Prestigious magazine commends Lybster hotel for 'Best Scottish Dining Experience'
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A Lybster hotel is basking in success with a culinary award it received from a high-end lifestyle magazine.
The Portland Hotel in Lybster was awarded the "Best Scottish Dining Experience – Scottish Highlands" as part of the Resorts and Retreats Awards 2022 hosted by LuxLife magazine.
Steven Swan, who runs the hotel with his sister Sharn, said: "We're absolutely ecstatic about it. It shows that we've got a good team – every single one of them has put towards it and that's the important thing."
He says the award is "based on the customer service received – every single aspect of it rather than just whether the food tastes good".
Steven and Sharn bought the hotel from Oxford Inns in April 2018 after it had been lying empty for several years and become quite dilapidated. They immediately set about renovating and refurbishing the landmark building, that sits along the North Coast 500 route, and opened it to the public in August of that same year.
"Even now we're still working on it," added Steven. "We did a partial refurb to get some rooms open when we first started but we're now refurbing those same rooms that we did three years ago.
"We're trying to make them look cohesive in a traditional way in line with the age of the building [which dates back to the 1850s]. Some of them were very 70s with avocado or caramel bath suites – they've been all ripped out now."
Steven and Sharn only had one year of trading before lockdown and continued with the refurbishment throughout that time. The hotel was closed for 18 months and despite having no residents the building still had to be heated to make sure it "doesn't get damp and it's good for customers coming back".
"It's been a hard slog and when you consider no one's been able to make a success of this place for the 10 years prior to us. Everyone went bankrupt that was in here. For us to have survived and come out of this at the end of Covid is testament to the quality of service, food and staff.
"Most of the staff with us were the same staff we had when we opened. Being seasonal, most of them don't have a job when we're closed so for them to come back to us again is great and says something about us as employers."
Every member of bar staff at the Portland Hotel is sent on a personal licence course and gets a certificate at the end of it. "People often think that working behind a bar or as a waiter is easy but it's not – it's a skilled job and not everyone can do it well."
Steven and his sister have been working together in the hotel trade since 2008 and previously ran the Baltasound on Unst in Shetland – known as Britain’s most northerly hotel. They turned it into a successful business but sold it in 2016 as they thought after eight years it was time to move on.
The Swans believe their hard work is paying off and the Portland Hotel has moved on from its dilapidated days to become a "must stay" location on the NC500. Pushing the right buttons to create the authentic Highland experience is important to them and in the next few weeks they intend to take this a stage further with the grand opening of their Nothing but Whisky Store.
"We'll have a selection of whiskies available going back over the last four decades with prices ranging from a fiver to five grand. Some will be drinkable and some collectible. Some will be discontinued whiskies that haven't been made for 20 or 30 years."
Steven opened a special case to show one of the premier whiskies that will be available – a Gordon and Macphail Dallas Dhu 1971 Private Collection, one of only 56 bottles that were produced.
"Things have been very, very good and we've had a very busy couple of months. It's probably been the busiest start of a season that we've had. We certainly think this will be a really great year for us."
