Inside the award-winning Scottish restaurant with stunning views and even better food

In July the business was awarded AA Restaurant with Rooms of the Year Scotland at the AA B&B Awards 2025. It currently holds the AA’s Five-Star Gold Restaurant with Rooms Award, three AA Red Rosettes for Culinary Excellence, an AA Breakfast Award, and a Notable Wine List Award. Further recognition includes a White Star Award from the Star Wine Awards, Restaurant of the Year (Fine Dining) at the Scottish Licensed Trade News Awards 2025, and Restaurant of the Year at the Scottish Excellence Awards 2025. The Dipping Lugger was also named Regional Winner in the Highlands & Islands Best Eating Experience category at the Scottish Thistle Awards. That’s a lot of trophies for the cabinet.

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Opened in 2021 by Robert Hicks and Helen Chalmers - who also own the Highland Liquor Company - the small restaurant, which seats less than 20 and has three rooms, very quickly became a popular dining destination. “With the Dipping Lugger we’re just trying to create somewhere that we’d like to go to so we’re not trying to follow a formula or the rulebook on how you run a restaurant and rooms. It started off with Helen and I wanting to create a place that we would like to go and visit,” said Mr Hicks.

As for the award wins, he said: “It’s rather wonderful for all the team and I think, because of where we are we feel - I’ve lived here 30 years so it doesn’t feel remote, it’s just that everything is a long drive away. But for us being so far north, we do turn heads and people say: ‘oh where’s that?’ They've never heard of Ullapool so for people to recognise what we’re doing all the way up here, it’s a big thing for us and the team as a whole.”

Originally built in 1798, this whitewashed, double-fronted Georgian former manse overlooks the shores of Loch Broom. In 2018, co-owners Robert Hicks and Helen Chalmers purchased the property and began their journey to create a standout restaurant with rooms.

The Dipping Lugger officially opened its doors in October 2021, quickly establishing itself as a destination for fine dining and luxurious stays. The property features three guest bedrooms, a guest lounge, and a fine dining restaurant. Mr Hicks said the menu is a “showcase of what’s around us,” adding: “We’ve always set out - whether it’s the menu or anything we do here - to showcase either the finest things that are local, Highland, Scottish or British.

“As food miles go you’ll invariably have scallops that have literally travelled about 10 metres from the loch on the other side of the road. It’s the same for our oysters. We have an abundance of, particularly shellfish here which we’re very spoiled for. When it comes to meat we have an estate where we get the majority of our venison from and that’s only three miles away.

“Our beef and cheese are from the Highlands because we think they’re all doing great things. We don’t put something on the menu just because it’s from here. It’s got to earn its space so when it comes to the menu it’s amazing ingredients, sympathetically treated.

“There’s not lots of interventions as you want the core thing to really sing for itself. The style of what we do with the menu, we have one word and when we describe the dishes we have a few other words but the rest is really for the diner to explore and find when they’re eating.

“We want it to be informal so it doesn’t matter if it’s a one-off occasion you’ve saved up all year for or whether you’re here every week. We just want it to feel like you’re coming to a friend’s house and ultimately it’s about the people that come here. We want to provide the space and all the tools to hopefully create a memorable evening.”

While their careers spanned into music, Mr Hicks moved to the area 30 years ago to work at the Two Michelin Starred Altnaharrie restaurant. He said the Dipping Lugger “feels like the next chapter” in Ullapool’s foodie destinations. He said: “Back in the day it (Altnaharrie) had a Michelin star and then we got a second star. At that point there were only three places outside of London that had two Michelin stars. There's been a history of amazing places to eat and visit up here.” Mr Hicks added that Ullapool has “always punched above its weight” saying “it’s always been very cosmopolitan with a buzz about it. Before I came here, Robert Urquhart had created the Ceilidh Place, which has been an institution since the 1970s. It helps having the ferry come in two/three times a day so there’s always a heartbeat.”

After working in a Michelin Star kitchen - and being mentioned in the coveted guide “almost since the restaurant opened”, is there hope for a Star for the Dipping Lugger, especially after so many other accolades? Mr Hicks is keen, but has some reservations. He said: “It would be remiss to say we wouldn’t be a nice thing (to achieve a Michelin Star). We've been very fortunate as we've been in it almost since we opened.

“It would be lovely and a massive compliment, particularly those in the kitchen. I suppose the worry would be that suddenly we’d be flooded with folk that are maybe just ticking you off a list. Over the years we've gotten increasingly busier and we've been very fortunate to have had the support folk that come back either annually or even more regularly than that. It's an aspiration though held with a certain amount of nervousness.”

Given the popularity of Skye and the North Coast 500, tourism has, inevitably, changed things in the area not just as numbers of people have increased but why they’re visiting. Mr Hicks explained: “We find that people visit us who are eating their way around Scotland. People may come to us and then they'll head to Edinbane Lodge or Kinloch Lodge on Skye. We get a lot of guests who’ve been at the Torridon Hotel and stop here before going across to the Fife Arms. Lots of people say they wouldn’t have heard of Ullapool if it wasn’t for us, which is lovely. It's a lovely thing to fly the flag for what we do in the village and what the village has to offer.”

Flying the flag is a modest description of what this small, well-considered restaurant with rooms has done for the village and the Scottish culinary scene as a whole. The Dipping Lugger is blazing a trail for what food tourism means to a small community and remote area, one award at a time.