This romantic and seriously scenic piece of the Western Isles is awash with history. At the little harbour in 1746 Flora Macdonald was taken as a captive aboard the frigate Unicorn, after her rescue of Prince Charles Stuart, and interrogated before being taken to the Tower of London.

The Hotel claims to "offer our guests cuisine that sustains health and satisfies indulgence", and to judge from the galaxy of Awards that is precisely what they do extremely well. At dinner a typical meal could be made up of a grilled seafood sausage on cucumber pickle with a Glendale organic herb salad, interspersed with a cappuccino of smoked haddock and potato and followed by grilled calves liver with crisp bacon thyme mousseline served with fondant potato and a shallot and sherry jus.

A pudding of banana fritters rolled in nutmeg and fine sugar with butterscotch sauce gives a new slant on the humble fruit. The cheese board could offer Bishops Kennedy, Lanark Blue and Isle of Mull, three of Scotland's finest, and I dare say if you spoke to them very nicely an extra course could be negotiated.

A wine list selected by Sir Iain Noble, who owns the surrounding 23,000 acres, and Lady Noble, is sheer joy. Be prepared to ring the office when the dreaded day looms near to tell them you have been indefinitely detained in this paradise on earth.