The Bracken Hide hotel review

It’s taken six years and £8 million to build, so it’s little wonder that this was Scotland’s most hotly anticipated opening in 2023. The Bracken Hide stands high above Portree, halfway up Skye’s east coast, and has 45 en suite glamping pods and a central hub housing a bar, restaurant and lounge.

So far, so bog-standard glampsite — except for that central hub. A modern take on a traditional Skye black house, the stone and glass building rises from the hillside like a Flintstones meets Norman Foster bothy. It has asymmetric barrel-vaulted ceilings and 3.5m high windows overlooking Portree and the sea. The owners, the Chelsea estate agents Charlie and Miranda Garton-Jones, know about high-end property and it shows. It’s hard to think of a more striking building north of Holyrood.

The real star is the bar. Low-lit, with burnt larch and brushed brass walls, it has a sunken barman’s pit and a quietly seductive Ibiza jazz playlist. A sophisticated range of cocktails mixed by the barman Chance Hollings is already a hit with locals, who add a dash of craic.

Overall score 8/10

Main photo: the central hub at the Bracken Hide hotel

Rooms and suites

Score 7/10
Dotted about the 52-acre hillside site, the 45 pods lack the hub’s ambition, but still have charm. Beds are good, showers are powerful. Children under 12 can sleep on folding beds, and the Harris Tweed headboards and fired pine barrel ceilings are nice design details. On endless summer nights, midges permitting, there will be few finer places to sip a wee dram than on the decking out front, with views across the water to Raasay, sheep grazing between pods and cuckoos calling from the neighbouring woods. But where to sit on rainy days? “Guests tend to mingle in the hub,” says Karen Augier, the infectiously friendly manager. It’s not a bad option.

Sit and watch the world (and the sheep) go by on the decking outside the Bracken Hide pods

Food and drink

Score 8/10
The dining room is a Mad Men-chic medley of crushed velvet benches and mid-century chairs, the space flooded with shifting coastal light. The chef George Fraser and his largely local, super-friendly waiting team would have to go some to stuff it up here — and they very much don’t. Food is expertly cooked, with regional produce aplenty and just enough presentational flair. Interesting vegetarian offerings include a goat’s cheese and pistachio mousse starter, wrapped in nori seaweed with beetroot textures (£9.95). A fillet of Highland beef with chicken liver pâté (£32) was meltingly tender. Cooked breakfasts were decent, although mysteriously unavailable on the second morning, when only continental was on offer.

The Bracken Hide’s aspen sauna huts and plunge pool offer a place to relax after a day’s hiking

What else does it offer?

Score 8/10
There is a mezzanine snug above the dining room, with a 100in TV and two retro arcade games machines — a real plus for families once 18 family cabins are added in summer 2024. Also in the pipeline are a gym, pool, wellness centre, hilltop bothy restaurant and wind turbine. For now, a pair of aspen sauna huts with a bracing plunge pool are the stand-out Insta hit — a treat after days in the Cuillin hills.

There are 45 en suite glamping pods at the Bracken Hide

Where is it?

Score 9/10
You’re less than a 15-minute walk from Portree, Skye’s biggest town, so you could get here by bus (it’s about three hours from Fort William), and explore by bus as well — but having a car will make life so much easier. Portree is fairly central, so you’re only 45 minutes’ drive south to the Cuillin hills, and even closer to the Old Man of Storr and the spectacular Trotternish peninsula in the north.

Price B&B pod doubles from £140
Restaurant mains from £18.95
Family-friendly Y
Dog-friendly Y
Accessible Y

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