From the April issue of The Sunday Times Travel Magazine

Scotland’s second-largest island is a showstopper in anyone’s book: a millefeuille of 500-million-year-old geological history, decorated with jagged peaks, white-sand beaches, vast inky lochs wreathed in chiffon mist, and epic rock formations that look as if giants have upended the earth.

Yet, despite its formidable physicality, Skye is a land of the soul, where the wind carries no sound, and a sense of solitude reigns.Perhaps that’s why, amid all the poetry – and despite its spectacular assault on all the other senses – it’s never been particularly known for its food.

Filling your stomach the Skye way once meant a B&B fry-up and lashings of UHT milk. The island might have had the tempestuous beauty of an Elizabeth Taylor – but, in the latter part of the 20th century, it was fair to say that it had the cooking skills of one, too.

The Sunday Times Travel Magazine - December

Why family holiday luxury is a remote Scottish island

The Outer Hebrides: wild and beautiful

12 classic Scottish island stories

The travel editor at Times Online delves into the collection to choose his favourite recent features on the Scottish islands

It was all a long way from the experience of 18th-century literary greats Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, who came, sampled and raved about ‘admirable venison’ at Dunvegan Castle, as well as a ‘very cheerful evening’ at Ullinish Lodge in Struan.

But something primal and passionate has happened to the Misty Isle over the past decade or so: a rekindling of a love affair with its produce that has, slowly but surely, elevated it from culinary backwater to one of the UK’s most coveted dinner destinations.

The oddest thing, in fact, is that it took Skye so long to tap its natural larder, which is full of prime ingredients – from apples and asparagus to white currants and wild rocket, Highland beef and lamb to langoustine. (Along the way, there’s also been a flirtation with edible flowers, shiitake mushrooms, quails’ eggs and oysters.)

Even a bowl of steaming porridge at Bosville Hotel, in the little capital Portree, confuses me with its choice of toppings: nutmeg or cinnamon sugar, Skye heather honey or dark-chocolate curls – all accompanied by a lovely view of the harbour. It was a meal made for an appetite sharpened by harsh weather and ancient, uncompromising geography. This was breakfast in the new Skye mould. Simple, yet epic, and very satisfying – just the ingredients to kindle a love affair.

I’ve come to munch my way around the landscape, but before quality food, the landscape itself – in particular mountains – was the big tourist draw: the mighty Black Cuillin, some say Britain’s finest range, where the magnetic rock sends climbers’ compasses whirling; and the eerie Quiraing, where summits loom like battlements out of the clouds.

Climbers have been testing their mettle here since Victorians strode up the slopes with stiff-upper-lipped determination. The inclines still challenge today’s Gore-Tex brigade, who rest their legs afterwards at 19th-century Sligachan Hotel – the walkers’ bolthole, in the shadow of the peaks.

Beyond, the cloud-shrouded Glamaig mountain hosts an annual race from old Sligachan bridge, hundreds of metres up the slippery screes to the 775m summit and back. The inspiration comes from a challenge set by a 19th-century Skye laird to a visiting Gurkha. When the Gurkha came back in less than an hour, the laird didn’t believe he’d run the distance and made him do it again.

‘He did it even quicker – in 55 minutes. Barefoot!’ my driver Alan Wilson tells me. Alan has run the race himself a few times. ‘My best is one hour and 12, but even with training and fancy footwear, few beat the Gurkha’s time.’ I take his word for it, and decide to raise a glass to their sheer stamina. Here that means Talisker, Skye’s renowned whisky.

Times recommends

• The smart guide to travel blogging
• 30 top takes on New York
• Europe's 20 best Christmas markets 2009