Cote du Nord: the least accessible and most extraordinary gastronomic experience in Great Britain …. Dr. Chris Duckham is a GP with a fascination for food. Three nights a week in summer he indulges his obsession by cooking for up to eight people in the dining room of his home; a former school house in Kirtomy near Bettyhill about fifty miles west of John O’Groats overlooking the Hebrides. Next stop the Arctic.

Mick Sumpter and I had the pleasure of dining there and I have to say it was the most amazing meal I have ever eaten. Every one of the dozen courses was a perfectly executed combination of flavours drawn from strictly local ingredients. Just a few of them for example shown here …

– Salt fish brandade with pork crust – except the fish stock was reduced to a subtle soup served in medical pipettes to be drunk before eating the brandade. The soup was like a chemical accelerant for the white fish flavour.
– Mackerel broth with haggis espuma – a broth of smoked haddock, infused in a coffer maker with herbs and grasses, and topped with a foam made from local haggis. Served like an Irish coffee with the broth being drunk through the foam.
– Potato cooked in peat – just that – a potato wrapped in muslin and steamed in peat until it took on the whole earthy set of flavours and served on a bed of local sorrel and heather. Amazing.
– North Atlantic cool – a selection of local seafood served on a huge block of ice with a herring roe and horseradish sauce. With tweezers and a small paint brush to eat it with.

This went on and on. If this was in Paris or New York, there would be Michelin stars and celebrity status. In Kirtomy, Dr. Duckham goes back to treating patients and foraging for local ingredients.

Interview with Dr. Duckham …http://www.gponline.com/Off_Duty/article/1164878/life-GP-chef/

The restaurant web site … http://www.cotedunord.co.uk/