Popular Inverness restaurant to re-open this month
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
MUCH-LOVED Inverness eatery The Castle Restaurant will re-open later this month – just weeks after it seemed its doors had closed for the last time, threatening to bring an end to 60 years of service.
However, new owner Richard Comfort has promised to not only re-open the restaurant, but restore the familiar favourites to the menu which have kept generations of Highlanders well fed since the 1950s – with some newer additions.
“We’re going to re-open it back to the way it used to be, doing the famous crinkle-cut chips and steak pie,” Mr Comfort said.
“It’s just going to be continuing the way it used to be, basically.”
Helping him do that will be two chefs who together have some 45 years of experience at the Castle Restaurant.
“They went and got employment elsewhere, but they are coming back,” he added.
Mr Comfort and his wife Lorraine also own Comfort Foods café in nearby Church Street, and he is keen to bring some of its influences to Castle Street.
“I’m planning to bring in more of the café side,” he revealed.
“That’s something they didn’t do much of before, so we will have traybakes and cakes and get a bit more of the morning market. What we are doing at Comfort Foods is very successful, so we are taking on a place that is very similar. They did the same type of food we do. Not posh food, but hearty wholesome food.”
The Black Isle resident has fond memories of the Castle Restaurant.
“I use to go there when I was younger,” he said. “You sometimes had to queue to get in.
“It was a shame to see it being closed.”
The signage has now been restored and it is set to re-open on September 26.
The restaurant was previously owned by brother and sister Katie and Ewen MacKinnon, who bought the restaurant in 2015.
Related article: End of an era after Castle Restaurant closes its doors in Inverness after six decades
