Atholl Arms Hotel Dunkeld

If you venture to Dunkeld, the Atholl Arms and Z’s Bistro is the place to stay and eat. Tip: order the local Perthshire Steak Pie, yum. Before dinner make sure to have a beverage across the street at the Atholl Garden Terrace. Beautiful setting on the banks of the river Tay. The wait staff was absolutely wonderful. David welcomed us by showing us around and made our dinner reservations. Alyx working the Garden was so welcoming making our afternoon a fun experience. She loves Boston, so we became Thundah Buddies! Dillon and Martine were an attentive team making our dinner great. And Yvonne took care of us during breakfast, she was wonderful. She recommended the Birnam Wood (short walk from hotel), Beatrix Potter Gardens (short drive from hotel) and Iain Burnett Highland Chocolatier factory (15-20 minute drive) local gems we would have missed. Note if a 20 minute drive is too far luckily Iain Burnett has a shop in Dunkeld.

We had a meal in the outside garden adjacent to the river. It’s a beautiful setting for a drink and/or food. The food we had was good but oddly, in our view, the starters and mains all arrived together. I emailed the hotel about this and they said there’s a sign that makes clear all food arrives at the same time. We obviously didn’t notice it. What is strange though, is the menu lists ‘starters’ and ‘mains’. Why do that if all food arrives at once. There is no starter, after all. We also asked for certain dishes as ‘starters’ and ‘mains’ yet the person who took our order didn’t say anything about all the food arriving simultaneously. It undermined what was otherwise good food in a pleasant setting.

What was a long-awaited break turned out to be somewhat spoiled by our choice of hotel in Dunkeld. We assumed that a 4 star hotel would provide the basics such as hot water and double glazing. Neither of those were present. On arrival we were told that the room we had booked was being refurbished but we were being upgraded to a junior suite. The suite was spacious and clean featuring a large bath in the middle of the room. It was situated on the first floor and facing the main road through the town. What was immediately apparent was the noise of lorries rumbling past and rattling the windows but we assumed it would be quiet by bedtime. The en suite was spacious and reasonably attractive with double sinks and a large walk-in shower. Unfortunately, after running the hot tap for over 5 minutes the water was at best, tepid. On checking that the electric shower was usable we discovered that it simply was not. An endless wait for the water to become luke-warm meant that the flow had diminished to a trickle. Goodness knows how on earth the huge freestanding bath in the bedroom could ever be filled. Needless to say, we reported this to the management and after two sets of staff attempted to resolve the issue we were left to our own devices. Dinner of 'home made pizza' and 'venison sausages' were at best, average and served in the Bistro instead of the Riverview dining room. Breakfast next morning was served in the pub. The food was not of a quality that the hotel website claimed and definitely not 'award winning'. To be fair, the staff were pleasant and did respond to our requests for assistance but the issue is that they have to deal with a building with antiquated plumbing but a 4 star hotel should be of a standard that meant I didn't have to wait until I got home to have a much-needed shower.