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THE GUIDE TO FIFE’S FOOD & DRINK

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Introduction The Fife Larder Published by The List Ltd in association with SFQC Editor Donald Reid Editorial assistance Gemma Elwin Harris, Anna Millar, Andrea Pearson, Claire Ritchie, Natalya Wells Writing and research John Cooke, Ronald Kerr, Kirsten McKenzie, David Pollock, Donald Reid, Christopher Trotter, Natalya Wells, Robin Wu Design & Production Simon Armin Sales Brigid Kennedy, Juliet Tweedie, Aimi Gold, Suzanne Robertson Publisher Robin Hodge Project director Peter Brown (SFQC) ©2010 The List Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of The List Ltd.

Published by The List Ltd 14 High Street Edinburgh EH1 1TE Tel: 0131 550 3050 Fax: 0131 557 8500 www.list.co.uk Extensive efforts have been made to ensure the accuracy of the information in this publication, however the publishers can accept no responsibility for any errors it may contain.

hen it comes to food, Fife has a great deal going for it. Bounded to north, east and south by sea – still a provider of much-sought-after shellfish in particular – it has a fertile interior growing cereals, vegetables and superb summer and autumn fruit. It has fields with livestock, hills with game, forests with wild food and gardens with orchards. Diverse communities from the university town of St Andrews to the old mining villages of West Fife support local bakers, butchers and icecream makers, many of which have been in family hands for generations. Tourists come for its golf and history, scenery and culture, helping to support a hospitality trade that’s frequently an ambassador for the larder on their doorstep.

The Fife Larder is a guide to all of this. It aims to tell you about the food of Fife and where to find it, from seasonal farm stalls to restaurants of international renown. Here you will find stories and profiles, history and innovation, everyday staples and indulgent treats, culinary insight and lots of inspiration. If you’ve never before considered food as culture, tuck in.

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Acknowledgments Thanks for their commitment and contributions to the project go to Toby Anstruther, Vivien Collie and Jimmy Wilson of the Fife Food Network, Katrina Hynd at SFQC, as well as all those involved with Celebrating Fife 2010 at Fife Council. In addition to the contributors named elsewhere, we are grateful to David Scott of Links Media in Cupar for providing text and images on the Tay Salmon Fishery.

The Fife Larder is part of and supported by 'Celebrating Fife 2010' Fife Council's year of cultural celebration. For more information go to www.fifedirect.org.uk/2010

FEEDBACK To correct or update any information contained in the Fife Larder, or to provide comments or feedback, contact fifelarder@list.co.uk, or write to the Editor, Fife Larder, c/o The List, 14 High St, Edinburgh EH1 1TE

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Contents www.list.co.uk

What’s in the Fife Larder?

There’s a lot packed into these 48 pages. Here are a few of the highlights

Seafood

Oatcakes

Find out about Fife’s fishing heritage and some of the tasty shellfish that’s landed in the East Neuk. See pages 18–20.

Baking is one of the region’s great traditions, and some of Scotland’s finest oatcakes are made by hand in the county.

See pages 10-11.

Eating up the Fife Coastal Path

Fruit

The Fife Coastal Path is one of Scotland’s most spectacular long distance hiking trails. Local chef Christopher Trotter offers some tips on turning it into a gastronomic pilgrimage. See page 24.

Summer soft fruits, autumn apples and all sorts of currants and berries are a Fife speciality. See pages 14–17.

4 The Fife Larder

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Contents

Ice-cream

Farmers’ Markets

Whether it’s an old Italian recipe or an exciting new flavour, it’s hard to resist the region’s ice-cream. See page 12.

Every week at one of four locations around the county many of Fife’s finest small farmers and suppliers gather to sell their produce direct to the public. See page 46.

Chefs’ Choices Some of Fife’s top chefs offer an insight into their favourite local food. See panels from page 27 onwards.

Where to Buy

Where to Eat

Our listings of the best delis, butchers, bakers, fishmongers, farm shops and food specialists. Starts on page 26.

Over 40 great places to eat out across Fife.

Starts on page 35.

Introduction Features Where to Buy Where to Eat Farmers’ Markets etc Index

3 6 26 35 46 47 The Fife Larder 5

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Farming in Fife www.list.co.uk

From field to fork For those who love their meat, but like to know where it comes from, Fife is fertile territory, as John Cooke discovers

or at least a decade now, Fife farmers have been finding a way to market that has avoided the high-volume supermarket route and reduced the food miles between field and fork.

Typical of this movement are smallscale, family farmers such as Jim and Jennifer Wilson of Balhelvie Farm in North Fife.

For them, it all started very close to home. ‘For as long as we can remember, we always had a beast butchered for our freezer,’ says Jim Wilson. ‘The combination of the Aberdeen Angus breed and having it hung on the bone for three weeks was far superior to anything the supermarkets could do.’

When friends asked to share that taste, production grew. A hand-made sign at the end of the farm road and a few flyers

F

6 The Fife Larder

in a local hair salon spread the word further. Soon, lamb was added to their offering. Selling direct from the farm or, from 2002, at Fife farmers’ markets, meant they could tell their full story. And it was a timely moment to do just that.

‘Some customers had been turned off from eating beef by all the problems surrounding BSE,’ says Wilson. ‘Not knowing the origin of supermarket meat, they were interested in speaking to a local producer about how our animals are fed and how their welfare is looked after.’

Like many of Fife’s small producers, Balhelvie’s cattle and sheep graze in the fields for most of their lives. Grass elsewhere on the farm is made into silage and hay to cope with the winter months, as is barley and fodder beet. The animals are allowed to develop naturally, and not pushed to fatten quickly.

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Farming in Fife

When the time comes for slaughter, the small-scale nature of the process means far less stress for the animals.

Rather than sharing a large truck on a journey to a live auction market or faraway abattoir, one or two beasts go quietly in the back of a trailer, often accompanied by the person who has cared for them from birth, to a small local slaughterhouse. Thus, stress is minimised and meat quality preserved.

The next stage in the process is equally important. Balhelvie beef is then matured on the bone for at least three weeks. As the meat shrinks and dries, the flavour develops and deepens, while enzymes break down muscle fibres to produce a tender piece of meat with the classic look of dark-hued, fat-marbled Aberdeen Angus.

If your penchant is for pork, the name to know in Fife is Puddledub. Behind the range of fresh cuts, dry-cured bacon, hams, burgers and sausages from Clentrie Farm by Auchtertool, not far from Kirkcaldy, is Tom Mitchell. He is one of the founding fathers of the farmers’ market movement in Fife and remembers the sunny September day in 2000 when he began to sell his Duroc/White cross pig products direct to the public. ‘Selling my pigs into the commodity market down in Yorkshire was not economical for a small farm like ours. The farmers’ market meant I could go direct and tell people our story.’Today, Puddledub is going from strength to strength, with new kitchens on the farm primed to produce a full range of cooked pork products and charcuterie.

On the same farm, Tom’s nephew Steve created his own splash on the Fife food scene when he introduced a herd of water buffalo in 2005. Farmed on the hills around Camilla Loch, this unique meat has one of the lowest cholesterol, fat and calorific values of any meat. To get up close and personal with one of Steve’s gentle beasts, he’s offering farm tours where you can see the 400 or so buffalo out on the green hills of Fife. You certainly can’t get closer to your food than that.

> A ROUND UP OF FIELD TO FORK PRODUCERS OF MEAT IN FIFE The majority of the producers listed here sell their meat at Fife’s farmers’ markets, local farm shops and/or directly from the farm ■ Ardross

Farm Traditionally reared beef. See Where to Buy p.26

■ Balgove

Larder Luing cattle from Strathtyrum Estate. See p.26

■ Balhelvie

Farm Newburgh, 01337 870229, www.balhelvie.co.uk See feature opposite.

■ Brewsters

Newburgh, 01337 840248 Locally reared poultry and eggs are also produced in Fife.

■ Craigluscar

Farm Dunfermline, 01383 727222, www.craigluscarfarm.co.uk Brenda Irvine supplies meat from her small herd of naturally fed Highlanders direct to customers from the farm-gate, as well as delivering (details on website).

■ Dalachy

Farm Aberdour, 01383 860196, www.dalachybeef.co.uk Brothers Tom and Watson Inglis have an Aberdeen Angus herd and a flock of Dalachy Texel sheep on their farm on the south-facing hillsides outside Aberdour.

■ Fletchers

of Auchtermuchty Farmed venison. See p.8

■ The

Game Cart Game birds. See p.31

■ Kilduncan

Eggs

by St Andrews, 01334 880515, www.kilduncaneggs.co.uk Free range hen, duck and quails’ eggs.

■ Langraw

Farm St Andrews, 01334 473061 Mairi Finlayson and her husband John have a small herd of Highland cattle on their farm from which they supply the local farmers’ market.

■ Peacehill

Turkeys Wormit, 01382 541783, www.peacehill.co.uk Free-range Christmas Turkeys.

■ Puddledub

Buffalo & Auchertool Angus 01333 351245, www.puddledubbuffalo.co.uk See feature opposite, and entry under S. Mitchell of Puddledub in Where to Buy, p.33

■ Puddledub

Pork Auchertool, 01592 780246, www.puddledub.co.uk See feature opposite.

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Fletchers’ deer farm www.list.co.uk

> GROWING THE NEXT GENERATION OF FARMERS In the fertile surrounds of Cupar Muir, just south of Cupar, is a small, organic farm with a difference. College Farm’s main function is to train students from Fife’s Elmwood College, teaching organic and free-range animal husbandry and agriculture to tomorrow’s farmers.

Andrew Todd, Section Manager of Land-based Studies, explains: ‘We use the farm to build organic farming into the National Certificate course in Agriculture.

We keep Aberdeen Angus cattle and mixed-breed sheep – Suffolk crosses, Texel crosses and Mules.

Crops are barley, and grass and oats, which means the animals’ feed is mainly homegrown.’ In addition, an organic orchard with heritage varieties has been planted.

When it comes to training the chefs and hospitality staff of tomorrow, courses are run at both Elmwood and Adam Smith College, whose chef teams are active nationally and internationally in competitions and demos. For more on Elmwood’s Fairways restaurant, see p.40 ■ www.elmwood.ac.uk 8 The Fife Larder

Monarchs of ‘Muchty Venison isn’t an obvious meat for the rolling farmland of Fife, but in the northeast of the county there is a deer farm with much to offer sustainable, humane agriculture, finds Donald Reid

uchtermuchty can be hard to pronounce without a bit of practice, though it’s famous enough as the home town of accordionist Sir Jimmy Shand, popstars the Proclaimers and, to anyone tuned into inspiring Scottish food stories, John and Nichola Fletcher, who farm deer on the edge of the Pitmedden Forest in the hills above the town.

In spending five years studying wild deer on the island of Rum in the early 1970s, John, one of the country’s few specialist deer vets, observed that deer seemed perfectly content in enclosures.

