The Royal Scotsman leaves Edinburgh in the early afternoon and does not hurry. In 2026 its dining car belongs to two of Scotland's most decorated chefs, and the country arrives one plate at a time.
The train sits at Edinburgh Waverley in the early afternoon, nine mahogany carriages long. Thirty-six guests board, which is fewer than most restaurants seat in a single service. The doors close and the city gives way to the Forth, then to the hills, and the pace settles at something close to a country walk.
Belmond calls this Slow Luxury. On the Royal Scotsman it means the window does the work. Heather, water, a stag on a ridge, the long light of a northern summer. The Observation Car at the rear opens to the air, and the track behind you unspools toward the horizon while the whisky comes round.
The series
For 2026 the train runs a Tastes of Scotland Culinary Series across three journeys, each handed to a chef who has spent a career arguing for Scottish produce. The premise is simple. The larder outside the window is the menu, and the kitchen is a galley moving through it at twenty miles an hour.
The produce is the point. Langoustine landed on the west coast that morning. Roe deer from the estates the train passes. Raspberries, girolles, Highland beef hung and aged. What would travel hundreds of miles to reach a city table is instead a few fields away, and the chefs plan their courses around what the route can hand them.
The Royal Scotsman, A Belmond Train — Courtesy of Belmond
Two chefs
Tom Kitchin takes his journey through the Highlands under the banner he has used for years at The Kitchin, his Michelin-starred room in Leith. Nature to plate, cooked with French method and Scottish weather. He hosts a two-night run, then joins the guests in the Observation Car afterward for music and a farewell dram, which tends to be the loudest night of any Royal Scotsman trip.
Lorna McNee brings the other kitchen. A protege of the late Andrew Fairlie, she took Cail Bruich in Glasgow to a Michelin star within months of arriving, and remains the only woman heading a starred kitchen in Scotland. She was Champion of Champions on Great British Menu before that. Her cooking is precise and quietly Scottish, built on game, coast and season.
The kitchen is the size of a wardrobe and the pantry is the size of a country.
The Splendid EditThe carriages
Between meals the train is a small house in motion. State Cabins are panelled in wood and dressed in tartan, each with a private bathroom and a window that changes by the minute. There is a spa carriage run in partnership with Dior, where treatments happen as the Highlands slide past the glass, a detail that feels absurd until you are lying in it.
Dinner is black tie most nights, and no one minds. The two dining cars seat everyone at once, and by the second evening the room knows itself. Stops come for a distillery, a castle, a walled garden, a stretch of coast, then the train gathers everyone back and moves on.
The pace
There is a case against a train like this, and it is the same case against any grand journey. You could fly to Inverness and drive. You could eat at The Kitchin in a single evening and be home by midnight. The train answers by refusing to be quick about anything, which is exactly what it is selling.
The Tastes of Scotland journeys run through the 2026 season. They are the rare kind of dinner reservation that comes with a bed, a moving view, and a country delivered to the plate the long way round. Book through belmond.com.
The Royal Scotsman, A Belmond Train, runs its Tastes of Scotland Culinary Series across three journeys in 2026, with chefs including Tom Kitchin and Lorna McNee. Departures from Edinburgh Waverley. Details at belmond.com.
Photography courtesy of Belmond — © Belmond, Royal Scotsman, A Belmond Train