Royal Hotel Restaurant in Orkney Islands

Another great night with mine Hosts Allan and Jules. Great craic , great beer and whisky , great atmosphere. Love it ! The Royal is for sale now so hopefully the new owners will maintain the same high standards.

We were booked into the Royal through work and were the only ones staying in the rooms.Alan made us feel as if we were family, giving is run of the place.The locals in the pub at night made us feel extremely welcome (I think there may have been a marriage proposal at one point). Alan hadn't been told we needed fed, having not eaten for quite a while, but this was no problem as he rustled up 5 of the biggest portions of fish and chips you could imagine!The "deserts" were very tasty too..The Royal is everything that is good about island life, with the locals helping themselves to drink whilst our host was cooking, but making sure he was paid. I particularly like the " room keys? Dont need keys here lads"; and we didn't.

We stayed at the Cantick Head Lighthouse Cottage and Beth recommended we eat here for dinner. Very limited menu but we both had the fish and chips and home-made cheesecake and they were delicious. It was a cosy pub with locals coming and going during the 2 hours we were there. The owners made sure everyone was cared for and were nice to give us some samples of whiskey. We bought a friend some Glen Morangie whiskey based his recommendation and our friend loved it.They have a huge friendly dog (sorry...can't remember his name) that greeted everyone who entered and lounged in front of the fire. This was one of the highlights of our trip around Scotland. We enjoyed the food and sitting there talking to the locals.It was easy to find on the main road.