This led to the Fletchers establishing the first deer farm in Britain in 1973, and ever since they have been inspiring advocates for venison, and a system of farming, that is remarkably selfcontained, humane and sustainable.

The red deer live contentedly among the native broadleaves of the farm, feeding on hay, local potatoes and grass;

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at 200m above sea level, grass is about all that grows well on the farm. Deer are naturally lean and fit animals requiring little or no treatment or intervention.

Rather than having to take the animals to an abattoir, the Fletchers have a special licence to allow the animals to be shot as they graze. This means they are killed in prime condition at 18 to 27 months without stress to the animal (nor, research has shown, distress to deer nearby). By contrast, the age and condition of the animal is less easy to control with wild venison, and the killing can be less precise.

With the carcasses being hung and butchered on the premises, the tiny 30 hectare farm supports five employees. It also means that the food miles only start when the Fletchers set off to one of their local farmers’ markets, or you leave with some fine cuts of the dark, flavoursome meat in the boot of your car.

■ For contact details, see p.30

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‘Simple good food and wine’

Open 7 Days: Lunch - 12:00 to 2:00pm Dinner - 6:30 to 9:00pm

THE WEE RESTAURANT 17 Main Street, North Queensferry - 01383 61 62 63 www.theweerestaurant.co.uk

...for food lovers!

Ardross Farm Shop . Elie . Fife . KY9 1EU Tel: 01333 331400 . Web: www.ardrossfarm.co.uk . Email: info@ardrossfarm.co.uk Open 7 days . On the A917 between Elie and St.Monans

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Artisan bread and oatcakes www.list.co.uk

Making a meal of oats Fife has a long history of growing oats, and its bakers make the most of it. Robin Wu found out why Fife’s oatcakes are a cut above ats thrive in a cold, damp climate and so it comes as no surprise that they have long been a staple food in Fife, and Scotland in general.

Indeed oats, inseparably entwined with Scotland’s culinary heritage, were, and still are, held in high esteem.

Whether it’s porridge, crowdie, skirlie, or haggis; mixed with blood and spices in puddings, used as a coating for herring or, of course, making oatcakes, many traditional recipes involve the humble oat. Scottish writer and culinary historian F Marian McNeill tells us that: ‘Oatcakes are especially good with herrings, sardines, cheese, curds, buttermilk, broth and kail; or spread with butter and marmalade to complete the breakfast.’

Taste aside, the sustaining and healthgiving properties of oats and oatcakes are also now extolled. Their high content of complex carbohydrate and soluble fibre provide a prolonged energy release – properties no doubt valued by the Scottish foot-soldiers of the past who would carry them in their knapsacks.

O > NOT JUST ANY OLD IRON Scottish cooking owes a big thank you to the Fife town of Culross on the Forth. The flat, iron girdle (Scots for ‘griddle’) pans forged here were one of the two essential cooking implements (the other being the stock pot) for classic Scots baking recipes. In fact, thanks to a Royal Charter from King James IV in 1599, Culross had the monopoly on production for the whole country. The blacksmiths of Culross, fuelled by local coal, turned out vast number of girdle pans for Scots to cook their bannocks, scones and oatcakes. So widespread was the Culross pan that many a parent warned their offspring that ‘I’ll gar yer lugs ring like a Culross girdle’.

(John Cooke)

10 The Fife Larder

They are also rich in folic acid and other vitamins and minerals, including zinc and thiamine. Perhaps all this, in tandem with the current interest in rediscovering the local and regional, contributes to their increasing popularity.

Adamson’s Bakery of Pittenweem has been baking their renowned oatcakes since 1887. In 1935, they moved into the premises which they still occupy today, although the old front shop is now gone and the focus has shifted from general baking to making only the Pittenweem oatcakes. These are supplied to cheese shops (such as Iain Mellis in Edinburgh and Glasgow and Neal’s Yard Dairy in London) as well as specialist food shops around the UK. The recipe was created by the late Ken Adamson’s grandmother Agnes and it remains unchanged to this day. The simple and few ingredients include stone ground oatmeal, wheat flour from the local Hutchinson’s mill, shortening (nonhydrogenated), baking powder and seasonings. The dough is hand-kneaded

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Artisan bread and oatcakes

in a dusting of oats then rolled out with a bakers pin and cut into its distinctive triangles. These are baked in traditional ovens, with stone floors, which date back to the 1930s. The resulting oatcakes are thick, crumbly and a little sweet with a rustic, hand-made feel: a great partner for cheeses, honey or just butter.

Adamson’s are not the only ones making hand-made oatcakes with a distinctive Fife character; relative newcomer, the Your Piece Baking Company is also offering a range of oatcakes and other oat-related baking.

Owner Dan Connelly has worked with traditional Fife bakers Fisher & Donaldson to create what could be considered to be a more contemporary range of biscuits, albeit one that is still rooted firmly in its local baking heritage.

There is an emphasis on hand-making, using locally grown Fife oats, and the distinctive triangular ‘Fife Cut’.

Alongside traditional oatcakes, they also offer a ‘porridge oatcake’ using rolled oats, adding a juiciness and fruity flavour to the final product. Oatmeal shortbread is another of Connelly’s oat-based products, with a quantity of oatmeal mixed into the traditional flour, sugar and butter mixture.

■ Adamson’s Bakery, Pittenweem (no shop), 01333 311336 ■ www.yourpiecebakingcompany.com

> REDISCOVERING REAL BREAD Very little artisan, additive-free bread is made in Fife, a fact that prompted husband and wife team Matthew Roberts and Zillah Scott to establish the Steamie Bakehouse in Dunfermline in 2009.

Still very much a DIY, experimental operation based in a shed in their garden, they are in the process of converting what used to be a communal ‘steamie’ wash-house for their tenement building into an industrial baking space. Once this is completed there might be scope for distribution beyond the local Reuben’s Deli (see p.44), but for now people outside the local area can take inspiration from the recipes posted on their website and blog.

Directly encouraging a local community relationship to food, Steamie has set up a Bread Club in collaboration with the Fife Diet initiative, with a large order of loaves being delivered weekly to one address in Burntisland and collected from there by participating neighbours and friends.

Also recently under way in Fife is another bread club scheme set up by Cupar-based bakers Fisher & Donaldson to encourage people to try various styles of bread, including dark German ryes, traditional sour doughs and flavoured breads.

■ www.steamiebakehouse.com; www.thebreadclub.co.uk

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Ice-cream www.list.co.uk

Big Licks

JIMMY WILSON

Natalya Wells reports on the long and colourful history of icecream in Fife

Given that it’s not the warmest country in the world, Scotland has a surprising number of excellent ice-cream producers. This trend was established as early as the 1880s, when Italians began traveling to Scotland for work to escape poverty at home. Originally the shops were conceived as basic convenience stores or chip shops, but with an ingrained knowledge of the excellent ice-cream back home, migrant workers introduced mouth-watering ‘gelato’ to the Scots.

A relationship with the Scottish community is crucial to the identity of many ice-cream parlours in Fife. The Fusaro family is a prime example – Vince, who oversees the ice-cream production at Luvians, explains how ‘independent-thinking Italians wanted to spread out when they arrived to make their mark.’ Selling ice-cream was very much a way of giving back something to the locals.

Inevitably, it must have been difficult to adjust to a new environment. Marta, Vince’s daughter explains that although proud of their heritage, her grandparents had a strong sense of awareness of being in someone else’s country. This resulted in an eagerness to blend in, learn English quickly and then to provide for the town.

Until late into the twentieth century, every town in Fife boasted an independent ice-cream maker.

Making artisan ice-cream involves a lot of hard work, and almost inevitably the number of parlours

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has diminished.

For Bennett Jannetta, who had a shop in St Andrews, dual national identity resulted in his son, Charlie, being interned during the Second World War. However a will to keep going rubbed off on succeeding generations, resulting in such fond regard for Fife ice-cream institutions. Jannettas is now in its fifth generation, though current owners Nicola and Owen are, foremost, products of their Scottish background.

Recently, a new strand of ice-cream makers has emerged from dairy farmers who have seen it as a means to diversify. Ryan and Lynne at Nelson’s of Culross used this opportunity creatively, and have made an effort to distinguish their ice-cream from those of the long-established shops with unusual and more British flavours (ginger crunch and nip o’whisky among them). There is no real issue of competition among such local producers; the main worry over the years has been that people won’t travel for quality when they can get so much from supermarkets. However, despite the popularity of American-style chunky, bitty flavours, it is telling that for independent Fife producers, the most popular styles are still the classics, indicating that sticking with tradition may be the way forward.

■ For details of Luvians, Jannettas and other Fife icecream shops, see Where to Buy, from p.26 ■ www.nelsonsofculrossicecream.com

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Anster cheese

A Way with Curds Fife’s only artisan cheese has very quickly become one of the region’s headline food acts, as Donald Reid reports ight from the start, cheese seemed an obvious option.

There was nobody else in Fife making cheese from their own milk on the farm; there seemed to be public demand for, and interest in, locally produced food; and last, but not least, we love cheese.’

As Jane Stewart of Falside Farm on the gentle grassy acres rising up above Anstruther indicates, traditional artisan cheese is a very contemporary option. With family-sized dairy farming becoming a tenuous occupation, Stewart took her first steps in making cheese on a course at Reading University and was mentored by a retiring Welsh cheesemaker, Leon Downey. A brand new cheese dairy, complete with viewing gallery, and attached coffee shop, was constructed beside Falside farmhouse in 2007 and the first cheeses were sold in 2008.

With no particular local traditions to draw upon, Stewart developed her cheese with similarities to the farmhouse cheeses of south-west England that had inspired her as she learned the cheesemakers’ art. The company also decided just to concentrate initially on a single style, a pressed hard

‘R

cheese with a creamy white colour, a slightly crumbly texture, a citrusy freshness and a full-flavoured finish. The milk used is unpasteurised, from husband Robert’s herd of Holstein Friesian cows, and the cheese-making process is essentially traditional, with cast-iron presses wound down in stages. The cheese can be eaten as young as eight weeks, probably finds its optimum maturity at four to six months, but also has adherents of the flavour R ‘ANSTEUND when it’s aged for ten or more O F S HA OUR months. The name, Anster FAV SS (pronounced ‘Ain-ster’) is the ACRO ND’ locals’ colloquial shortening SCOTLA of Anstruther.

Local baker GH Barnett now makes a cheese oatcake with Anster, it’s used in cheese scones served at the farm and it has found favour quite extensively across Scotland, notably in branches of IJ Mellis Cheesemongers.

More cheeses will follow: there’s now a red version of the standard Anster, flavoured with garlic and herbs, and other styles are being planned.

