The Fife Arms

The Fife Arms has 46 bedrooms, encompassing everything from royal suites to interconnecting family rooms. Each has been uniquely decorated using plush wallpapers, furnishings and ephemera that reflects the hotel’s history, and you’ll find a glee-inspiring mini bar and help-yourself decanters of whisky and gin in every bedroom. For views of the mountains, book one of the Nature & Poetry rooms inspired by Scottish poets or opt for one of the Royal Suites, which have grand four-poster beds, spacious living areas and copper roll-top baths. Our pick? The Astronomy Room. While by no means the largest, it’s a pleasing room that contrasts dark wood panelling and earthy wallpaper with primary colour details, such as a striking knitted planet mobile and a lacquered Klein blue ceiling. For a special stay, the atmospheric Artist’s Studio is a one-off room inspired by the Bloomsbury Group and the interiors they created at Charleston House, featuring hand-painted walls and a cabin bed. Like the look of your room? The hotel shop offers guests the chance to recreate it back at home, via chic trinket trays, glassware, blankets and matchboxes – plus bottles of the covetable Alhambor hand soap and lotion found in the bathrooms.

You could easily stay at The Fife Arms for a few days and mix up your dining options each night. On night one, we stopped in at the Flying Stag pub for haggis, neeps and tatties, and an array of excellent, perfectly fried bites: pork belly and black pudding fritters with rhubarb and celery; fried chicken with comeback sauce and bread-and-butter pickles; and smoked haddock and leek fish cake with spinach, poached egg and mustard cream. It’s proper, perfect-after-a-long-walk fare.

Night two was in the Clunie Dining Room, the hotel’s big-ticket restaurant, where art is a huge draw. Working in his distinctive ‘Cubistoid’ style, Argentinian artist Guillermo Kuitca created a dramatic mural that envelops the restaurant. The forms and colours Kuitca selected for this immersive painting were heavily inspired by the Clunie river, which flows below, and the patchwork of colours of the surrounding hills and village rooftops. Huge windows and a couple of taxidermied stags all add to the sense of place while dining. Highlights from our meal include Invercauld Estate venison tartare with oyster mayonnaise, dill, salt-and-vinegar chips and a side of Exmoor caviar; perfectly glossy butter-poached cod with crispy cod brandade, ember leeks and mussel cream; and steamed marmalade pudding with custard. Everything is architecturally presented – and the lick of flame from the kitchen’s wood fire caramelises the ingredients perfectly.

We loved kick-starting each morning with a hearty, local heather honey porridge and a nip of the hotel’s own malt whisky while plotting our activities, with a little help from the resident ghillies (a traditional term for a Highland attendant) who are on hand to arrange everything from wild sketching to off-roading, designing your own tartan and teeing off at Balmoral. In keeping with the astronomy theme of our room, we loved the Hunt for the Dark Sky experience, which saw us night hiking with Braemar native Jim to see the constellations dance above the snow-capped Cairngorms.

Two of our group got lucky while fly fishing for the first time. On an excellent excursion to the lochs of the Invercauld Estate, the ever patient Ali of Twin Peakes helped us get to grips with tempting brown trout to the surface – and our reward was two decent-sized fish, which we took back to the hotel for the chefs to tackle. The blistered skin and perfectly pink flesh of those trout – cooked simply with butter and spring greens – was one of the nicest, most satisfying things I’ve tasted in years. One last thing. The hotel can also arrange bookings and taxi to and from Fish Shop, its recently Michelin-awarded restaurant and fishmonger down the road in Ballater. Friendly and filled with local art and artefacts, we recommend it for a lovely lobster and chips lunch.