Ardeonaig has an odd paradigm. You’ll either love it, or walk away with mixed feelings. Despite the long drive from the main road, the hotel’s location is a picture-postcard come to life. The culinary experience is also second to none. The owners however, do cast a heavy presence in this small, intimate setting. There were several things we wished to do as paying guests, such as using the wood stove, taking a fishing trip, or eating dinner at our discretion. But for some odd reason, our intents consistently required sanction from owner Pete. That made me particularly uneasy. If you are a good little guest here, then great, but if you want to exercise your discretion as a consumer on vacation, then go elsewhere.

Well after reading the previous Tripadvisor members review and what a lot of nonsense. How can you slate people by their Nationality-racist to say the least!!! find me a Scot or a Brit that will put an effort into the lower eschelons of our hospitality industry let alone do any manual/serving work.

LET ME TELL A DIFFERENT, MORE POSITIVE STORY:

We arrived to a genuine, warm welcome not to a closed door as you often do in the UK and Scotland. The hanging baskets and flowers were just as the website picture, quite refreshing after many misleading websites promising the earth and delivering very little. This hotel certainly delivers what it promises.

We were shown in by a young New Zealander to reception and once a short amount of paper work was completed we were given a guide tour of the hotel and its facilities, again very much more civilised than being given a key and pointed down a dark passage as is often the case these days.

OUR ROOM
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Exceptionally clean, good crisp linen, great big fluffy white towels and robes. The furnishing all in good order and the room very well maintained. The bathroom again of average size and as said before fantastically clean.

Our view was down towards the Loch, across the lawns and a newly planted orchard, Ben Lawers mountain towering majestically in the background. This is fantastic to stroll down to the harbour as the hotel has 300-400 meters of prime loch frontage with a harbour, seating and asmall boat house, we even used one of their small boats to go and look for Ospreys.

The hotel offers a great turndown service of an evening refreshing towels and generally tiding up. This I might add was repeated while we were at breakfast so we came back to a georgeously clean and sparkling room, so unobtrusive and professional like everything at the hotel.

THE FOOD
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The menu whilst being extensive was full of interesting things (Monkfish Cheeks in tempura batter, braised Lambs Tongues and lots of fantastic seafood) while still keeping some old favourites on (Fillet of Aberdeen Angus, Rump of local Black-faced Lamb, Huge Scallops).

The service in the dining room was very, very good, definately up to the standard of any top end restaurant in London. (The owner has had a few very good restaurants in our area Chiswick, London).

The wine list was and is exceptionally well thought out and is totally South African all 340 wines! On remarking about this one of the young waiting staff told us "the owner is a proud South African who would rather have a good knowlege of one wine growing area" we cannot fault this logic as we took recommended wines each evening and never had a dud.

The food here was every bit as good as "La Trompette" in Chiswick or any similiar restaurant...bordering on "orgasmic". The portion sizes adequate, the flavours superb and the variety each evening mesmerising.

The whole experience we had was "FANTASTIC" this is our second trip to the hotel the first with the previous owners 5 years ago and "WOW" what a breath of fresh air.

This is how a small hotel should be, beautiful location, well maintained, spotlessly clean, very comfortable, great food, great wine and top-notch service all wrapped up with loads of passion.

What can one say say when you've been treated like royalty, fed like a King and generally been spoilt rotten without even leaving the UK.................. good service in the UK! you must be joking I hear many people saying.

The attention to detail at this little country Inn was superb and well beyond what we've come to expect in the UK even by fussy Londoners! We booked into a main hotel room for three nights a little sceptically after reading other tripadvisor members reviews, but at every turn lay a suprise, a pleasant suprise.

The Room; spotlesly clean, good level of maintanence, great quality linen and duvets, excellent tea/coffee tray with freshly ground "ILLY" coffee, FRESH milk non of the small jigger things, mineral water and biscuits. The room whilst a little on the small side was tastefully decorated and very, very clean, the lounges and library more than made up for smallish room with their deep couches and little extra's like fresh, large, juicy dates and plums. The housekeeping team serviced our room in the mornings while we were at breakfast so we came back to a freshly made-up room each morning (more than I can say about some 5 star establishments) and again each even whilst we were having dinner they serviced and turned down. The bathroom rooms were fantastically clean, large bottles of Molton Brown, fluffy towels, great robes all and more than one expects from a quaint Inn. We were shown into a couple of "Premier" rooms by a very friendly housekeeping lady and both of the were superb, sitting areas in both, working fire place and very large bathroom (Wild Salmon) excellent views and wonderful bathroom (Craig) is probably what we'll book next, a little more money but then we only holiday for 3 weeks a year so why not spoil oneself or herself!

