Picture, if you will, a whitewashed 18th-century former crofter’s cottage in a tiny Thomas Telford-designed fishing village on the pristine shores of Loch Bay with breathtaking views west over Loch Dunvegan at the Waternish Peninsula at Stein on the Hebridean Isle of Skye. It’s in this idyllic setting that chef Michael Smith and his French wife Laurence have lived for 10 years, and it’s from these pristine waters that chef gets daily catches of some of the best shellfish the world hand-caught and delivered straight from the jetty to his bijou 16-cover restaurant Loch Bay where almost every day he has been prepping, cooking and presenting exquisite dishes on his six-course Skye fruits de mer menu to a level that attracted a Michelin Star within 18 months of opening in 2016 and has been retained consistently ever since.
Under chef Michael, Loch Bay has become a magnet for seekers from across the globe of off-the-beaten-track gastronomy served in exceptional places. On the evening before I chat to chef, diners had travelled from Luxembourg, California and San Francisco as well as Scotland just to be here. Loch Bay has been fully booked all season, its strongest season to date, with international and local visitor numbers to Skye increasing annually - a statistic that’s only set to continue into the future.
My snap of chef Michael Smith at the Michelin Awards ceremony in London 2018 when he retained the Star for Loch Bay.
But now that Michelin Star - the only one on Skye, despite its growing gastronomic reputation - is to disappear from the famous Guide as Michael and Laurence prepare to close the doors of Loch Bay for the last time at the end of this month.
It’s already been announced that Stein will remain the couple’s home, and that chef Michael “is looking forward to a new chapter that’s about to begin”, with further details to be announced later this month.
The announcement comes at the same time as the owners of another iconic small independent Scottish restaurant, Inver in Argyll, have also decided to move on - prompting speculation that it had become a victim of the ongoing woes in the UK-wide Hospitality sector. Yet, echoing almost exactly what Inver’s chef-patron Pam Brunton told me at the time (see previous post), chef Michael also defies such speculation.
“This is not a distress closure,” he tells me. “Loch Bay has operated at the highest level and we’re fully booked until the end of the season. We’ve been functioning really well with the same core staff I’ve had since the beginning. The international travel market on Skye is very very buoyant and it always will be. Demand at Loch Bay is consistent and we have a full restaurant every night.
“I’ve been solo on the stove for 11 years, on my feet, creating and plating 80 dishes every day of service. We’d always known that if we were fortunate enough to get 10 years, we’d take stock about where we’d like to be. I’m 56 next birthday and I could happily have seen myself staying at the stove at 65, but an opportunity has come up to do something I’ve never done before.
“Laurence and I thought long and hard about how to make both work and we came to the conclusion that the best thing to do would be to close Loch Bay at the end of the season.
“I’m still working through it; it’s an emotional time,” he adds.
In fact, Michael has been in hospitality since 1987 - almost 40 years - and cooking at this extreme level for 22 years: he opened Loch Bay in 2016 after leaving the fine-dining The Three Chimneys, also on Skye, when it was owned and run by Shirley and Eddie Spear. He’d joined in 2004 and attracted his and the restaurant’s first Michelin Star in 2014.
“The last 11 years of that 22 years has been an increasingly intense but absolutely wonderful period of time,” he adds. “Being on your feet and working nights for 40 years while running your own business … that’s pretty hardcore. But it’s been the privilege of my life and I’m very grateful to have had the opportunity.
“The decade I did at The Three Chimneys was also full-on and intense, but knowing this is your own restaurant can be pretty challenging. It’s given me the utmost respect for all the small businesses across the UK.”
He says he’s been in contact with Michelin about his decision to close Loch Bay and says he appreciates the support the organisation has given him over the years.
“Being in contact with a global brand like Michelin is just incredible,” he says. “The support it gives you as a chef is fantastic but being endorsed by an international organisation that supports us as a business owner as well as a chef is priceless and at no cost to us.
“We’re not giving the Star back or losing it. It’s simply that it’s coming to an end here as the restaurant comes to an end.”
Is he sad? “It wouldn’t be right if it wasn’t sad. It is sad, but not because something bad has happened. I’ve been very very blessed to have had this opportunity in this exquisite part of the world.
“As they say, don’t be sad that it’s over; be glad that it happened.”
Does he hope that a Michelin Star might return to the Isle of Skye, which has been host to three Stars in its time? “I don’t doubt that it could well come back to Skye,” he replies. “Why wouldn’t it?”
Then, asked about staying in Stein: “If any young couple out there want to try running their own restaurant … nothing is off the table. If the old guard is moving on and young people come in with all their enthusiasm and vigour, wouldn’t that be fantastic as well?”
More to be revealed!
Loch Bay, at 1 Macleods Terrace, Stein, Isle of Skye, IV55 8GA, closes on October 31. www.lochbay-restaurant.co.uk