"The journey to Burrastow House takes you through some of the most beautiful and breathtaking scenery of the British Isles. Heading west from Lerwick, the Islands capital, and once across the great green valley of Tingwall, you are confronted with visual superlatives at every turn. As you rise up over the great flanks of whiteness and weisdale, you can gaze down in awe over silvery voes, washed by the Cool Atlantic. Shetland sheep, with their fine wool graze unconcernedly on the heathery peat banks. The route winds on over rolling moor land and by silent lochs - stop awhile and you may be rewarded with the sight of a trout rising to the fly. Pass on through the small townships of Bixter and Walls and just when you think the road is going to run out, there is a signpost which points, almost skywards, towards Burrastow ...

For the visitor coming to this idyllic location, the journey is a dramatic introduction to what will be an equally exciting and gastronomic experience. At a time when more and more of the food we eat is shipped hundreds of miles from anonymous, industrial kitchens, Burrastow House has earned consistent praise for a cuisine based on the natural and seasonal larder found in Shetland. Bo Simmons delights in using what the sea will yield, the land and the garden will provide. She may have to juggle her menus to cope with capricious weather, but always there is respect in the kitchen for those precious raw materials - good, fresh food deserves an uncomplicated approach. It is an approach which has not changed since the time I first met Bo to make a film for Scotland's Larder - megrims, squid, haddock and succulent prawns were all magically combined with tomatoes and herbs from the garden to make her own memorable version of bouillabaisse. This collection of over eighty dishes which are part of the Burrastow repertoire are selected from ten years accumulated experience and patient jottings made by Bo and her husband Henry, in a very busy yet homely kitchen."

Michael Marshall