The Service; This as was the food (more later) was one of the highlights of our stay, attentive and very passionate. The owner (Pete the Chef/Patron and Sarah the pretty one) keep the staff on their toes, one only has to look up and they are at your side (not this in your face, hard sell service one gets in the city) , but genuine, often asking, helping, suggesting and always ensuring that you are at your most comfortable. (While we were there an elderly guest fell asleep in the lounge only for one of the owners to appear with a light blanket to carefully put over his legs, the old boy upon awakening 1/2 an hour or so later was most grateful and couldn't stop talking about this)
The service at dinner and breakfast is efficient, attentive, well trained and well above anything one would have expected.

The Food; Now, this is why we actually came to the Ardeonaig as it's reputation has filtered down to where we stay and is often talked about by those in the know. The menu is very extensive bordering on daunting but this on the other hand was a bonus as we always wanted three, four or five things at each stage. The wine list all 350 + wines on it South African were very well described with good, honest tasting notes so often lacking one long ponsy French dominated lists. The seasoning of the food was spot on, the portions very healthy and the presentation as we now began to expect faultless. We opted for the gourmet menu on our third evening, 7 courses came and went, 4 different wines and seved with such grace, style and enthusiasim we were bowled over.

The generosity and great hotel keeping we found here reminded us about our first trips to rural France 15 years ago, nothing was too much trouble, the food the star, the service at the sme level and the staff well, not French but great young South Africans.

Will we go back; Without a doubt!
The highlights; The food and the cream tea
The service; We can't praise it any more than it was
Last word; Attention to detail the was it was meant to be

We stayed at the Ardeonaig on the last bank holiday weekend in May. Neither of the owners were around during our stay but the staff seemed welcoming and polite. We were shown around the hotel and our room and first impressions were quite good.

The Hotel
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We had a loch view room which was OK. It was not my definition of luxurious by any stretch, I think 'clean and basic' would be more applicable. The bathroom however was not very well thought out as for some reason, they decided to stick a huge corner bath in the tiny space that it was. You had to negotiate your way around in order to to shut the door and get to the basin. It was very awkward and pretty ridiculous.

The communal areas were nicely appointed and comfortable. The library being particularly pleasant with loch views and drinks served at your leisure. You could help yourself to a variety of books, magazines or games and just relax.

Don't be fooled into thinking that the hotel is right on the loch, it's set back about 250m from the waters edge with a big field in front of it. There is also no access to just take a pleasant stroll along the waters edge, maybe you can do that elsewhere on the loch though.


Restaurant & Service
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We were taken by surprise when we were asked which "sitting" we would like in the restaurant, something that really hacks me off in posh hotels in London, however, the last thing I expected in this far flung hotel in the middle of nowhere on Loch Tay.

Whilst dining, there seemed to be far too many staff just standing staring over everyone in a Big Brother type way. The service was almost overbearing with the bus boy actually measuring the distance between the knives and forks when he set the table. Don't get me wrong, I like good food, good service and a nice atmosphere, but this was OTT. It just didn't seem in keeping with the 'relaxed' atmosphere that the hotel could have had. The maitre D took himself far too seriously and staff standing around with hands behind their backs in a military fashion is not relaxing.

The food was OK but nothing to write home about, all the usual stuff you would expect. All in all, I think they are just trying too hard and missing the mark.

IN SUMMARY
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Unfortnately, throughout the course of the stay, we started to feel like we weren't really in Scotland at all. The entire place was Sth African, from the staff to the decoration and pictures on the walls.... Upon talking to one of the staff, it seems they are all recruited directly from Sth Africa by the owner who is from there. We felt it was a shame as we didn't really feel like we were in Scotland at all and I felt they should have made more of an effort to employ local people, not sort out work visa's for cheap labour from abroad.

The staff constantly knew where you were and what you were doing. We arrived back from a long drive one evening and when I went up to find out about dinner I got told "oh, we thought you'd be having the late sitting as we haven't seen you all day"... It felt a bit like having to check in with your mum and dad. Next time I drive all the way to Scotland, I'm going to find somewhere Scottish to stay!