WATCH: Star chef Tony Singh raises nearly £22k for Maggie's with exclusive Inverness dining event
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Tony Singh's exclusive dining experience landed in Inverness for the first time this week and raised a staggering £21,777 for cancer support charity Maggie's.
Highland foodies arrived in Inverness on Wednesday as they raised their drams and ate exquisite food prepared by incredible chefs Tony Singh and Alistair Birt.
The pair's popular dining experience, that completely sold out, took centre stage at Tomatin Distillery in aid of raising funds for cancer support charity Maggie's.
Celebrity chef Tony Singh brought his much-loved private dining Supper Club – normally hosted at his home in Edinburgh – to the Highlands for the first time and raised the roof with some phenomenal dishes.
The chef teamed up with Tomatin's own brand Cù Bòcan and cancer care charity Maggie's Highlands to create a one-of-a-kind, luxury food and drink experience, which raised vital funds for the charity’s work in the north of Scotland.
Tony was joined by award-winning Harrods head pastry chef Alistair Birt as they have combined their expertise to deliver two exceptional evening occasions, with an exclusive 24 tickets sold for each event across the two days.
When talking about bringing his top-notch dining experience to the Highlands, he said: "Everyone in this experience is connected by food. It's the idea of people coming in as strangers and leaving as friends.
"That's why I think bringing it up to Inverness to raise funds and hopefully take it around the country to other Maggie's centres is so important.
"It's that commonality and bond that we all have with food that is an international language.
"Anything that raises funds for Maggie's is something we will try and help with."
Alistair said: "This is the fifth time I have come up from Harrods in London to the Highlands for a Maggie's event to work alongside Tony.
"It's great fun working with Tony, I'm always learning something new with him so I've always got my eyes open to see what he's doing to try and pick up some tips for myself!"
Whilst this event was an incredible dining experience, the aim of it was to raise as much money as possible for Maggie's.
Maggie's centre fundraising manager for the Highlands, Andrew Benjamin, spoke about the importance of well-known ambassadors hosting events like this and the impact they can have.
He said: "Maggie's Highlands costs over £500,000 each year to run, and we rely almost entirely on public donations to fund this service. This year we will probably help people living with a cancer diagnosis around about 24,000 times, which is obviously a huge amount, but this number is rising every year.
"To achieve our goals we have to look at new ways of fundraising, so putting on events like we have just done with Tony is really important and by having the collaboration with organisations such as Tomatin, Cù Bòcan across the community is crucial.
"I think we are very lucky to have corporate events such as these to help us because if it wasn't for them then we wouldn't be able to put these events on.
"We are so thankful to Tony and Alistair as they are very busy people. But I think what is really important about this event is the heartbeat of every Maggie's centre is the kitchen table."
Senior brand manager at Tomatin Distillery, Julia Mackillop, said: "In the past we have worked with both Tony and Maggie's, so this really was the best of both worlds for us.
"This event has been a celebration of food, drink and people with the overall aim of supporting Maggie's which is a charity that is really important to us.
"This was also really exciting for us as it was the first time we have ever hosted anything like this at our distillery, so it was just amazing."