■ St Andrews Farmhouse Cheese, p.38 The Fife Larder 13

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Farm Shops www.list.co.uk

Food from the farm Fife boasts a number of high-quality farm shops unmatched in such a concentrated area anywhere else in Scotland. David Pollock found out what gives them such appeal > BEEKEEPING IN FIFE With studies showing a significant loss of bees in the UK over the last two decades, the pressure to save the nation’s honeymakers is on, especially after 2009’s cool damp summer and sharp winter. The Beekeeping Association in Fife has existed for nearly a century, but in the last few years has seen a continual rise in membership numbers, making it one of Scotland’s largest, as interest in apiculture has grown.

Throughout the county, the association offers lessons for beginners and ‘hands on’ sessions making frames or learning how to detect disease. The aim is to support any local beekeepers, whether they have one hive or twenty.

■ www.fifebeekeepers .co.uk. Fife honey is occasionally sold in small batches in local farm shops and at farmers’ markets.

14 The Fife Larder

eople like to see where their food is produced,’ says Duncan Stewart, manager of Falkland’s Pillars of Hercules farm. ‘Here you can see things growing in the fields and put a face to the person who’s producing the food, which means a lot more than just looking at a label in a supermarket and seeing where it’s from.’ He may well be right, but does this collective desire to get back to nature wholly account for the energetic diversification of many Fife farms with shops, cafés and even childrens play areas in recent years?

Treina Samson, manager of the shop and café at Balmalcolm’s family run Muddy Boots farm, gives another plausible reason.

‘P

‘We predominantly used to grow raspberries for supermarkets,’ she says, ‘but we were losing money on the terms they offered. One year we had the most amazing crop, but the weather wasn’t great and the supermarkets dropped their orders. So we ended up selling our raspberries in a tent at the side of the road.’ A little over two years ago, Muddy Boots stopped supplying supermarkets to concentrate on stocking their own shop.

The farm has also diversified their crop, and now grow asparagus, rhubarb and a range of soft fruits, including their Tulameen raspberries. ‘It’s a gorgeous fruit,’ says Samson, ‘but its shape means it tends to collapse quickly.’ So its taste is matched

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Farm Shops

> FIFE’S FANTASTIC FARM SHOPS (For fuller details, see Listings pages 26 to 44) ■ Allanhill Farm

shop, café ■ Ardross Farm Shop

shop ■ Blacketyside Farm

by the shortness of its shelf-life. Farm it.’This includes fruit, vegetables, plants and shops, in other words, offer a freshness that free range eggs. supermarkets just can’t replicate.

It all emphasises the point that ‘Supermarkets are cheap,’ says running a farm shop is just as hard Euan Cameron of Dairsie’s work as running a farm, albeit in E W ‘ Pittormie Farm, a smaller, different ways. Many have to P U D ENDE G OUR eke every single use out of the cottage-sized shop, ‘but they’re N I L L SE cheap for a reason. We find that S IN space available, whether it’s as BERRIEENT’ people don’t mind paying a few a tearoom or a play area, and AT extra pennies for eggs that are a few it’s long hours of hands-on work, days old rather than a few weeks.’ not just for the farmers but Pittormie is another farm which is selfincreasing pools of staff. ‘It’s much more sustaining, growing exclusively for sale in rewarding to run a business like this,’ says their own shop. Although they’ve Samson. ‘Not just to avoid the pressure of occasionally bought in supplies from supplying big companies, but to see elsewhere, like beef from Puddledub, their customers buying our raspberries, trying motto is ‘if we can’t grow it, we don’t sell them and telling us that they love them.’

Shop shop, café, kids’ play ■ Cairnie Fruit Farm shop, café, kids’ play, PYO (pick your own) ■ Fordelhill Farm shop ■ Muddy Boots Farm Shop shop, café, kids’ play, PYO ■ Pillars of Hercules Organic Farm Shop shop, café, farm walks ■ Pittormie Fruit Farm and Nursery shop, PYO Temporary roadside stalls selling fruit can be found across Fife during the berry season. There are also farm shops just over the Fife border in Perth & Kinross region: Loch Leven’s Larder by Milnathort, Lochend Farm Shop near Scotlandwell, and Jamesfield Organic Centre by Abernethy.

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Heritage orchards www.list.co.uk

Fruitful Fife

In a country where we assume that most of our fruit is flown in from abroad, Newburgh’s orchards prove that there’s bounty to be found much closer to hand.

John Cooke took the plum assignment here is a very rare pear tree in Newburgh, on the banks of the Tay estuary. Called the Lindores pear, it’s rooted in the twelfth-century world of Tironensian monks who founded Lindores Abbey just beside the town.

The monks were responsible for the first orchards in the area and today the numerous fruit trees growing in many of Newburgh’s backyards are the living, fruiting link to those monastic days.

All of Newburgh’s trees were professionally surveyed in 2003, revealing close to 1000 mature plum, apple and pear trees, including unusual varieties such as the Lindorsii pear and the Guthrie Taybank plum.

With so many trees, there was always a lot of fruit come the end of summer and no real outlet for such a valuable

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> APPLE DAYS ■ Newburgh Plum Market Last Saturday in August and the first two in September.

■ Newburgh Apple and Pear Market Last Saturday in September and the first two in October.

■ Lochore Meadows Country Park Apple Day Saturday 16th October ■ Falkland Palace Apple Day Sunday 17th October Useful websites: ■ www.newburgh orchards.org.uk ■ www.fifecoastand countrysidetrust.co.uk ■ www.nts.org.uk/ Property/93/ (Falkland Palace.)

■ www.fifedirect.org.uk (Lochore Meadows and Balmullo Flower Show.)

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community asset. Formed in 2004, the Newburgh Orchards Group looked at what could be done. Conversations with local growers blossomed into a series of sales days at which local fruit, as well as jam, and a little locally grown veg, could be offered.

The six Saturdays in late summer/ early autumn have proved to be very popular, with typically many hundreds of pounds of fruit and pots of home-made jam and chutney selling out in under two hours. Buyers come from far beyond the town boundaries, with at least one fruit fan taking two buses from Perthshire to load up with fruit such as Newburgh’s distinctive, yellow-hued plum. The enthusiasts of the Newburgh Orchard Group run pruning workshops to keep the fruit flowing from healthy trees and there are plans to broaden local skills to

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Heritage orchards

include the art of grafting in order to preserve some of the area’s ancient stocks.

In 2004, local school children dressed as monks took part in a ceremony to mark the planting of a new 84-tree community orchard. This fresh generation of fruit growers planted six different types of cooking and eating apples. This orchard also contains varieties of pear, plum, damson, cherry and medlar. Some of the trees are unusual varieties, but all are known to thrive in the area.

Beyond Newburgh’s big sales days, there are two other dates worth remembering for the apple lover in Fife.

Annual Apple Days have become big crowd-pullers at Lochore Meadows Country Park and in the 150-year-old orchards of Falkland Palace.

Both are a great day out for all ages, with lots to discover, learn, buy and, with pressing equipment working overtime, drink. For those who fancy more than just a refreshing glass of pure, sweet, apple juice, cider-making lessons are being planned for this year at Lochore Meadows.

Kate Morrison, a ranger from the Fife

Coast and Countryside Trust, has been supporting a wide range of events like the Apple Days. In fact, as part of the North Fife Orchard Project, she and countless volunteers have planted 280 fruit trees at fourteen school and seven community sites across Fife – apples, pears, plums and cherries. With their apple crushers and juicers, the rangers have also been turning out fresh juice at many primary schools, as well as at the Apple Days and Balmullo Flower show.

For those who find themselves with a treeful of fruit and no idea of what to do with it, a more informal programme of juicing days takes place in Auchtermuchty between September and November every season. Polly Murray, a volunteer with the North Fife Orchard trust, hosts these events. She came to appreciate apples, and all that can be done with them, when growing up at her mother’s farm in the West Country. In those days, her mother used a 300-yearold press to make juice and, eventually, cider. Today, the equipment is a little more up-to-date, but the satisfaction of seeing fruit that might otherwise go to waste being turned into fresh juice certainly remains.

> TREATS AND TRICKS

by Andrew Arbuckle All through August and September, as soon as we had come home from school, the first stop was the garden where the trees were laden with ripe apples: early ripening varieties such as James Grieve and later ones like Beauty of Bath.

But apples were an ‘all the year round food’, as mum always made sure there were plenty of them stored away. They provided one of our childhood treats which was a tray of big Bramley cookers baked in the oven with syrup and raisins and brown sugar. You had to watch out for the little cloves that mum stuck in the apples because they were nippy when you ate them. It was always good fun to drop the cloves in my sister’s plate when she was not looking.

■ Fife journalist Andrew Arbuckle’s book We Waved to the Baker recounts his memories of growing up on a farm by the river Tay.

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Fife’s fishing industry www.list.co.uk

Time to rock the boat?

COURTESY OF FIFE COUNCIL

Fife’s fishing industry is ready to take the next step towards sustainability.

Ronald Kerr talks to Pittenweem fishermen’s spokesman Billy Hughes

he fortunes of Fife’s fishing industry may fluctuate like the spring tides, but the sea continues to exert a compelling hold on men such as Billy Hughes.

Having entered the industry as an apprentice fish auctioneer in the 1960s, the secretary of the Fishermen’s Mutual Association in Pittenweem cares passionately about the fishing in the Forth – past, present and future.

Still in thrall to an industry that has

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changed beyond recognition during his lifetime, Hughes believes that Fife is still capable of supporting a viable, sustainable fishery.

The days when Fife harbours were brimming with boats and auctioneers could sell as many as 2000 boxes of fish in four hours are gone, but in fishing nothing stays the same for long.

‘The dynamics of the fishing industry show us that change is inevitable and history proves that change occurs with or

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Fife’s fishing industry

COURTESY OF FIFE COUNCIL

without over-fishing. Nature has overall demand is greater than in the UK. control, not fishermen,’ says Hughes.

‘It’s a precarious industry. Particularly Men have fished in the Firth of Forth round here where we’ve gone from more for hundreds of years, and change and than 50 boats landing white fish 30 to 40 diversity are constant themes. Oyster and years ago to a position where half that mussel beds were plentiful in the 18th number land only prawns today.’ century; line fishing for haddock, cod and These days, depending on the time of ling thrived until the late 1800s; and year, there are up to 25 trawlers – and as salmon and sea trout were caught until an many as 15 creel boats – with many annual cycle of fishing for white fish and independent vessels creeling between St herring emerged in the 19th-century Andrews and the Forth Bridge. boom years.

Between them, in 2008, they It is now ten years since landed almost 1800 tonnes of white fish were landed at shellfish, which is, ‘SHELL-20 Pittenweem. Prawns, crabs, FISH ISNT UP encouragingly, about 20 per scallops, lobsters, clams cent more than was landed ten PER CETEN and razor fish have taken years previously.

IN S’ their place.

