting menu that you anticipate and enjoy and by taking away the stress of having to decide from a menu filled with choices for a maximum of 3 courses, maybe you will try something you haven’t had the opportunity to before

Getting the balance right between courses is very important too. Tony and his team need to get the right balance of flavours that will complement each other, and consideration has to be taken that the dishes are presented in the right order, to make sure the sensations build as you progress thought your tasting menu experience, with a few surprises along the way too! At Knockinaam that attention to detail is carefully planned by the kitchen team and each tasting menu is beautifully balanced, using Scottish produce first and foremost, and all dishes are made from beginning to end in our restaurant kitchen

We know where all our ingredients come from and make everything – including bread and crisps – we really know what every ingredient isand what everything contains. We take the utmost care regarding the provenance of our ingredients and grow more and more from our own vegetable garden. We have a provenance list of all producers that supply our kitchen, available for our guests to see

Tasting Menu from our AA 3 Rosette Hotel Restaurant

Here at Knockinaam Lodge hotel restaurant, we offer a 7-course set tasting menu for dinner. Collins English dictionarydescribes a set menu as: “There is only one option for each course on the set menu, but the dishes are well chosen, well-constructed, and beautifully cooked.” This is completely true but more than that at Knockinaam, our tasting menu changes every day and we prepare carefully, with our guests’ preferences and tastes in mind, along with making the most of the best ingredients available on the day

When you make your hotel booking with us, we ask you about any dietary requirements you have, including your dislikes, for example if you are not so keen on beef, shellfish or root vegetables. Of course, we also enquire about food allergies or any food intolerance you have. All this is considered for each guest when Tony and his team come to plan the daily tasting menu. So, in a way it is a bespoke and very personal set menu designed to show you what the kitchen team can achieve but also to ensure that you get the highest level of enjoyment from your hotel restaurant tasting menu experience

Your pleasure is our ultimate goal and whether you stay for one night or a whole week, we promise you will not eat the same meal twice. Through 5 amazing dishes (or 7 should you wish to have dessert and cheese), as well as the canapes served with your drinks in the lounge and petit fours with your coffee to round off, what we hope is a hotel restaurant dining experience you will be taking about for a long time to come

From Tasting Menus to Gourmet Weekends at Knockinaam Lodge

Food is such a focus of the hotel experience here at Knockinaam Lodge that for many years we have been running a number of seasonal Gourmet Weekends. They are popular and guests book up fast. There is always a theme, with cookery demonstrations and the dinner usually runs to 8 to up to 10 courses.