The cosy and luxurious Scottish Highlands hotel that's created the best afternoon tea with a twist

It’s just extremely suspicious behaviour. An arrestable offence, really.

Still, I married one of those curiosities. He’ll do sugar in small doses, but it’s the salty stuff he prefers. Crisps, mainly.

If I was to invite him to, say, a typical afternoon tea, his enthusiasm would be very low. However, if I told him that most of the cakes would be replaced by cheesy things, that’s a different matter. I think he actually giggled when I told him where we were going.

It’s probably for the benefit of his ilk that the four-star Golf View Hotel & Spa in Tilda Swinton’s home town of Nairn has introduced - nay, let’s say invented - Afternoon Cheese.

They’ve teamed up with excellent local producer, Connage Highland Dairy, to create a slice of fromage heaven for the savoury-toothed. It’s available daily, for £34 per person, from noon until 4:30pm.

Before our visit, we visited the family-owned dairy at Ardersier, which is just 15 minutes from the hotel, to pique our appetite.

They’ve got a cheese room that’s lined with more wheels than we’d just seen on the A9.

It was so tempting to spear all the samples, but we held back. We just inhaled the smell, deeply and reverently. This is our church.

Then it was over to Nairn and, after an attempted pre-prandial walk on the nearby beach, we arrived for tea at the Victorian building completely drookit, and dripped all over the thick swirly carpets of the book-lined lounge.

They quickly hung up our anoraks, and stationed us in the conservatory, with its view to the Moray Firth.

I blotted my wet knees with my napkin, as the food arrived.

Cups of tea, first, then a vast spread, on three tiers - a cake stand with almost no cake - as well as two cheeseboards of goodies, too.

We went for the middle deck of hot things first, and everything was made with Connage’s wares or sourced from their shop.

The best of these were the pair of neat and square mini gouda croque monsieurs, which were suitably squishy inside, and toasted on top, and there was also a little warm tart with caramelised red onion and a very creamy Bonnet goat’s cheese.

Then, cold sannies.

There were enjoyable smoked salmon, crowdie and chopped up cucumber wraps that were thickly plastered with filling. Our chicken and Clava Brie open rolls were decent, but, in the spirit of pacing myself, I started discarding some of the less interesting bread devices and just eating the filling.

I took one bite of the grated Dunlop Cheddar roll, with a large dollop of rather sweet chutney inside, and then my eye turned to the ground floor cheese plate. It seems I couldn’t wait for the hard stuff, without the carbohydrate trimmings.

We had one portion each, and what a smorgasbord.

There was an electrical-plug-sized block of Highland Fine Cheeses’ palate-coating and satisfyingly salty Blue Murder, and two isosceles - one of pale ewes’ milk Corra Linn and another of cheddar, plus accessories including a slice of pear jelly, celery, grapes, chutney, thin octagonal crackers and a few oatcakes.

Oh my, we were as happy as mice who’d just found out that the local cat had been flattened by a bus.

However, though this prematurely diverted us, we hadn’t forgotten the bottom plinth of goodies.

On that level, there was still a slightly sweet cheese scone, with butter, to work our way through.The only sugary things were our rather gorgeous slices of blackberry cheesecake, each topped with a nasturtium flower.

There’s also a paired drinks offering available, for £16 per person. I went for that, while the designated driver abstained and made big sad Princess Diana eyes at me. You can have the glasses of wine individually, served as you work your way through the food offering, or all together. I went for that, and dipped between a peachy glass of Gavi, Casa Ernest; a Chateau Rival, Bordeaux, and a small prune-y snifter of Taylor’s Port, which was my favourite, as the natural partner to fromage.

So, anyway, we were thoroughly dried out and cheesed up.

I don’t think I’ve ever eaten as much of the yellow stuff, not even on Christmas Day.

Thankfully, they do take away boxes, if you can’t manage every last crumb.

We needed those, for some scraps of Blue Murder and cheese scone halves, because it seems that even the salty-toothed have their limits.

Golf View Hotel and Spa, 63 Seabank Road, Nairn (01667 452310, www.crerarhotels.com)

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