Brackish waters break on mossy 15th-century castle ruins. Misty drizzle and rusty leaves lend to the October of the vista. A curious seal watches as we sweep down a rutted track to the bare earth car park. It’s the kind of scene you might find in a twee Netflix Christmas film, on a shortcake tin. But this is reality, and this is the panorama that welcomes you to Inver.

Inver is one of those places that shouldn’t work. An hour and a half’s drive from Glasgow, forty minutes from the touristy Inveraray, with the final seven miles down a single track road from Strachur—a picture-perfect hamlet of candy-coloured houses on the shore of Loch Fyne—the restaurant is a suitable reward for those who make the journey.

Set in a renovated crofter’s cottage and boat store, the restaurant looks as though it belongs. The interior is fresh and modern, cheerful in white and wood, accents of sailor blue. Antlers and skulls adorning the walls pay homage to the landscape and keep the visceral reality of food forefront in the mind.

Unfussy furniture is warmed up with sheepskin and Harris tweed. A cluster of fairy-light birch branches in the corner reminds eaters, as though they could forget, that this place sits firmly within the intersection of the civilised and natural worlds. Inver is what happens when a world-class chef forms a deep connection to her landscape.

***

Pamela Brunton, the much-lauded chef and Inver’s co-owner, has been written about everywhere from the Scotsman to Conde Nast to the recently released The Female Chef, from Hoxton Mini Press. Pam fell into cookery in her early twenties, working in the now-closed Seagreen seafood restaurant in Skye, and has worked in some of the most famous, boundary-pushing kitchens in the world, such as Noma, Fäviken, and In De Wulf. After In De Wulf she helped open their wood-fired bakery and restaurant, Gent’s De Superette, as head chef.

““Inver is what happens when a world-class chef forms a deep connection to her landscape.””

It seems that having her own space has given Pam the opportunity to unleash her creativity and experience in incredible ways. The food is truly representative of the terrain. The produce comes from the area around Inver, from fishers and farmers and hobby-growers that reside in the nooks and crannies of this slip of the Cowal peninsula.

I was curious as to how Pam, and her partner Rob Latimer, sourced their ingredients. “We live in a small community,” Pam says. “We didn’t know all the people we know now when we arrived here, we had to start with one or two of them. That was as simple as driving past a polytunnel and knocking on the door.”

“Over the course of the last five or six years, people have turned up at the back door and said, ‘I have pigs, I have mackerel,’” she continues. “As our reputation has grown locally, more people have contacted us. It really is about building, person by person, connection by connection. We’re expanding and building a community.”

Community is a theme that runs deep through Inver. Pam wrote about how she sees her restaurant’s responsibility to the locality, their staff, their suppliers and, ultimately, our climate, in a thoughtful essay for Vittles last year—it’s perhaps no surprise then that in 2021 the restaurant was one of the first recipients of a new Green Star award for sustainability by the Michelin guide.

It is energising to see how she adheres to her own philosophy about the role of great restaurants, and how she implements tradition, flavour, texture, innovation and responsibility in the experience of Inver. It feels organic.

The menu got our juices flowing: familiar ingredients prepared in unusual ways. After a pre-starter nibble of two oysters with fresh horseradish—I have never been able to pass up an oyster—I opted for the greens pie. Flaky pastry filled with kale and spinach, surrounded by a pool of walnut milk and a golden pickled-raisin ketchup, like nothing I’d encountered before. I want to eat it every lunchtime.

My husband enjoyed the Gigha halibut with smoked mussel butter, an Inver classic. Smoked mussel butter tastes exactly as you’d imagine, which is ideal if you like smoke, mussels and butter. I was glad he ordered this as it meant I got a little taster, even as I tucked into my decadent main of whole Loch Fyne crab.

Pam insists on making as much as possible from scratch. The butter was made in-house, as was the sourdough, as was the tonic in my G&T. These little touches elevate the experience and remind you how good even basics can, and should, taste if prepared with attention.

“I do find it easiest to start with an ingredient and work from there,” Pam says. “Given the variability even between variations on the same ingredient, looking and feeling and tasting and seeing it growing or living, or whatever it is—I find it very stimulating.

“Also, from a practical purpose, you can taste something and see if it needs a partner or acidity or fat or seasoning. I need to be around the produce.”

Pam and Rob’s community building doesn’t stop with their suppliers. The waiting staff seemed happy to be there. While their uniform of strange, cult-like scrubs, coupled with white trainers and face masks, did make us feel as though we were being served by dentists, thankfully, they were all charming, friendly and professional. We felt welcome and wanted, even including our toddler, who spurned her meal in favour of pretending to be a puppy.

Inver plays host to stagiaires, cookery’s version of interns. New chefs apply to fill a slot in the restaurant kitchen in exchange for food and board, simply to learn from Pam. “We invest quite a lot of time in teaching them the things they want to know. I personally enjoy teaching, I enjoy seeing people learning, the feedback we get from them. I think the full-time staff enjoy the change of faces and new characters.

““The food that Pam was creating was brilliant, thought-provoking and very unique for Scotland.””

— Moray Lamb, Eleanore

“It’s quite a lot of managerial input from me,” says Pam, “But there’s also quite a lot of reward. There’s a nice flow of energy through the place when you get lots of new people who are excited about what you’re doing.”

Moray Lamb, the head chef at brand new Leith restaurant Eleanore, staged at Inver in 2015. “I went to Inver after reading a review from Marina O’Loughlin and thought it sounded like a very exciting restaurant, pushing Scottish cuisine in a direction that very few are,” says Moray. “Those early days were tough. The food that Pam was creating was brilliant, thought-provoking and very unique for Scotland. It would have been hard enough to get people on board with the style in Edinburgh let alone on the Cowal peninsula.”

“I know that chefs travel to stage at Inver because of how interesting these dishes are and how much Scottish history is steeped into the food.” Moray learnt a lot from his time in the Inver kitchen, and only had positives to say about Pam. “Her wealth of knowledge is remarkable and I truly believe she is one of the most underrated chefs in the UK. People should be talking about Inver like they talked about Fäviken in Sweden. It is the destination restaurant in Britain in my opinion.”

Pam and Rob have created something so special by immersing themselves in the tastes, textures and community of their landscape. Inver is the culmination of this effort and enthusiasm, the result of suppliers and servers, customers and cooks who are excited about what they are doing.

Inver is a kind of magic. I already can’t wait for my next visit, and the one after that.