Opened in October 2021 and run by Tom and his wife Matilda Tsappis, Killiecrankie House has quickly established itself as one of Scotland’s most distinctive restaurant-with-rooms destinations.
Set on the fringes of the Cairngorms National Park, Killiecrankie House describes itself as a fine dining restaurant with rooms serving a tasting menu equally inspired by Japanese cuisine and the food stories of Scotland.
Michelin labels the venue “a true dining destination with a personality of its own”, praising the way Tom’s menu fuses Scottish produce, including ingredients from the garden, with Japanese techniques.
Early career and background
Tom’s passion for food and technique began during an extended stay in Japan in his twenties, an experience that would go on to shape his cooking permanently.
He later retrained professionally at Leiths School of Food and Wine in 2016, graduating with a distinction in the professional diploma and taking two of the five available end-of-year awards, including highest exam mark and wine student of the year.
He then staged at Aquavit in London and Man Behind the Curtain in Leeds, both Michelin-starred at the time.
Before opening Killiecrankie House, Tom and Matilda also launched Elia, a Greek fine dining supper club in their East Dulwich flat. The project, rooted in Tom’s Greek Cypriot heritage, was described by Foodism as one of London’s best, and helped lay the groundwork for the more ambitious restaurant they would later create in Scotland.
Building Killiecrankie House
Tom and Matilda took over Killiecrankie House in the aftermath of the pandemic, driven by a desire to create a destination restaurant with rooms that would celebrate Scottish produce through a more personal lens.
After receiving the keys in late 2020, they undertook a full refurbishment of the former manse, creating five guest rooms, a lounge and library, a cocktail bar and an intimate restaurant at the heart of the house.
The restaurant itself is intentionally small and personal.
The official biography describes an intimate fine dining room centred around an open-plan kitchen and chef’s table, while Michelin notes the Nordic-style dining room and the chance to begin in the elegant bar with Scottish and Japanese whiskies before dinner. That combination of rural retreat, destination dining and close-up hospitality has become central to the identity of the restaurant.
Tom Tsappis’s cooking style
At Killiecrankie House, Tom leads a modern Scottish tasting menu of around 15 to 20 courses, using Asian technique and Japanese culinary philosophy in particular to reframe Scottish produce.
Michelin says the menu enhances the ingredients to brilliant effect, pointing to the house-made oat tofu with fermented cream sauce, broad beans and chilli as a prime example.
That style runs through the wider menu. Killiecrankie House highlights creations such as green pea and Scottish oat miso, kimchi made from wild garlic and Scottish seaweeds, and reinterpretations of older Scottish ideas such as dripping fried porridge.
The kitchen also champions lesser-used ingredients and draws heavily from its own growing, with the restaurant saying its one-acre organic kitchen garden supplies around 70% of its seasonal fruit, vegetables, herbs and flowers.
