The Cellar Bar Restaurant
Food in Scotland
The Cellar Bar,
Balnain House,
Huntly Street,
Inverness,
IV3 5HR
+ 44 (0) 1382 715757
The Cellar Bar in Inverness is part of the legendary Balnain House, the official Home of Highland Music and the place to go if you want to know just about anything at all about traditional Scottish music.
As well as hosting an exhibition chronicling the history of Highland music, the House also holds classes in everything from clarsach and chanters to bodhran and Gaelic singing as well as organising more than 70 concerts a year and festival weekends.
Downstairs in the Cellar music is still top of the agenda but good food and a great atmosphere figure pretty prominently too. The menu may not be hugely extensive but the quality of the dishes on offer is excellent and the prices are very reasonable. Particularly good value is the Special Soup 'N' Sandwich Lunch with tea or coffee thrown in too, all for a fiver.
I decided on the deliciously chunky carrot and coriander soup and a thick-cut fibremalt sandwich with baked ham and wholegrain mustard while my partner opted for the vegetable soup and a fibremalt sandwich bursting with cheddar and Balnain pickle.
The sandwiches come on a variety of breads including baguettes, ciabatta and sun dried tomato bread with a choice of fillings, from hummus at �2.75 to Prawns in a Mhairi Rose sauce at �3.25.
There's also BLT and chicken in a lime and coriander mayo, both priced at �2.95 and tomato, mozzarella and fresh basil, tuna mayo or egg mayo, all at �2.75. Enchiladas with chilli and a salad garnish are also available at �2.50 while nachos with chilli and melted cheese are �3.75.
For the sweet toothed visitor there's a choice of hot chocolate fudge cake (�1.60), carrot cake (�1.60), oven fresh scones with butter and jam (�0.85) and Danish pastries (�0.75). But the star of the sweet menu has to be the traditional Scottish cloutie dumplings (�1.65), if for no other reason than they are so hard to find these.
~ Hilary McNally