In France, Italy and Spain YEAR These days, there are two where the appetite for shellfish separate fishing industries in Fife. appears insatiable, Fife crab and The wholesale merchants supply fish lobster is rated highly. ‘On continental vans, shops and hotels throughout Europe, there is always an appreciation Scotland – mostly with fish bought daily of quality which allows fresh Scottish at ports in the north-east of Scotland. shellfish to be at the head of the queue as The merchants also fillet white fish, as far as price is concerned, relative to well as smoking haddock and salmon, market conditions.’ but they have little or no dealings with the But for the industry to survive, and 100 or so fishermen who still operate out indeed thrive, Hughes believes it needs to of Pittenweem. Their interests are evolve further: ‘The time is now right for represented by the Fishermen’s Mutual another change in the Firth of Forth. The Association, which markets all shellfish catching of species such as sprat, cockles landed at Pittenweem. This shellfish is and mussels must be shown to be viable bound for European markets where and sustainable.’

> SMOKING ALLOWED Former Edinburgh caterer James Robb is the man behind a new smokehouse for the Fife coast, bringing what he describes as ‘great new tastes to an ancient old craft’. East Pier Smokehouse is based in the fishing village of St Monans, and sources its salmon from the RSPCA Freedom Foodmonitored farms of Loch Duart in northwest Scotland.

Their product range is striking both in taste and colour, with a robustly flavoured ‘3day smoke’, a contrasting ‘lox-style’ that’s much more lightly smoked, and a third option that’s cured in beetroot juice before being smoked, creating a pink-hued, sweetly flavoured fish in a Scandinavian style. Local stockists include the Little Italian Shop in St Andrews and Ardross Farm Shop, while online shopping is also available, and on weekends in July and August the smokehouse plans to be open for back-door sales of smoked salmon and freshly smoked langoustines.

■ www.eastpier.co.uk The Fife Larder 19

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Net fishing on the Tay www.list.co.uk

The Tay Salmon Fishery Dave Scott recalls the net fishing for wild salmon once based around Newburgh in north Fife et fishing on the Tay started several hundred 7.45 or eight o’clock depending on high water’. As a years ago and, by the mid 1700s, had become a boatman, Farquhar would steer the boat, watch the net huge business, with exports to several countries. going over the back and, once it had dropped in the Trade blossomed further when ice (stored in ice houses) water, head to the hailing [beach] and bring in the net on was used to preserve the fish while in transit abroad. a winch, controlled by the gaffer.

The Tay Salmon Fisheries Company was established ‘Once the net closed and swung round a bit, your next in 1899 and it became one of the biggest such operations job would be to hail the ground rope. You would pull the in the country. Net fishing was a major industry in the net in and put it on to the barrow. You would then area until the 1980s when salmon numbers in collect any fish and the gaffer or the towman the river began to decline. At the same time, would chap them on the head before they were the popularity of salmon farming boomed. put in boxes.’

WAS AOB T I ‘ J With coble and net fishing being Farquhar progressed from boatman to E U Q I UN U WERE boatman/towman and was gaffer at Pyerod, seasonal, an army of summer workers O AS YLWAYS was needed each year. Many of the evenutally getting his own crew for his A WING vacancies were filled by men recruited final two years. Many friendships were O L L FO TIDES’ struck up in the bothies, where the crews from the Western Isles.

THE As the salmon stocks dwindled, so did the occasionally made some ‘home-brew’ and pay-rolls. Restrictions on net fishing on the Tay played cribbage and other card games. ‘There began upstream in the 1960s. They were extended later was never any trouble, hassle or arguments between to Perth itself and to the lower reaches in the mid 1990s. anyone. There was always good fun, plenty of laughs The regular crews knew the end was in sight. The final and wind-ups, but no malice.’ net was pulled in on 20 August, 1996.

■ Extracted with permission from a 64-page booklet of Gordon Farquhar began work as a student boatman in photos and recollections compiled by Dave Scott 1981. ‘It was really a unique job in that you were always entitled Tay Salmon – Net Fishing Memories, available following the tides,’ he recalls. ‘You would start at, say, from the Tay Salmon Fisheries Company seven o’clock the first day, the next day it may have been (www.taysalmon.co.uk, 01738 636407) priced £9.

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Beer

Ale and Hearty David Pollock sups his way along an unofficial real ale trail Although Fife doesn’t enjoy the same brewing tradition of similar rural areas in England, there is a real ale community to be found. Most widely recognised around the county as the hub of this scene is the Harbour Bar on the High Street, Kirkcaldy, which has served ales from its own Fyfe Brewery, sited in converted sailworks to the pub’s rear, for the last fifteen years.

‘We’ve made about fifty or so beers,’ says Fyfe’s owner Nick Bromfield. ‘The demand comes from agencies down south, who want a new beer almost every month to satisfy the demands of tickers (real ale fanatics). There isn’t so much going on in Fife, and obviously you have to travel a bit, but we do get plenty of local custom and a few of the real ale guys travelling up specially from England.’

Another essential stop on central Fife’s real ale trail is the Albert Tavern in Freuchie, which was named CAMRA’s Scottish & Northern Irish Pub of

the Year in 2009. A homely bar on the edge of the farming village, its low ceiling is decorated with the beermats of past guest ales, and added attractions include a quiz on Monday, pie night on Thursday and winter game nights, featuring meals of seasonal game and whisky tutorials.

Other local bars serving real ale include the Crown Tavern in Burntisland and the Well Country Inn, just over the Fife regional border in Scotlandwell, while the area hosts two annual festivals: the CAMRA-endorsed Kingdom of Fife Beer Festival in Glenrothes (April/May) and the Dunfermline Beer Festival (October).

‘The good places to drink ale in Fife are quite far apart,’ recognises Neil Wilkie of Loch Leven Brewery, a small home-based operation just over the county’s border, ‘so make sure you take a bus timetable.’

■ For more on these venues, see panel on p.23

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Whisky in Fife www.list.co.uk

Fife’s water of life

A wind of change is blowing across the barley fields of Fife that promises to reinvigorate the county’s rich distilling heritage. Ronald Kerr reports aftmill Distillery in the Howe of Fife may be one of Scotland’s newest and smallest malt whisky distilleries, but it also revives a tradition of whisky making that was once a mainstay of many Fife communities.

The Cuthbert family has been growing malting barley near Bow of Fife for six generations and, with the completion of a micro-distillery on their farm, they hope to capture the spirit of the land in a bottle.

With the giant, Diageo-owned graindistilling facility at Cameron Bridge the only centre for whisky production still operating in Fife, it is easy to overlook the county’s distilling pedigree. Arguably the best known independent whiskies with present-day Fife links are the

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blended Sheep Dip and Pig’s Nose produced by Inverkeithing’s Spencerfield Spirit Company (see p.34) However, Fife was the setting for the first written reference to whisky, in the National Exchequer Rolls of Scotland in 1494 – where it was noted that the monks of Lindores Abbey received an order from James IV to purchase ‘eight bolls of malt’ with which to make uisge beatha, the ‘water of life’.

In more recent times, Fife was home to between 15 and 20 distilleries. One of these, Grange distillery at Burntisland, even had its own sales team in India – an indication of the significance of distilling to the Fife economy.

Now with the arrival of Daftmill, and a

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Whisky in Fife

> AN ALE TRAIL FOR CENTRAL FIFE AND ITS FRINGES ■ Harbour Bar

separate initiative under way to develop a new farm distillery at Kingsbarns between St Andrews and Crail, there are signs that Fife might be ready to return to its distilling roots.

Daftmill proprietors Francis and Ian Cuthbert are keeping their sights much closer to home, using their own highly prized barley and water from the farm’s artesian well. Their venture is rooted in the brothers’ passion for whisky and interest in growing and producing malting barley – a process which led to the Cuthberts being granted a distillers’ licence on St Andrew’s Day 2005.

The Cuthberts follow a production process broadly similar to that carried out at other smaller Scottish distilleries such as Edradour in Perthshire or Kilchoman on Islay. Francis Cuthbert says: ‘We’re basically doing what was done on farms 200 years ago. They would grow their own barley then, once it had been harvested and rested, they would start distilling through until the spring when they would go back to the land.’

The Cuthberts’ barley can’t be too bad,

as they already supply the malt for such celebrated names as Tormore, Scapa and Ardbeg in the Allied Distillers portfolio.

‘We’re aiming to make a lowland style whisky, if there is such a thing,’ says Cuthbert. ‘Lightish with delicate, fruity and floral aromas, slightly grassy – though we’re not looking to copy any other whisky. We want to create something distinctive.’

What makes a whisky distinctive is, of course, something of an elusive question, dependent on a combination of factors that include the location, the water source, the strain of barley, the type of still and even the people who operate it.

‘We’re not really in a desperate hurry to bottle it. We’d rather hold off until it’s right. So that will most likely mean waiting another five years.

‘However it turns out, we will definitely savour it. After all, if it’s really good, then there’s every chance we might drink it all ourselves. And if it’s really bad, we’ll probably have to!’

■ www.daftmill.com ■ www.kingsbarnsdistillery.com

469–471 High Street, Kirkcaldy, 01592 264270 or 646211, www.fyfebrewery.co.uk ■ Albert Tavern

2 Main Street, Freuchie ■ Well Country Inn

Scotlandwell, near Kinross, 01592 840444, www.thewellcountryinn .co.uk ■ Crown Tavern

55 High Street, Burntisland, 01592 891363 ■ Kingdom of Fife

Beer Festival www.attfife.org.uk ■ Dunfermline Beer

Festival www.dunfermlineround table.org.uk ■ Loch Leven

Brewery, Blairadam, near Kelty, 01383 831751, www.lochleven brewery.com

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Fife Coastal Path www.list.co.uk

Fife Coastal Path for foodies Eat your way along the Fife Coastal Path, guided by local chef Christopher Trotter he 105-mile Fife Coastal Path as well as coal. From here you can see the starts at the Burgh of Culross and magnificent Forth bridges with the winds its way along beach, rough Pentland hills beyond. paths, villages and towns to the Tay Another few miles brings us to North Bridge in the north. The walk is Queensferry, and just up the quayside best completed in sections, and from where the original ferry it’s always worth leaving crossed to the South lies our first OU ‘Y time for some food food gem. The Wee Restaurant E E S N CA G IN experiences on the way: a sits beneath the towering H IS TS F top restaurant, fish and chips BOA RAZOR Victorian columns of Forth R FO on the pier, browsing goodies Bridge. From here the path takes CLAMS’ for a picnic or watching cheese us to Aberdour. Make your way to being made at a dairy farm.

Hawkcraig Point and the Room with Culross is now preserved for the a View restaurant in the Forth View nation by The National Trust for Hotel, where chef Tim Robson presides.

Scotland, its 16th- and 17th-century The largest town on the coastal path is houses a reminder of a once busy port Kirkcaldy with a long industrial history with coal mining connections. A little to from coal to linoleum manufacturing. The the east is the tiny village of Limekilns latter is making a return along with its where historically there was a lime works sweet, lingering odour. Farmers’ markets

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Fife Coastal Path

Cellar, a lovely seafood restaurant run by Peter Jukes for the last 30 years, and the famous Anstruther Fish Bar. At Crail there is the tiny Lobster Store (see panel) and Penman’s, an excellent butcher.

