Scotland's luxury hotel scene has been transformed in the past decade. A new generation of hoteliers — many of them international figures who fell in love with the landscape and decided to stay — has created a collection of extraordinary properties that are beginning to attract the kind of traveller who previously went to Tuscany or Provence.
The Scottish Hotel Renaissance
Scotland has always had great hotels — Gleneagles has been one of the finest resort hotels in Europe since it opened in 1924. But the past decade has seen a remarkable expansion of the country's luxury hotel offering, driven by a combination of international investment, a new generation of Scottish hoteliers, and a growing recognition that the country's landscapes — the Highlands, the islands, the Borders — are among the most dramatic and least spoiled in Europe.
The transformation has been most visible in the Highlands, where a series of extraordinary properties have opened in converted castles, shooting lodges, and country houses. The Fife Arms in Braemar, which opened in 2018 after a £15 million restoration by the art collectors Iwan and Manuela Wirth, is the most significant hotel opening in Scotland in a generation.
Gleneagles: The Scottish Grand Hotel
Gleneagles is the most famous hotel in Scotland, and one of the most famous in the world. Built in 1924 by the Caledonian Railway Company as a destination hotel for wealthy travellers arriving by train from London, it occupies 850 acres of Perthshire countryside and offers three championship golf courses, a spa, a shooting school, a falconry centre, and a level of service that has been refined over a century of welcoming the world's most demanding guests.
The hotel's recent renovation, completed in 2019, has modernised the property without sacrificing its extraordinary character. The restaurant, which serves contemporary Scottish cuisine using produce from the hotel's own kitchen garden, is one of the best in the country.
The Fife Arms: Art in the Highlands
The Fife Arms in Braemar is the most extraordinary hotel to open in Scotland in the past decade. Iwan and Manuela Wirth — the founders of Hauser & Wirth, one of the world's most important contemporary art galleries — purchased the Victorian coaching inn in 2016 and spent two years and £15 million transforming it into a hotel that is simultaneously a luxury property, a museum of Scottish art and culture, and a community hub for the village of Braemar.
The hotel's 46 rooms are each individually designed around a different aspect of Scottish culture, history, or landscape. The art collection — which includes works by Picasso, Lucian Freud, Queen Victoria, and a remarkable group of Scottish painters — is displayed throughout the hotel with the same care and intelligence that characterises Hauser & Wirth's gallery exhibitions.
The Editor's Verdict
Scotland rewards the traveller who is willing to go slowly and go deep. The country's finest experiences — a morning on the Gleneagles golf course with the Ochil Hills behind you, a dram of single malt in the Fife Arms bar as the Braemar evening closes in, a walk in the Torridon mountains with no other human being in sight — are not experiences that can be rushed or replicated.
For a first visit, Gleneagles provides the most comprehensive introduction to Scottish luxury. For those who have been before and want something more intimate, The Fife Arms is the most extraordinary hotel in the country.
Our editors travel extensively to verify every recommendation. All hotel reviews are independent — we accept no payment for editorial coverage.
