Protect your core offering – but don’t play it safe

Being delightedly overwhelmed is part of the Monachyle Mhor guest experience. But there’s order in the spontaneity too.

A two-person team marshals accommodation and restaurant bookings for both the main house and Mhor 84, the nearby motel on the A84. Weddings (around a dozen whole-house hires a year) are also carefully managed as a dedicated desk task. So far, so normal.

The trick up the sleeve is how Tom and Lisa apply vision to their offering.

While the dining room is celebrated for the quality of its distinctly Scottish provenance dishes and straightforward short-break stays are a staple, Monachyle Mhor isn’t a ‘restaurant with rooms’ or a ‘gastronomy destination’. It’s a countryside micro-hamlet, orbited by year-round special experiences and events.

“We’ve all done wine tastings, everyone standing round in a room having a chat about this bottle or that bottle. It can be quite boring,”

Tom says.

“So we want to offer something different. Like 74 people, mostly strangers, braving the weather for a Wine Safari on a Perthshire hill. In October."

Matching the wines with hampers of food is a given. But picking all the pairings from Scotland Food & Drink Awards winners awards is something else. So’s filling your glasses beside Loch Voil, then walking to the top of Creag an Tuirc.

“Bring the dogs. Meet new people. And then down to the church or the Dutch barn for the next wines, all candles and fires lit and what have you.”

Whiskey safaris are available too, naturally.

The team also makes the most of the location with large-scale, open-air events. The Mhor Festival has been running since 2012.

“We thought ‘Diamond Jubilee, what can we do with that extra bank holiday?’ Hold a three-day celebration of music, like a mini-Glastonbury, with local food and drink and camping on the banks of the loch.”

Those who like to lace their cross-country running shoes aren’t forgotten; three Run Mhor events, between April and August, carry enthusiasts over the heather-covered hills and far away from their everyday.

Getting an idea of the scale of the Lewises’ ambition?

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