Cast your minds back to 2002, and the arrival of the very first World’s 50 Best Restaurants guide. El Bulli was top of the inaugural list, followed closely by Restaurant Gordon Ramsay and The French Laundry – so far, so not surprising. But if you allowed yourself to drift into the meat of the list, you’ll have come across The Three Chimneys at number twenty-eight – the sole Scottish representative.
‘That took my breath away,’ says Shirley Spear, who co-owns The Three Chimneys with her husband, Eddie. ‘I just remember wondering, ‘how the heck are we going to handle this?’’ It was quite the achievement for the pair, who had left London in 1984 with the modest intention of opening ‘a cosy wee bistro’ on the Isle of Skye.
By Easter 1985, The Three Chimneys was open for business. ‘That date happens to be very close to April Fools Day, and that's exactly what we were!’ laughs Shirley. ‘We had no commercial cookery experience or anything like that; we just loved cooking and wanted to create the kind of place we'd like to find ourselves if we were on holiday in Scotland.’