I am Giuseppe Manzoli, an Italian-trained private chef who travels to Loch Maree and Wester Ross to cook dinner in the house where you are staying or living. Everything is cooked from scratch in your own kitchen — shopping, cooking, service and the clean-down afterwards.
At a Glance
- What it is: a private chef cooking in your home or holiday property, not a restaurant and not a delivery.
- Where: Loch Maree and Wester Ross. Gairloch, Torridon, Ullapool and the north west coast.
- Suits: birthdays, anniversaries, dinner parties, hen parties, weddings and self-catering house stays.
- Included: menu planning, shopping, cooking, service and a full kitchen clean-down.
- Price: menus from £75 per person, VAT and travel included. Travel is included, so distance changes the drive, not the price.
- Chef: Giuseppe Manzoli — 35+ years cooking professionally, trained in Italy, 220+ five-star Google reviews, cooked for the First Minister of Scotland in 2024.
Yes — I travel to Wester Ross, and I have cooked at Letterewe Lodge on the north shore of Loch Maree.
That is worth saying plainly, because most people planning a stay in this part of Scotland assume a private chef is not an option. The far north-west is a long way from anywhere. The nearest reliable restaurant is often an hour of single-track road away, and the good ones are booked out in season.
Which is exactly why a chef coming to the house makes more sense here than almost anywhere else in Scotland.
Loch Maree and Wester Ross
Loch Maree runs north-west through Wester Ross, between Slioch and the Torridon hills, with Beinn Eighe on its southern side. It is one of the least developed lochs in Scotland, and the estates and lodges along it are properly remote.
People come here for the landscape, the fishing, the walking and the silence. They do not come for the restaurant scene, and they do not want to spend an evening driving to find one.
What Changes When the Kitchen Is Remote
Cooking somewhere this far out is a planning job before it is a cooking job. Everything for the menu travels with me — produce, equipment, the specialist bits a dish needs. There is no popping out for something forgotten.
That is not a complaint. It is the reason it works. By the time I arrive, the evening has already been thought through end to end, which is not always true of a restaurant kitchen on a busy night.
What guests get is the thing they came to Wester Ross for in the first place: the view, the quiet, and no reason to leave the house.
Where I Cook in the North-West Highlands
Estate lodges, shooting lodges, cottages and self-catering houses across Wester Ross and the wider north-west — Loch Maree, Gairloch, Poolewe, Kinlochewe, Torridon, Ullapool and the surrounding glens. I also cook at Loch Ness, Inverness and throughout the Highlands.
Scottish produce. Italian craft. Cooked in the kitchen of the house you have already booked, served at its table, and the kitchen left as I found it.
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Questions About Private Chef Hire in Wester Ross
Do you really travel this far?
Yes. Wester Ross, Loch Maree, Torridon, Gairloch and the north-west coast are all covered. Travel is agreed as part of the quote before you book, so there are no surprises on the invoice.
Is it more expensive because of the distance?
Travel and time are factored into the quote, so a remote booking costs more than one an hour from Edinburgh. What does not change is the food, the service or the standard.
Can you cook in a lodge kitchen?
Yes. Estate and lodge kitchens vary enormously — some are excellent, some are a domestic oven and four rings. I ask about the kitchen in advance and build the menu around what is actually there.
What about produce so far from a town?
It travels with me. Sourcing is part of the job, and it is planned around the booking rather than around what a local shop happens to have that week.
How far ahead should we book?
For the north-west in summer and during the stalking and fishing seasons, as early as you can. Remote bookings take more planning, so more notice genuinely helps.
One Evening at Letterewe
A caprese, at a lodge on Loch Maree: tomato, mozzarella, basil, good oil. Three ingredients and nowhere at all to hide.
That is the test of this kind of cooking. In a restaurant you can bury a mediocre ingredient under technique. In someone else’s kitchen, at a table of eight who have been outside all day and are properly hungry, you cannot. The produce has to be right and the seasoning has to be right, and that is the whole dish.
If you are planning something similar, my full guide to private chef dining in Scottish self-catering houses, lodges and holiday cottages explains how an evening works, what it costs and what I need from the kitchen.