A visit to Uig Lodge salmon smokery
Remember I wrote about the INCREDIBLE meal we had at Uig Sands when we visited the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides recently? Well on that same trip I visited Uig Lodge salmon smokery, which is also owned by the Green family. A massive thanks to Dickon (and his wife Elly who was left on her own with their four kids!) for letting me make an out of hours visit.
As a child Dickon Green spent every holiday at Uig Lodge, a fishing lodge overlooking the white sands of Uig Bay. It was owned by his father and uncle, Malcolm and Barry Green. In 1984, they established a smokery on site and began hand-producing some of the finest smoked salmon to be found in Scotland. Dickon took over the smokery in 2004, and propelled the business to even greater heights.
Uig Lodge Smoked Salmon is made using prime Scottish Atlantic salmon from RSPCA accredited farms, and cured using the traditional family recipe which takes at least two days. Each fish is treated individually and even the prevailing weather conditions at the time of the smoke are taken into consideration. The result is an outstanding smoked salmon that’s a world away from the mass-produced smoked salmon you find in supermarkets.
Just look at the view from the smokery window (below right)! I want my smoked salmon to come from somewhere that looks like that. Incidentally, if you watched the Freshwater episode of Wild Isles recently, some of those incredible salmon shots were filmed right there in Uig Bay!
Great - no, exquisite - Taste
Uig Lodge salmon has won many stars in the Guild of Fine Food’s annual Great Taste Awards, including the maximum three stars in 2011, 2013 and 2014. As a Great Taste judge, I know that being awarded three stars is rare; it is reserved for exquisite and extraordinarily tasty foods. I think it’s around 2% of products that are awarded three stars each year. In 2014 they also won ‘Speciality Producer of the Year’ and a coveted Golden Fork.
Accolades aside, the proof is in the pudding, as they say. And this is a pudding I want to eat more and more of. I remember eating a sun-ripened tomato in Italy and thinking, “oh, so THIS is how tomatoes are supposed to taste.” It was the same when I tried this smoked salmon. It is hand-sliced so comes in delicate sheets but they hold their shape nicely. The texture is buttery but not remotely fatty and the cure is perfectly balanced, resulting in a pleasingly mild oak smoked flavour. This is an extraordinary artisan product, and if I can only afford it as a Christmas treat, so be it!
Uig Lodge smoked salmon is hand packed and sent to private customers who buy online, and you’ll also find it served at a number of prestigious hotels and Michelin-starred restaurants across the UK.
Uig Lodge, Nr Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, HS2 9ET
