The Joy of Taste at 25 Church Street, Inverness is one of my parents favourite restaurants. The food is something special and my Dad was particularly enamoured with a spherical wobbly whiskey glass he was served his malt in!
The Joy of Taste is a bit different from the usual restaurants you find in the highlands. It’s a joint venture where all 25 members of staff are volunteers. They each work one shift a week, share in the profits and eat and drink for free.
The food is fantastic and you can tell there is an award winning chef at the helm. To start I had a beautiful twice baked Isle of Mull cheddar souffle with a parmesan crust. It was very tasty and I’m afraid I was so excited I forgot to take a photograph. Next I had a pan roasted seabass fillet on a bed of courgette and vermicelli noodles. I had never tasted vermicelli noodles before and was surprised to see they were almost like prawn crackers, contrasting nicely with the seabass. For desert Mum and I shared a chocolate and caramel marquise on a bed of pistachio sponge pudding with a strawberry compote which was lovely.
My three courses came to a total of £27.65 (without drinks) which I thought was very reasonable considering the standard of the food. Joy of Taste offer 25% off a la carte prices except on Fridays and Saturday’s after 6.30pm if you order at least two courses and dining in the middle of the week meant this was something we were able to take advantage of.