The Tolbooth Restaurant

Few restaurants can beat the Tolbooth when it comes to getting fish and seafood from boat to plate in the quickest possible time. Stonehaven's oldest building has sat on the quayside for 400 years, doing service as the town's lock up and excise house; nowadays the first-floor restaurant goes for a jaunty beachcomber-chic look, with linen-clothed tables on wooden floors, and local artwork on walls of whitewashed rough stone and sky-blue painted tongue-and-groove panelling. A picture window gives fabulous views across the harbour to accompany a menu of spanking fresh seafood, bolstered by blackboard specials. The kitchen knows its way around piscine produce, leaving the raw materials to speak for themselves in starters such as a rich crab soup pointed up with a hit of sherry, or super-fresh sea bass served as a simple céviche, followed, perhaps, by roasted turbot with brown butter and lemon and caper sauce. Unrepentant carnivores are catered for by the likes of crispy duck leg confit with potato and shallot rösti and plum and ginger sauce.