Ross Cochrane is the head chef at the Rothesay Rooms in Ballater, Aberdeenshire.
He tells us about the restaurant’s royal ties and his hero dish.
How would you described The Rothesday Rooms?
It offers traditional Scottish fine dining fare with a modern twist and we serve local produce to the highest standards. I’ve worked here for about nine months now and it’s going really well; we’ve got a good, small team.
Tell us about the menu.
The menu is all local produce. Our venison is from Balmoral and all our game is from Invercauld Estate and Birkhall. We change the menu every six to eight weeks as we have a lot of returning customers so we like to always keep our offer different and fresh.
What’s your hero dish?
One of my favourite dishes is the mackerel. We take the whole mackerel and do it three different ways – we have a cured mackerel, a mackerel pate and also a fresh mackerel tartare with some cucumber, dill and shallots. It’s a seasonal dish and it’s really tasty.
What are your plans for the restaurant?
We’d like to pick up a couple of rosettes on the way but we are not putting all our efforts into that – we just want to continue what we are doing.
What are the trends?
I’ve noticed Scandinavian food is getting popular in the cities.
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