Local boy Fraser Potter has turned this old music boozer into a sparkling place to stay with five Scandi-style rooms. The building started life as a bank, hence the high-ceilinged grandeur in the upstairs restaurant, which has a modern art deco wooden bar, big bold art and views of the Tay and Thomas Telford’s seven-arch bridge. “I hate tat,” says Potter, and it shows: decor is pleasingly minimal, with worn stone staircases, original slate floors and well-trodden stripped-pine floorboards echoing the building’s rich past. A neon love heart and sheepskins on mismatched wooden chairs add welcoming warmth and colour.
Overall score 8/10
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Rooms and suites
Score 7/10
Room 5 is the star — it has his-and-hers monsoon showers, a 250kg cast iron circular bathtub and cute second bedroom with coombed ceilings — but all five bedrooms are simple and calming, styled in a palette of earthy greens and beiges. It allows the eye to settle on upcycled G Plan finds and Pooky lampshades, fluffy sheepskins and Ercol armchairs. There are tissue boxes and sugar bowls made by in-house potter Ellen Macfarlane; polished concrete bathroom walls add an on-trend urban splash. In addition to the five rooms, there is a two-bedroom upstairs apartment in the street behind the hotel and a one-bedroom apartment looking onto the hotel’s herb garden above the river.
Food and drink
Score 8/10
The downstairs bar, where Potter used to drink as a teen, now hosts midweek trad folk and bluegrass sessions drawing musicians from across Britain, with a couple of real-ale taps and guest beers. Upstairs, an unfussy but sophisticated — and ever-changing, seasonal — menu is low on cost but high on locally sourced oysters, langoustines, and venison and beef from Potter’s uncle’s farm up the glen. Fruit and veg is increasingly grown in the hotel’s own Victorian walled garden. Breakfast hampers delivered to your room include meat treats from the Great Glen Charcuterie and pastries from Dunkled’s Aran bakery, run by Bake Off semi-finalist Flora Shedden. In summer, a “garden kitchen” serves wood-fired pizzas, flat-iron steaks, grilled langoustines and cocktails on the lawn running down to the River Tay.
What else is there?
Score 8/10
Potter’s background is in events: from open-air film nights and live music, to vinyl nights and collaborations with kayaking and mountain-biking operators, there is always something on. This winter, he’s putting in Scotland’s first mobile sauna by the river, complete with a cold-water plunge tank and communal fire pit on the banks of the river. Best of all, the hotel does midday check-out. “Who wants to rush off after a great night?” says Potter. You won’t disagree.
Where is it?
Score 9/10
The Taybank is just off the high street in Dunkeld, the most elegant — and happening — village in the Highlands, with the Aran bakery and the Scottish Deli restaurant and wine bar among its attractions. Off the handsome white-fronted high street, warren-like wynds lead to the river and magnificent 1501 cathedral with fabulous walks on the riverside trail running for miles beyond. You’re two miles from Loch of the Lowes, the best osprey-viewing spot in Scotland, and closer still to the Hermitage, a pocket of towering 18th-century Douglas firs with a Victorian folly above the crashing Black Linn Falls.
Price B&B doubles from £170
Restaurant mains from £16
Family-friendly Y
Dog-friendly Y
Accessible N
