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Chef James Mearing on Cradle and The Garden Room at Cromlix, Dunblane
The executive head chef at Cromlix explains his estate-led cooking at two new restaurants in a Scottish country house hotel.
Cromlix, a Victorian country house hotel in Dunblane, opened two new places to eat in June, and its executive head chef, James Mearing, talks Supper through both. He arrived from Summer Lodge in Dorset, where he held three AA Rosettes, after earlier stints at The Wild Rabbit in the Cotswolds and Lainston House in Hampshire.
Cradle is the intimate one: 16 seats and a tasting menu built around the estate's kitchen garden and woodlands. Mearing points to the opening course, a herb sorbet with gooseberry amazake and foraged wood sorrel, as the clearest expression of the idea, and calls St Bride's duck with roasted plums close to a signature. The lesson he keeps returning to is restraint, or in his words, "less is more". In the kitchen, shelves of kombuchas, ferments and cheong syrups carry the seasons through the year.
The Garden Room is the easier-going sibling, a 65-seat bistro in a new glass-fronted extension that takes in the original Victorian garden wall, serving sharing platters, grills and family-friendly dishes. Afternoon tea is served in The Glasshouse.
Worth bookmarking if you're heading north of Stirling: Cradle for a special night, The Garden Room for a relaxed lunch with children in tow.
Our summary of a story from Supper, published 30 October 2026. Read the original
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From Supper