The Restaurant Guide for Wine Lovers
Coast
Coast is a modern Scottish seafood restaurant in the centre of Oban cooking the Argyll larder on a seasonal menu. The wine programme rests on a broad, warmly annotated list with a genuine core of coastal whites and a proper sweet-and-fortified tail, held back for a wine lover mainly by a narrow by-the-glass range and a list in mid-revision. It will most reward the diner who orders a bottle of unoaked white to run with the seafood and is happy to be guided by the generous notes on the page.
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Waterfront Fishouse
Oban, Argyll and Bute
Seafood
Waterfront Fishouse is a modern West Coast seafood restaurant on Oban's pier serving small sharing plates and one famous plate of fish and chips. Its wine programme earns its standing on an unusually smart by-the-glass offer — four pour sizes, three sparkling by the glass and seafood-natural whites — that answers the hardest plates without opening a bottle, held back only by a thin fortified corner and no per-dish pairing steer. It will most reward the diner who wants to share plates and match each with a well-chosen glass, and who trusts a crisp, unoaked white to carry the seafood.
Read the assessmentCafe Fish
Tobermory, Argyll and Bute
Seafood
Cafe Fish is a harbour-front seafood restaurant on Mull cooking almost entirely from the day's catch and its own smokehouse. Its wine programme earns its standing not on size but on aim — a short, keenly priced list of lean, saline, unoaked whites and sound sparkling that is genuinely built for shellfish and oily fish, if without depth beyond that core. It will most reward the diner who comes for the langoustines and the smoked fish and wants a crisp, honest glass of white to go with them, chosen without fuss.
Read the assessmentPorcini at No17 The Promenade
Oban, Argyll and Bute
Italian
Porcini is a Scottish-Italian restaurant on Oban's seafront cooking handmade pasta and West Coast seafood in an Italian idiom. The wine programme earns its standing on a properly regional Italian list, generous by the glass in two sizes and topped by a real Champagne ladder, let down only by the gaps a fuller list would close — vintages largely unstated and no dessert wine against a serious pudding menu. It will most reward the diner who comes to eat Italian and wants a well-priced glass matched sensibly to each course, and who is happy to let the styles above guide the choice.
Read the assessmentThe Tobermory Hotel
Tobermory, Argyll and Bute
Modern Scottish seafood gastropub
The Tobermory Hotel is an island seafood gastropub on Mull's harbour front whose kitchen cooks the local boats' landings in a relaxed, generous style. The wine programme earns its place not on depth but on honesty and access — a short, well-chosen, keenly priced list poured almost entirely by the glass and weighted towards the crisp whites the seafood needs — held back only by its shallow range and thin dessert and fortified corner. It will most reward the visitor who wants to eat Mull's shellfish and smoked fish and drink a well-judged glass or two alongside without fuss or expense.
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