The AA has just announced its latest tranche of Rosette awards and a handful of Scottish restaurants have done very well.

Martin Wishart at Loch Lomond, Balloch, has been awarded four AA Rosettes. Crossbasket Castle in Blantyre and Inver Restaurant at Strachur have been awarded three AA Rosettes.

According to the AA, ‘restaurants awarded three AA Rosettes are all outstanding restaurants that achieve standards that demand national recognition well beyond their local area while those achieving four AA Rosettes are among the top restaurants in the country’.

The four AA Rosettes are the latest in a string of exciting developments at Martin Wishart’s Loch Lomond establishment.

Influential chef

The dining room has just had a swish new makeover and, last year, Head Chef Graeme Cheevers was named in Elite Traveler mag as one of the ‘most influential chefs of the past and the next decade in the UK’.

Cheevers became Head Chef at the restaurant when he was 23. The writer describes him, as having ‘maturity beyond his years’ plus ‘talent and determination in abundance that has already gained him a Michelin star’.

You can book a table at Martin Wishart at Loch Lomond via 5pm Dining. You can also book in to The Honours at Malmaison Glasgow, another Wishart restaurant, via 5pm Dining.

The three course lunch menu at Loch Lomond is a steal at £32.

This scribbler hasn’t been to Crossbasket Castle but we understand that, after a multi-million-pound refurbishment, the 500-year-old castle hotel is looking very grand.

And with the Roux family heavily involved in the kitchen, the food is just as plush.

Nordic style

By contrast, Inver Restaurant is much more modest-looking affair which is set in a whitewashed cottage on the shores of Loch Fyne.

With a couple of real fires and a stack of vinyl LPs providing the sounds, Inver provides a simple setting for some really thoughtful, innovative food.

This blogger ate there last summer when we had a really memorable meal.

Scandi-style cooking is all the rage at the moment and our lunch showed the concept in its best light.

Perhaps not a surprise as Chef Pam Brunton has spent time at René Redzepi’s Noma in Copenhagen.

As the AA puts it, ‘the menu reflects the seasons and the local terroir, and modern cooking techniques enhance the ingredients to maximum affect’.