This life: MARK DONALD

Meet the Michelin-star chef from Torrance turning heads at The Glenturret Lalique

- Natasha Radmehr

Everything that’s great about Scotland is laid before me. The yawning expanse of Loch Turret, the reservoir in a Perthshire glen that supplies The Glenturret Distillery with fresh water for its world-famous whiskies. The brooding contours of Ben Chonzie, half-capped by a lingering mist. Barbecue smoke carrying on the breeze from the distillery’s boathouse, where the staff from one of the country’s most exciting kitchens, the Glenturret Lalique, are enjoying a day off, bantering as they grill Orkney scallops, juniper-smoked Islay oysters and Fullblood Highland Wagyu steaks. They don’t know it yet, but they’re about to find out they’ve retained their Michelin star for a second year running. Not bad for a restaurant that opened in the embers of a global pandemic.

If you haven’t heard of the head chef who led them here, you’d better familiarise yourself: he won’t be one of our best-kept secrets for much longer. I’m talking about Mark Donald, the 37-year-old from Torrance who started out as a pot washer in his teens at the Tickled Trout in Milngavie and six years later found himself training at what was then considered to be the best restaurant in the world, the three-starred Noma in Copenhagen. Noma offered him a job in 2010, but he turned it down to take a position back home with the late Andrew Fairlie.