Once around the headland, you’re walking northwest towards St Andrews.

Here there are plenty of restaurants, cafés and food shops – for a fine picnic on the West Sands try places such as IJ Mellis on South Street, The Little Italian Shop in Bell Street, and bakers Fisher & Donaldson on Church Street. Head out of St Andrews and cross the River Eden at Guardbridge, as pilgrims have done since the 13th century, and through the small town of Leuchars to Tentsmuir Forest where you’ll find an old ice store that housed salmon in the days when they were netted in the Tay Estuary. It’s worth knowing that Fife Ranger Service offers fungi forays, a great way to find ceps, chanterelles and many other mushrooms.

■ For details of the businesses

mentioned, see sections on Where to Buy and Where to Eat, beginning on p.26. For a map of the Fife Coastal Path see www.fifecoastalpath.co.uk

COURTESY OF FIFE COUNCIL

are held in the Town Square on the last Saturday of the month. Follow the scent of smoke to find Iain Spink, who cooks smokies before your eyes. Then, onwards to Dysart, a fascinating little burgh of redtiled roofs, a sign of its trading history with Holland. After the two Wemys villages with their ancient caves and 14th-century castle comes the more industrial Methil and Leven. From Leven the beach continues past the pretty villages of Lundin Links and Lower Largo and ends at Shell Bay. From here you can often see boats fishing for razor clams, though sadly these are only rarely seen in local fish shops.

From Shell Bay, join the Chain Walk.

This series of chains and steps cut into cliffs allows access at high tides and affords spectacular views where the Forth opens out to the wide North Sea. At the end of the Chain Walk, the village of Elie is the first of the East Neuk coastal villages that dot all the way round to Crail. The Michelin-starred Sangster’s is in the main street while the Ship Inn hosts cricket matches on the beach in the summer. About a mile past Elie, follow a sign at the old rail bridge to Ardross Farm Shop where you can pick up a picnic, or steaks and sausages for a beach barbecue.

St Monans, a fishing village with a restored windmill that used to pump seawater to the salt pans, is home to the famous Seafood Restaurant. The pretty coastline here offers views of the Isle of May bird sanctuary and the Bass Rock with its gannet colony.

Pass through Pittenweem, which has the only working fish market left in the area and a lovely wee chocolate shop. A diversion inland up the hill brings you to the St Andrews Farmhouse Cheese Company where on certain days you can watch Jane Stewart make her Anster cheese. Along this stretch of coast you may come across the Scottish Wildlife Trust’s ‘Flying Flock’, a flock of blackface sheep grazed about the region to keep the grass down. The SWT sells the meat from these animals from time to time: worth looking out for.

Anstruther is the largest of the fishing towns in the East Neuk. It’s home to The

> CRACKING LOBSTER For one of the finest seafood feasts in Fife, stop at the tiny wooden shack by the harbour in Crail known as the Lobster Store. Run by the Reilly family for several decades, it sells fresh, seasonal lobster and crab from local waters.

Choose your live lobster and, while it’s being cooked, enjoy a dressed crab packed with meat. The Lobster Store supplies mayo and Tabasco but bring your own fork if you want to picnic on one of the tables around the pier. Your view?

One of the prettiest harbours in the East Neuk, with sea gulls circling and lobster and prawn boats chugging in and out of the bay.

■ The Lobster Store, 34 Shoregate, Crail, 01333 450476 is open Sat & Sun noon–4.30pm between Easter and September, as well as weekdays (same times; closed Mon) in July and August.

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Where to Buy www.list.co.uk

WHERE TO BUY

Fifth-generation St Andrews ice cream makers B Jannettas sell over 50 different flavours

In addition to the shops, websites and other outlets listed below, Fife produce can be found at local farmers’ markets (see p.46) or obtained directly from producers featured elsewhere in the guide.

The entries in this section are organised first by geographical area, then alphabetically

THE EAST NEUK & ST ANDREWS ■ Allanhill Farm Fruit & Veg Specialists Grange Road, St Andrews 01334 477999, www.allanhill.co.uk May–Sep: Mon–Sun 9am–5pm

Originally a dairy farm, Allanhill converted to fruit more than a decade ago, and now sells a seasonal range of strawberries, blueberries, gooseberries and raspberries in their farm shop, as well as local meat and eggs. They make jam and produce a line of home baked goods, both of which are served in their tearoom, naturally alongside bowls of their own strawberries and cream. There’s also an outdoor play area for children, and the farm has an online drink retail business at www.drinkon.com.

■ The Anstruther Fish Shop Fish & Shellfish 3 Shore Street, Anstruther 01592 261215 Mon–Fri 10am–4pm; Sat 9am–4pm.

Closed Sun

Often with a window display of live lobster, Anstruther’s largest retail fish merchant always has a good selection available, including halibut, plaice, sole, seabass as well as hot and cold smoked salmon and other smoked products from St Monans. Locally caught crab is available in the summer.

They also sell local free range eggs, Adamson’s oatcakes and meat to order from Thomson of Thornton. A second shop, The Postings, is located in Kirkcaldy.

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■ Ardross Farm Shop Fruit & Veg Specialists Ardross Farm Shop, A917 east of Elie 01333 330048, www.ardrossfarm.co.uk Summer: Mon–Sat 9am–5.30pm; Sun 9am–4pm; Winter: Wed–Sat 9am–5.30pm; Sun 9am–4pm; closed Mon & Tue

Set in an old steading and attractively designed with old stone, wood and glass, Ardross Farm shop started off as a way of selling the vegetables and traditionally raised beef from the surrounding fields. Despite its classy appearance, the own-brand basics continue to impress, whether its dirty veg in baskets as you enter the shop, fresh and frozen meat, farm-prepared pots of stock, meat pies or their own honey and jams. Alongside there’s a well presented range of items from small artisan producers.

■ B Jannettas Cheese & Dairy 31 South Street, St Andrews 01334 473285, www.jannettas.co.uk Mon–Sat 9am–5.30pm; Sun 7am–5.30pm

Jannetta’s was one of the earliest Italian ice-cream parlours to open in Fife in the late 19th century. Since then, the original recipe has been handed down four generations and now comes combined with more than 50 different flavours. Among Italian favourites such as raspberry are some Scottish tastes, for example tablet flavour, with large chunks of crumbly fudge within.

Everything is made on site behind the shop, and their café sits next door.

■ The Balgove Larder Beef, Lamb & Other Meat Strathtyrum House Estate, St Andrews 01334 898145, www.balgove.com [from Sept 2010] Mon–Sun 8.30am–6pm

A major new farm shop and café on the fringes of St Andrews that’s planned to open in September 2010, the focus of Balgove Larder will be produce from the estate, principally

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Where to Buy

Luing cattle (also known as Highland shorthorn cross), though also including lamb, pork and game. This is all processed in an on-site butchery, part of the redevolopment of some old stone farm buildings. Plans for the future include evening and weekend events, educational projects, farm walks and a kids’ play area.

■ Butler and Company Delis & General Food 10 Church Street, St Andrews 01334 470077 Mon–Sat 9am–5.30pm; Sun 11.30am–5pm

This independent deli is popular with students who flock to the wrap bar at the back. Ingredients available in the deli are used in the wraps – the ‘Dirty Harry’ is stuffed with Milano salami, mozzarella, rose harissa and rocket. If you invent your own combination, it might feature on the menu. There’s no strong emphasis on local produce as the shop caters for international tastes, importing from countries such as US and Japan.

■ The Cocoa Tree Shop & Café Bread, Cakes & Chocolate 9 High Street, Pittenweem 01333 312682, www.thecocoatreeshop.com Mon–Sun 10am–6pm

A dedicated chocolate shop and café selling high-end Belgian and other imported chocolate. For main entry see Where to Eat (p.36).

■ East Pier Smokehouse Fish & Shellfish East Pier, St Monans 01333 405030

See panel on p.19.

■ Elie Deli Delis & General Food 55 High Street, Elie 01333 330323, www.eliedeli.co.uk Mon–Sat 8am–6pm; Sun 8.45am–5pm

While it has changed hands, and

names, several times in recent years, this well-stocked shop is still firmly entrenched in the heart of Elie as a good source of both speciality deli items and general groceries. When it comes to local produce you can find Puddledub pork, other meat from Penmans Butchers in Crail and vacuum-packed fresh fish. Starter packs are also available for selfcatering holidaymakers in the village.

CHEF’S CHOICE GEOFFREY SMEDDLE ON ANSTER CHEESE

■ Fisher & Donaldson Bread, Cakes & Chocolate 13 Church Street, St Andrews 01334 472201 Mon–Sat 6am–5.15pm

See entry for Cupar branch on p.30

■ G&J Wilson Fish & Shellfish 1c Netherton Industrial Estate, St Monans 01333 730537 Mon–Fri 9am–1pm, 2–5.30pm, Sat 9am–1pm

Despite its unassuming location in an industrial estate on the edge of St Monans, G&J Wilson is well known by locals as one of the best places to buy a wide selection of fresh fish, including seabass, sea bream, tuna and haddock. Local prawns and crab are readily available in summer and to order at other times of the year, while smoked salmon is available from their own smokehouse.

■ GH Barnett & Son Bread, Cakes & Chocolate 35 Rodger Street, Cellardyke 01333 310205 Mon/Tue & Thu/Fri 8am–5pm; Wed 8am–1.30pm; Sat 8am–1.30pm

All five of GH Barnett’s bakeries stick to the formula established in 1947.

Here you can find the sort of traditional Scottish confectionary that other bakeries have stopped producing, such as ‘tipsy cake’. Ingredients are sourced locally where possible, notably cheese from a local farm used to make oatcakes. This is an area of

Fife is hugely fortunate to have its own landmark cheese production farm, the St Andrews Farmhouse Cheese Company, home of Anster cheese. Ever since first tasting this traditional, unpasteurised cheese, we have always had their Anster on our trolley of Scottish cheeses, and sometimes even on the menu itself. Made

by Jane Stewart with milk from her husband’s dairy herd just a few miles from here, it is a crumbly textured and complex flavoured cheese of which all locals can be justly proud. There is even a viewing gallery where visitors can admire the cheese production process, before you buy some to take home. Try it.

■ In 2010 Geoffrey Smeddle of The Peat Inn (see p.37) won ‘Chef of the Year’ at the CIS Awards, as well as his first Michelin Star.

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Where to Buy www.list.co.uk

CHEF’S CHOICE RICHARD BRACKENBURY ON LOCAL FRUIT Here in Fife we’ve got such wonderful fruit right on our doorstep.

A local guy brings us all sorts of berries right through the summer – gooseberries, raspberries, blackcurrants, the lot.

