A Seat Worth Booking: The Hoebridge
Probably the best dining experience in the Borders, twenty minutes from Ladhope.
Cross the iron suspension bridge over the Tweed at Melrose — the one J.M.W. Turner sketched in 1834 when it was barely a year old — and you find yourself in the small village of Gattonside. Tucked down a quiet lane in a former village inn is The Hoebridge. It has been there in various forms since 2015, and it has quietly become one of those restaurants that people in the Borders mention with the slightly proprietary tone of locals who know they’ve got something special.
It is run by Hamish Carruthers and his husband Kyle Tidd. Hamish grew up in Gattonside and worked at the inn as a youngster before training as a chef and spending years in New York. They came home in 2015 and turned the place into something different — whitewashed stone walls, bare wood tables, monthly menus built around small plates that change with whatever is best from their suppliers.
Shaw’s for meat. Ross Dougal for seafood. Mungoswells for flour. Tempest Brewery for the beer. The list reads like a roll call of the producers who are quietly making the Borders one of the most exciting food regions in Britain right now.
If you stay with us at The Scullery, this is where I’d send you on the second night of your visit.
The cooking is what one critic called “flavour-packed, internationally influenced,” which is true enough but undersells it. What’s distinctive is the discipline. Nothing is overcomplicated. Local langoustine with wild garlic. Lamb rump with broad beans. Scallops with seasonal asparagus.
The Michelin Guide picked it up some years back and has kept it there. It is consistently rated among the best restaurants in Scotland, never mind the Borders.
Book ahead. The dining room is small and word has travelled. It’s twenty minutes from Ladhope and worth every one of them. If you stay with us, this is where I’d send you on the second night of your visit. The first night, you cook in the Scullery’s kitchen with something fresh from the farm shop. The second night, you go to The Hoebridge.
The Hoebridge, Hoebridge Road East, Gattonside TD6 9LZ · 01896 823082 · thehoebridge.com
From The Scullery
Letters from the Scullery is a bi-monthly publication from The Scullery at Ladhope Farmhouse, a boutique one-bedroom cottage in the Yarrow Valley, Scottish Borders. Join the Inner Circle at the-scullery.com for early access to dates and Inner Circle rates on midweek stays