Golf clubs aren’t especially known for their culinary prowess. A good bacon sandwich or fish and chips yes, but they’re not where you’d expect to find things such as homemade pastries, venison schnitzel and Vietnamese coffee. But this is what you’ll find, and more, if you visit Rothes Golf Club in Speyside.
It’s now home to Right to Roam, a pop-up food van and private catering business from chef Ed Barnard, which opened in this location, in early May.
Ed previously worked in marketing in London before training at Ballymaloe in Ireland and in different kitchens in London (including Rose Bakery at Dover Street Market and Albertine wine bar), before moving to Aberlour with his wife and their three children. “The plan was always to move up here as it’s where my wife’s family business is,” he said, “the idea was, when I started cooking, to come up here and start something I really care about. I’d been in sales and marketing and I didn’t want to continue in that repping capacity. There was always half an eye on cooking here but with no idea how it’d work out.”
Work out it has. What started as Ed cooking ‘things he missed from London’ in the family kitchen during covid, has resulted in Right to Roam’s most popular bake, the cinnamon buttery. “During Covid I was missing some things that I couldn't get, like sourdough and various bits and pieces," he said.
"I started cooking in my kitchen in Aberlour, and that enabled me to start playing with ideas. I wanted to make a Cuban sandwich, and I thought that a buttery would make an excellent vessel for a Cuban sandwich - so I started making butteries.”
Because the traditional buttery is quite flat, and not designed to be part of a sandwich, Ed tweaked his buttery dough recipe, which got him thinking of other creations. He explained: “Danish rolls are really big in London so I just thought that this dough would take some cinnamon (to make it similar to a cinnamon roll) and it worked. It’s something that people really enjoy though I’ve had a few rows from some traditionalists.”
Armed with his sourdough, butteries and Vietnamese coffee (a strong but sweet drink often served cold, an idea Ed thought would work given “people want strong, sweet coffee and it’s the perfect strong, sweet coffee.”) Ed set up Right to Roam in a van in Craigellachie with a sign that said ‘cold coffee and burnt bread’ - a fun marketing ploy that created a ‘bit of a thing’.
The pop-up gained a following, as has Ed’s private catering work - “because I'm South African, I seem to be called when people want to do cooking over a fire” he said. Now, Right to Roam has a permanent home in Rothes Golf club - named Tee and Coffee - serving a short menu of breakfast items and savoury items such as kimcheese toasties, South African sausage rolls, soups, and venison schnitzel rolls.
In the early days of Right to Roam Ed also made rocky road, and cheese and marmite butteries, but now, in Rothes, you’ll find the cinnamon butteries and a savoury egg and bacon version. He’s also serving white and black coffee (as well as the Vietnamese style) with the coffee coming from Cairngorm Coffee.
Not so fresh from the Spirit of Speyside whisky festival, I popped in for a coffee and chat, and ended up leaving having eaten a soft, not too sweet and delicately scented cinnamon buttery, a chunky meat sausage roll which had a hint of sweetness thanks to a kind of apple sauce coating inside the pastry (Ed explained that this recipe was devised in collaboration with the local butcher) and a freshly made venison schnitzel burger - crispy, thin slices of lean meat served with pickled cabbage and dressed salad in a morning roll, with a side of piping hot chips, which had been liberally covered with a garlic sauce.
While there, two young guys also had the schnitzel, calling it ‘bangin’ - high praise indeed. As for bacon rolls? Ed explained that he offers the usual golf club fayre, saying “the ultimate aim of hospitality is to make people feel comfortable. You can either do that by surprising them and exciting them or you can reassure them, and if bacon roll is the reassuring thing, then that’s what we’ll make.”
Ed has plans to offer an evening menu, and host community events, which he explained saying: “I want to do big community barbecues, a bit like, imagine after church in Texas, with lots of people with a load of mac and cheese and that kind of thing.
"I feel like this is the first time that I've actually had a kitchen that I can offer service from because the Craigellachie pavilion (where the Right to Roam van was located) was literally a changing room. I can see this being an obvious choice for big family celebrations ,anniversaries and weddings.”
If I hadn’t eaten so much for breakfast, and wasn’t due to be on the road again that day, I’d have happily continued to sit outside in the sunshine, soak up the beautiful valley views, and continue to graze my way around the menu. It may be an unlikely location for such culinary treats, but it’s well worth popping in to try the best of this pop-up.