He’ll phone us up and say, ‘Look, I’ve got a couple of kilos of blackcurrants, do you want them?’ They’re picked and with us the same day. We’re a small hotel, so we can mix and match our menu and make use of these things. At other times he’ll arrive with some wild garlic, or lovely pencil thin rhubarb, or some sloes – those were used in some sloe gin which made a sauce we used through the winter with some mulled pears or apples from the autumn crop. And it’s all from a couple of miles up the road.

■ Richard Brackenbury is the head chef at the Inn at Lathones (see p.37)

business which they are hoping to expand as people begin to favour healthier options over sliced white.

■ IJ Mellis Cheesemongers Cheese & Dairy 149 South Street, St Andrews 01334 471410, www.mellischeese.co.uk Mon–Fri 9am–5.30pm; Sat 9am–6pm; Sun 10am–5pm

Iain Mellis has six shops in Scotland, though each has an individual feel, with rounds of cheese stacked high and staff in traditional aprons. The main focus is on farmhouse cheeses from around the UK and Ireland – Fife’s Anster standing proud among them – along with select continental cheeses.

Other delicacies, from olive oil to eggs, are also available. Staff are friendly, and always eager to impart their knowledge of cheese to help with your decision.

■ JB Penman Beef, Lamb & Other Meat 38 High Street South, Crail 01333 450218 Mon/Tue & Thu–Sat 6.30am–1pm, 2–5pm; Wed 6.30am–1pm. Closed Sun.

Established in Crail since 1926, local, traditional and quality are the words which come to mind with this wellrespected Crail butcher. The haggis is made on the premises as are all the pies; meat is drawn from local farms, properly hung and carefully butchered and trimmed. Much of the meat is sourced locally, with Auchtermuchty beef and pork from Carnoustie. Inhouse sausages, burgers and black pudding are also available, and they sell a wide range of marinated meats, jams, chutneys and pickles.

■ John Birrell & Son Fruit & Veg Specialists 201 South Street, St Andrews 01334 472138 Mon–Sat 8.45am–5.30pm

It’s not a common sight on any 28 The Fife Larder

British shopping street: a wellstocked greengrocers with a decent range of locally grown fruit and veg.

Never mind one that’s regularly visited by students. John Birrell’s ‘Orchard’ plays the role for St Andrews, the shop complementing a wholesale business located on the edge of town.

■ Kerachers Fish & Shellfish 73 South Street, St Andrews 01334 472541 Mon–Sat 8am–5.30pm

The shop has recently returned to family hands after a period of corporate ownership and the Fifeborn Keracher brothers have built on their extensive family knowledge and local market. Thank the cosmopolitan university for the diversity of fish available and a growing awareness of the need to provide information on what to do with it. Saturdays as you might expect bring the best variety but most seasonal fish can be ordered in advance.

■ The Little Italian Shop Delis & General Food 33 Bell Street, St Andrews 01334 478396, www.thelittleitalianshop.co.uk Mon–Sat 9am–6pm; Sun noon–5pm

It may not stock much in the way of Fife food (smoked salmon from the new East Pier Smokehouse being one exception) but this small and assured continental deli is a highly respected part of the local food scene, with some top-notch imported cured meats, cheeses, oils, wine and coffee.

■ Luvians Whisky, Beer & Other Drinks 66 Market Street, St Andrews 01334 477752, www.luvians.com Mon–Sat 10am–10pm, Sun 12.30–10pm

Dedicated wine and spirits shop. See below and main entry for Luvian’s Cupar branch on p.31.

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■ Luvians Cheese & Dairy 84 Market Street, St Andrews 01334 477128, www.luvians.com Mon–Sun 10am–6pm

This branch of the Luvians trio is overseen by Luigi, one of the three Fusaro brothers. It is billed as an icecream parlour, but it is also a place to sit and have a coffee. They offer a wide range, including a Luvians blend of beans to be freshly ground. See also main entry for Luvian’s Cupar branch on p.31.

■ Minick of St Andrews Beef, Lamb & Other Meat 183 South Street, St Andrews 01334 472127 Mon–Fri 7.30am–5.30pm; Sat 7.30am–4pm

With high street shops under constant pressure from supermarkets, it’s unusual to see a brand-new butcher, but this place opened in early 2010 to fill an obvious gap in St Andrews.

Owner Stuart Minick has been the goto man for butchery advice for shops around the country and in the States.

The premises look modern, but their methods are traditional, and the meat comes mostly from Fife via the local St Andrew’s Abattoir. Other products including pies are made in-house.

■ Petite Epicerie Delis & General Food 32 Cunzie Street, Anstruther 01333 312179 Mon–Sun 9am–6pm (closed Sun in winter)

Opened in 2009 by French owner Julien Poix, La Petite Epicerie is openly committed to sourcing as much as possible from small, local suppliers.

Bread is baked every morning, and he also makes home-made pies, pates and jams. Local produce on show includes Anster cheese, Adamson’s oatcakes and local meat. Fruit and vegetables are also sourced locally when possible. A home delivery service is available.

■ St Andrews Farmhouse Cheese Company Cheese & Dairy Falside Farm, Anstruther 01333 312580, www.standrewscheese.co.uk Mon–Sat 9.30am–4.30pm; Sun 11am–4.30pm

Jane Stewart’s highly regarded artisan cheese can be bought directly from the farm, along with a small selection of deli items, at the counter of the Butterpat Coffee Shop. The cheesemaking can be seen from a viewing gallery adjoining the shop on production days – commonly Mondays and Tuesdays, but check before visiting. See also entry in Where to Eat on p.38 and feature on p.13.

The Little Italian Shop has found a niche in St Andrews as a source of top-notch continental food and wine.

HOWE OF FIFE & THE TAY COAST ■ Bellfield Organics Fruit & Veg specialists Jamesfield Farm, Abernethy 01738 850589, www.bellfieldorganics.com

An operation right beside Jamesfield Farm and therefore located just over the Fife boundary, Bellfield operates an organic box scheme throughout Fife (as well as further afield), delivering vegetables from their own fields as well as organic fruit, bread, eggs and milk. Their stalls can also been found at farmers’ markets in Fife and central belt locations including Edinburgh, Glasgow and Stirling.

■ Cairnie Fruit Farm Fruit & Veg specialists Cairnie, by Cupar 01334 655610, www.cairniefruitfarm.co.uk Sep–Jun: Tue–Sun 10am–5pm. Closed Sun. Jul/Aug: Mon–Sun 9.30am–6pm

Primarily a strawberry farm, Cairnie Fruit Farm’s shop also sells homegrown raspberries, blackcurrants, redcurrants, gooseberries and tayberries, all of which are available on pick-your-own deals. They also The Fife Larder 29

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CHEF’S CHOICE CHRISTOPHER TROTTER ON FALKLAND BEEF

produce their own range of jams, and sell gifts, homeware and other grocery items, such as local oatcakes, sauces and marmalades. In addition to a tearoom, their big attraction is a Maize Maze – a maze cut from a field of maize, which is harvested every October and regrown to a different theme the year after.

■ Ceres Butchers There has been a history of beef on the estate at Falkland for centuries, including the eponymous Falkland cow. While this has not been bred since the 19th century, there are cattle grazing its fields again. Last year’s were Limousin cross breeds and I roasted them on the spit at the Big Tent festival. The meat was loose grained and full of flavour, and made excellent eating. This year Estate Manager Amelia Stevenson has bought some Belted Galloways from their heartland in Dumfries and these will be ready for the festival – I will be roasting them again on the spit but also using the lesser bits for burgers. The whole process of production from ‘field to spit’ will be within a 25 mile radius.

■ Christopher Trotter is a Fife-based chef, writer and consultant.

He organises the One Planet Food Village at the Big Tent Festival.

His book The Whole Hog is published in September 2010.

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Beef, Lamb & Other Meat • 8 Main Street, Ceres 01334 828229, www.ceresbutchers.co.uk Tue–Fri 6am–5.30pm; Sat 6am–4pm.

Closed Sun/Mon • 4 Main Street, Leuchars 01334 839213, www.ceresbutchers.co.uk Tue–Fri 6am–5.30pm; Sat 6am–4pm.

Closed Sun/Mon

Quality, locally sourced meat is the priority of this successful butcher with shops in both Ceres and Leuchars. Beef and lamb comes from Fife farms, pork from Carnoustie and free range chickens from Jamesfield. In season they sell game from local estates, including wild roe deer. Locally sourced veg is available all year round, especially in the Leuchars shop.

■ Cupar Farm Shop Delis & General Food East Burnside, Cupar 01334 653086 Mon–Fri 10am–5.30pm; Sat 10am–5pm

Kyle McCormack’s small deli/wholefoods store maintains the challenge of providing local, organic, additive-free and eco-friendly products in a competitive retail environment.

When many farm shops favour gift and special occasion food, this is a good place to find store cupboard items, staples and dry goods from suppliers such as Glasgow’s GreenCity Wholefoods. Fresh produce is available, although it has been scaled back with the shop now sharing space with a separate bead shop and jewellery workshop.

■ Fisher & Donaldson Bread, Cakes & Chocolate • 21 Crossgate, Cupar Mon–Sat 6.30am–5.30pm • Ceres Road, Cupar 01334 652551, www.fisheranddonaldson.com Mon–Sat 8am–5pm; Sun 10am–4.30pm

Fife – and, indeed, one of Scotland’s – best-known craft bakers, Fisher & Donaldson have shops in St Andrews and Cupar, as well as a shop and café attached to their main production unit just to the south of Cupar’s town centre. The range is huge, from traditional Scots’ teatime treats to continental patisserie, with space for chocolates, special-occasion treats and award-winning pies. A new Bread Club (see p.11) aims to offer a subscription service for artisan-style bread.

■ Fletchers of Auchtermuchty Beef, Lamb & Other Meat Reediehill Farm, Auchtermuchty 01337 828369, www.seriouslygoodvenison.co.uk Mon–Sun 8am–6pm

The shop is essentially a porch on the outside of the Reediehill farmhouse, and an honesty box may be in operation, but both fresh and frozen venison from the farm is always available, along with useful cooking tips and some of the lauded books written by Nichola Fletcher. The best reason of all to come to the shop, arguably, is the chance to see the farm – for more on which, see p.8.

Fletchers’ venison can be found at most local farmers’ markets.

■ Fordelhill Farm Beef, Lamb & Other Meat; also Fruit & Veg Specialists Fordelhill Farm, by Leuchars 01334 839212, www.fordelhillfarm.co.uk Mon–Sun 9am–5pm

A mixed arable and livestock farm on

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the A914 road north from Leuchars to the Tay Bridge with a developing and authentically no-frills farm shop featuring the farm’s own free-range meat (Aberdeen Angus beef, lamb and Saddleback pork), local veg and a useful selection of chilled, dried and fair-trade packaged goods. Set right in the farm steading, Fordelhill also offer a wood shed as a source of locally sourced firewood, and a small plant centre.

■ The Game Cart Beef, Lamb & Other Meat Woodmill, Lindores 01337 810428, www.gamecart.woodmillshootings.co m

Steven Wade offers his services in the preparation of game birds from woodcock to wild geese. Customers with small orders of 10 to 20 birds can use the pluck-while-you-wait service but any size order is welcome. Birds are presented plucked, cleaned and wrapped on a tray, ready for the oven or freezer. Wade can also turn your game birds into sausages. Choose from a range of flavours including cider, cranberry and apricot.

■ Jamesfield Organic Centre Delis & General Food Jamesfield Farm, Abernethy 01738 850498 Mon–Sun 9am–5pm

Though not strictly located in Fife, Jamesfield Organic Centre is just over the border in Perthshire but remains an important landmark on the local food scene. The purpose built centre includes a spacious and broadly stocked deli, a butchery and a café offering views over the Tay estuary.

Jamesfield Farm is also a producer of organic meat.

■ Knowehead Products Fruit & Veg Specialists Bite’n’Blether, 94 High Street, Newburgh 01337 842906 Mon–Fri 10am–4pm; Sat 10am–3pm

A regular attender at Fife’s farmers’ markets, Barry and Alison Batchelor produce jams, marmalades, chutneys and pickles from their small café in Newburgh. Fife’s famous soft fruit provides plenty of raw material for products that, while presented without flair, show up by their essential simplicity the failings of additiveadded, mass-market brands.

■ Luvians Whisky, Beer & Other Drinks; Delis & General Food; Cheese & Dairy 93 Bonnygate, Cupar 01334 654820, www.luvians.com Mon–Thu 9am–6pm; Fri/Sat 9am–6.30pm

Fife’s fantastic soft fruit is great when it’s in season: Newburgh jam and conserve makers Knowehead Products make sure that there are ways to appreciate it all year round.

Vincent Fusaro is passionate about icecream. The business was started in 1955 by his father, and has since evolved to suit changing demand.

While continually challenged by chefs to create unusual flavours (fish sorbet!), their classic vanilla remains the most popular as a result of a longstanding recipe, which uses only milk.

Ice-cream making happens behind the Cupar premises, but at the front the large bottle shop also sells deli items with a mixture of French and Italian produce, and a selection of Scottish cheeses too.

■ Muddy Boots Farm Shop Delis & General Food; also Fruit & Veg Specialists Balmalcolm Farm, A914 west of Cupar 01337 830258, Mon–Sat 9am–5pm; Sun 10am–5pm.

Winter hours: Mon–Sat 10am–5pm; Sun 10am–4.30pm

What began in a roadside tent selling soft fruit, when the Samson family made the decision to step away from loss-making supermarket supply, is now an appealing multifunctional venue complete with waddling ducks, big manly tractors and acres of plastic greenhouses. In addition to the farm shop and café there are various fun activities for kids ranging from pottery The Fife Larder 31

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painting to grass-sledging, along with a sizeable indoor play zone in case it’s chucking it down outside. The farm shop located in the old tractor barn stocks the farm’s own juicy Tulamine raspberries in season, along with other farm-grown fruit and veg and a good range of staples and deli items from small suppliers.

As well as strawberries and raspberries, Pittormie Fruit Farm sells gooseberries, currants, loganberries and tayberries, all grown on the farm, as well as orchard fruits.

■ Pillars of Hercules Organic Farm Shop & Café Fruit & Veg Specialists; also Delis & General Food Pillars of Hercules, Strathmiglo Road, Falkland 01337 857749, www.pillars.co.uk Mon–Sun 9am–6pm

Dismiss this place as a harmless hippie enclave at your peril: over 25 years Bruce Bennett has created an organic farm, shop and café with charm, attitude and inspiring ethical principles. It also has great food: baskets full of produce from adjoining fields and polytunnels, as well as wellstocked shelves of organic wholefoods.

A box scheme operates, and you can admire the horticulture at close quarters on self-guided farm walks.

See also p.14 and 41.

■ Pittormie Fruit Farm and Nursery Fruit & Veg Specialists Pittormie Fruit Farm, Dairsie 01334 870233, www.pittormiefruitfarm.co.uk May–Oct: Mon–Sun 8am–7pm; Nov–Apr: Mon–Sun 9am–6pm

A small, family-run farm shop, Pittormie sells their own seasonal range of strawberries, gooseberries, raspberries, currants, loganberries and tayberries through the summer months, as well as homemade jams, marmalade, chutney and lemon curd, as well as fresh vegetables. During the winter, business is transferred to a smaller ‘egg shed’, specialising in eggs, winter vegetables and jams, as well as some frozen fruit. A wide range of shrubs and plants is also 32 The Fife Larder

available, while fruit can be bought ready-picked or picked by hand.

■ RH Waters & Sons (Ladybank Butchers) Beef, Lamb & Other Meat 6 Commercial Crescent, Ladybank 01337 830520 Mon–Fri 6am–6pm; Sat 6am–2pm.

Closed Sun

Family-run since 1925, retirement has meant that this butcher has recently come under new management. Yet it’s still well-liked and respected by locals from surrounding villages, and is very handily no more than a couple of minutes off the main A92 to Dundee.

Matured beef, lamb and pork from Fife and the Borders is hung on the premises and butchered by hand, while other lines include steak pies, local fruit and veg, and cakes and scones from Ladybank’s Sycamore Bakery.

■ Specialist Potatoes Fruit & Veg Specialists 8 Provost Park, Auchtermuchty 01337 828645, www.specialistpotatoes.co.uk

Specialist Potatoes supplies potato growers with unusual, organic and heritage seed potatoes and grows commercial seed on contract for McCain Potatoes, of oven-chip fame.

The company is originally responsible for resurrecting heritage varieties such as Highland Burgundy and Shetland Black. The business is wholesale only, but gardeners can buy small quantities of their seed potatoes through grower Alan Romans (www.alanromans.com), at Kettlebridge, who in turn supplies Bridgend Garden Centre in Freuchie.

GLENROTHES, KIRKCALDY & SOUTH CENTRAL FIFE ■ Alex Mitchell Butchers Beef, Lamb & Other Meat 2 Glamis Centre, Glenrothes

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01592 771457, www.alexmitchellbutchers.com Mon & Wed 8am–5pm; Tue & Thu 8am–5.30pm; Fri 8am–6pm; Sat 8am–4pm. Closed Sun.

Hidden in an underpass in a residential area of Glenrothes, the shop has a loyal following thanks to its friendly service and the quality of its meat. Not all meat is sourced from the local area, but Alex will happily name the farm of origin of all the meat in his shop, and it’s worth seeking out for the steak pies alone. Full UK-wide home delivery service is available via the website.

■ Blacketyside Farm Shop Fruit & Veg Specialists; also Delis & General Food Blacketyside Farm, Leven 01333 423034 Mon–Sun 9am–7pm during berry season. 10am–4pm at other times

■ Loch Leven’s Larder Delis & General Food Channel Farm, Kinross 01592 841000, www.lochlevenslarder.com Mon–Sun 9.30am–6pm (5.30pm in winter)

Another significant farm shop on the fringes of, but not in, Fife, Loch Leven’s Larder combines vegetables from the surrounding fields with an impressively stocked farm deli, gift shop and popular café, which overlooks Loch Leven and serves as a base for walks along, and even around the loch’s shoreline.

Surrounded by the grassy fields of Falside farm, the cheesemaking dairy at the St Andrews Farmhouse Cheese Company (p.29) is adjoined by a popular daytime café.

■ Lochend Farm shop Delis & General Food Lochend Farm, Scotlandwell 01592 840745, www.lochendfarmshop.co.uk Mon–Sun 9am–6pm

The highlight at Blacketyside in the summer months are the luscious strawberries, raspberries and other soft fruit grown on the farm, with pick your own available. But the farm also sells its own seasonal vegetables, along with their own jams and chutneys, while fruit canes grown on the farm are also now available. See also p.42.

Lochend is located just over the Fife border in Kinrosshire at the eastern end of Loch Leven. A working farm growing root vegetables and raising beef, the shop has a decent deli section with local food incorporating produce from Fife, seasonal farm veg and a coffee shop offering views out over the surrounding fields.

■ HS Murray

■ S Mitchell of Puddledub

Fish & Shellfish 7 Hope Street, Inverkeithing 01383 412684 Tue–Fri 8am–5pm; Sat 8am–1pm.

Closed Sun/Mon

Beef, Lamb & Other Meat 1 Cupar Road, Kennoway 01333 351245, www.puddledubbuffalo.co.uk Mon–Sat 9am–5pm; Sat 9am–2pm

A family fishmonger since around 1922, HS Murray takes delivery of fish from Newhaven Fishmarket in Edinburgh. These are filleted in the store, while prawns are from Pittenween in the East Neuk of Fife and local boats supply scallops and langoustines. Other suppliers from the area provide free range hen and duck eggs, tomatoes and samphire in summer. Suppliers to nearby restaurants including Aberdour’s Room With a View, Murray’s also offer a free local delivery service.

Taking a step beyond the farmers’ markets and direct supply, on which he’d founded his beef and water buffalo business, Steve Mitchell took over the butcher’s shop in Kennoway, north of Leven, in 2009, as another outlet for his range of meat, which now includes ‘juicy’ Jacob sheep. The expansion has continued with the opening of a butchery counter just across the Forth at West Craigie Farm Shop near South Queensferry. See also panel and feature on p.7.

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CHEF’S CHOICE CRAIG MILLAR ON LOBSTER

When I started at the St Monans restaurant 12 years ago we bought all our fish from Pittenweem. Nowadays it’s mostly just lobster that’s available, but the Fife coast is ideal for them with its rocky beds. We use four or five guys who have small boats – you might even see them in the harbour or out picking up creels when you’re eating in the restaurants. Although lobster is still seen as a luxury we get them at such a good price we don’t need to put on a supplement. Our open lobster sandwich,a poached in garlic butter, then served in a brioche, just flies off the menu when it’s on.

And it all gets used: we’ll use knuckle meat in a risotto, shells to make a bisque, and we did a shellfish jelly in a martini glass not long ago, with a wee bit of poached lobster on top.

■ Craig Millar is executive chef at the Seafood Restaurants in St Andrews and St Monans (see p.39).

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■ Scotmed Herbs

■ Watson’s of Leven

Fruit & Veg Specialists 113–115 High Street, Burntisland 01592 872689, www.scotmedherbs.co.uk Mon/Tue & Thu–Sat 9.45am–5pm; Wed 9.45am–4pm. Closed Sun

Beef, Lamb & Other Meat 4 Forth Street, Leven 01333 350351, www.scotchbeef.co.uk/watsonsmeat

A diverse shop offering all manner of herbal medicines, aromatherapy candles and crystals, ScotMed Herbs also do a nice line in pre-packaged organic herbs.

With over 50 herbs and cooking ingredients in stock, the range includes the likes of dried chillies, star anise and juniper berries. Around a dozen herbal teas are also on offer, and mail order is available.

■ The Spencerfield Spirit Company Whisky, Beer & Other Drinks Spencerfield Farmhouse, Inverkeithing 01383 412144, www.spencerfieldspirit.com

Spencerfield was set up in 2005 when husband and wife team Alex Nicol and Jane Eastwood purchased the existing brands Sheep Dip and Pig’s Nose from former employer Whyte & Mackay.

After a little tinkering with the packaging, they have taken the blends forward as individual but engaging and independent whiskies. Available from their website, the whiskies are also stocked locally at Luvians in Cupar and St Andrews, and Ardross Farm Shop, among others.

Like many other butchers, Watsons boasts home made haggis, sausages and award winning pies. But what sets Watsons apart from the rest is that their beef is raised on their own Aberdour farm, grass fed in summer and matured on average for 28 days.

Lamb, pork, ham and chicken is all sourced in or near Fife. Game from St Andrews, and seasonal vegetables grown near Leven are also available.

DUNFERMLINE & WEST FIFE ■ Baxters Delis & General Food Home Farm, Kelty 01383 830020, www.baxters.com Mon–Sun 10am–5pm

A large set-up just off the M90 at Kelty, a little south of Kinross, this is one of five Baxters outlets around Scotland. Incorporating a coffee shop/restaurant, small farm park and foodhall with deli, giftware and cookshop section, the Baxters brand is prominent alongside other packaged Scottish brands and some fresh food, including smoked fish, waxed cheeses and packs of bacon.

■ Stuart’s of Buckhaven

■ Divito’s Ice Cream

Beef, Lamb & Other Meats; also Bread, Cakes & Chocolate 37 High Street, Leven 01333 429515 Mon–Sat 8am–5pm

Cheese & Dairy 59 Main Street, Crossgates 01383 510872 Mon–Sun 9am–9pm

Originally a bakery, this sixthgeneration family butchers and bakers with shops across Fife began sourcing meat in the 1960s to guarantee the quality of their speciality pies. Current boss Alan Stuart founded the now highly prestigious World Scotch Pie Championship in 1999, an annual headline-grabber across the UK.

Crossgates is famed around the west of Fife as the home of Divito’s. Primarily a sweet shop, with a wide range of chocolates and candies on offer, the place’s reputation is earned by its icecream. There are around 15 flavours to choose from in the height of summer, all of which are made in the shop and can be found on dessert menus in local cafés and restaurants.

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■ Dobbies Farm Foodhall Delis & General Food Fife Leisure Park, Dunfermline 01383 842757, www.dobbies.com Mon, Wed, Fri, Sat 9am–6pm; Tue 9.30am–6pm; Thu 9am–8pm; Sun 10am–6pm

Part of the large Dobbies Garden World at the Fife Leisure Park just off the M90 by Dunfermline, the Farm Foodhall is a large, well-stocked deli including a butchery counter run by McCallums, the well respected Auchterarder butcher. While Scottish products are fairly well represented in the selection of bakery, veg, dairy, dry goods, drinks and gifts, the range from Fife is limited, with Puddledub’s bacon probably the most prominent.

■ Macari Cheese & Dairy 28 Lumphinnians Road, Lochgelly 01592 780449 Mon, Tue, Thu, Fri 7am–3pm; Wed & Sat 7am–noon. Closed Sun.

Mr Macari now runs the ice-cream parlour set up by his Greek grandfather, and he has tried to stick as closely to the original recipe as possible. Though, as he says, ‘Nobody makes it like a hundred years ago.’

This is a small outlet, with an icecream van alongside their shop in Lochgelly, but they also do wholesale.

■ Stephens Bread, Cakes & Chocolate Head office: Unit 21, Dunfermline Business Park, Primrose Lane, Dunfermline 01383 430400, www.steakbridie.com

Established in 1873, William Stephen’s bakery has proved enduringly popular with the people of west Fife. With over 12 branches around the area – most in Dunfermline, but also Inverkeithing, Rosyth and Cowdenbeath – it does exactly what you would expect from a high street chain of bakers, only better.

Pies, filled rolls and brightly iced cakes are served to take away, or to eat in many branches’ sit-in tearoom areas.

WHERE TO EAT Listings of Fife’s best options for eating out, including daytime cafés, takeaways, casual bistros and formal restaurants.

The entries in this section are organised first by geographical area, then alphabetically

THE EAST NEUK & ST ANDREWS ■ The Anstruther Fish Bar 42–44 Shore Street, Anstruther 01333 310518, www.anstrutherfishbar.co.uk Mon–Sun 11.30am–9.30pm (takeaway until 10pm) £12 (lunch/dinner)

A frequent award winner, the Anstruther Fish Bar has become a star attraction in the busy East Neuk fishing harbour.

With as glittering an array of accolades as any eating place in Fife, including the gong for UK Fish & Chip shop of the year in 2009, this place is undoubtedly one of Scotland’s classic traditional fish and chippers. Fish (and not just haddock, but hake, pollock and local shellfish) comes battered or breaded, and it’s hard to quibble with the excellent quality or freshness.

However, even with seating for over 50, it’s fame does mean that a longish queue is a frequent phenomenon.

■ Balaka Bangladeshi Restaurant 3 Alexandra Place, St Andrews 01334 474825, www.balaka.com Mon–Sun 11.30am–2.30pm, 5–11.30pm £15 (lunch/dinner)

Firmly established as St Andrews’ best-regarded Asian restaurant, the Balaka has been around for nearly 30 years under the proprietorship of Mohammed Abdur Rouf. Classic Indian starters and curries are served, but pride of place is reserved for Bengali specialities, including Mas Bangla using marinated salmon in place of the traditional rohi fish.

Balaka has a lovely garden, used for functions but also growing fresh herbs for the kitchen.

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■ The Cellar 24 East Green, Anstruther 01333 310378, www.cellaranstruther.co.uk Tue–Thu from 6.30pm; Fri/Sat noon–2pm, 6.30pm onwards. Jun–Aug also open Mon from 6.30pm £19.50 (set lunch) / £34.95 (set dinner) In the 1970s, 80s and 90s David Wilson made the Peat Inn Scotland’s most influential restaurant. Following his retirement, Geoffrey Smeddle has reestablished it at the forefront of Scottish cooking and hospitality.

With Scotland’s Fisheries Museum next door, this former cooperage and smokery is steeped in fishing history as well as a life-long appreciation of the bounty of the sea. With its stone walls and beamed ceilings the Cellar lacks sea views but is still a wonderfully atmospheric dining space; Peter Jukes’ top-notch seafood menu has unelaborate but supremely assured dishes such as smoked fish stew or East Coast halibut with greens, pine nuts, smokey bacon and sauce hollandaise.

■ The Cocoa Tree 9 High Street, Pittenweem 01333 311495, www.thecocoatreeshop.com Mon–Sun 10am–6pm £9

As well as fishing, Pittenweem is known these days as an artists’ enclave, and there’s an arty touch to this unexpected and charming shop and café. Clearly dedicated to all civilised expressions of cacao, the café finds room among signature hot chocolates, 70% Belgian chocolate brownies and crepes with hot chocolate sauce to serve carefully prepared soup, panini and toasties. Free Wi-Fi, books and board games add to the civilised mix of the place.

The Doll’s House Restaurant 3 Church Square, St Andrews 01334 477422, www.dolls-house.co.uk Mon–Sun noon–2.30pm, 5–9.30pm £6.95 (set lunch) / £18.50 (dinner)

With a great location right in the heart of St Andrews, and some continentalstyle alfresco tables under a large purple canopy, the Doll’s House is well established as a likeable and reliable mid-to-upper range option in town.

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Confident French-Scottish bistro style food includes confit duck leg with creamy beans and bacon, or poached salmon with ratatouille of vegetables.

Between 5 and 7pm an early-evening menu offers two course for £12.95.

■ Esperante Fairmont Hotel, St Andrews 01334 837000, www.fairmont.com Summer hours: Wed–Sun 6.30–10pm Winter hours: Wed–Sun 6–9pm £42.50 (set dinner)

Smart, formal red décor with earthy tones and a mural depicting a sunny vineyard might indicate a Tuscan atmosphere, and while the food draws inspiration from the Medirerranean, Scottish produce is used extensively and the cooking is far from rustic. Hot jellies and foams on the extensive tasting menu are all part of the ambitious, technical cooking practised by head chef Adam Handling.

■ The Glass House Restaurant 80 North Street, St Andrews 01334 473673, www.houserestaurants.com Mon–Sun noon–10.30pm £5.95 (set lunch) / £12.50 (dinner)

The Glass House is a Salvation Army church hall that has been transformed into an airy, contemporary open eating space with a busy open kitchen. The menu is aimed at its primarily student market with Italian staples such as risotto, stonebaked pizza and fresh pasta dishes such as ground pork, smoked bacon meat balls with spaghetti. In the evening, the emphasis is on local, seasonal specials featuring fish, scallops, crab and venison. The buzzy atmosphere makes for a fun venue and meeting place.

■ The Grange Inn Grange Road, by St Andrews 01334 472670 Tue–Sat noon–1.30pm, from 6.30pm; Sun noon–1.30pm. Closed Mon. £12 (lunch); £28.95 (set dinner)

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Looking down over sloping fields to the towers and spires of St Andrews’ skyline, the Grange has the feel of a discerning local’s escape, whether squeezing into the snug back bar with its flagstones and crackling fires, or glancing at the view from the dignified main dining room. The menu doesn’t stray far from the tried and tested modern Scottish, served with friendly ease and no overdue fuss.

■ Haven Bar & Restaurant 1 Shore Street, Cellardyke 01333 310 574, www.havenrestaurant.co.uk Mon–Sat noon–2.30pm, 5.30–8.30pm; Sun 12.30–3pm, 5.30–8.30pm £7.95 (set lunch) / £17.50 (dinner)

Set right beside Cellardyke’s old stone harbour, the Haven’s local reputation goes from strength to strength with a friendly welcome, summer barbecues, live music nights and, centrally, a strong line-up of better-than-average pub grub featuring dishes such as chowder, home-made chicken liver pate, scallops with potato rosti and vegetarian options including mushroom and beluga lentil moussaka.

Children and Coastal-Path walkers are also made to feel welcome.

■ The Inn at Lathones Largoward, by St Andrews 01334 840494, www.theinn.co.uk Mon–Sun noon–9.30pm £27 (dinner)

This unassuming, white-walled inn is home to Scotland’s smallest music festival and the main dining room’s food is pretty glamorous too. Chef Richard Brackenbury changes his offering three times a year to follow the seasons. A tian of potted crab with lobster butter, crayfish tails and herb salad is a light contrast to the luxurious foie gras crème brûlée. Baked turbot with hand-dived scallops and leek and potato crumble is a comforting combo, as is the no-nonsense, mixed game steamed pudding on a slice of Stornoway black pudding.

■ The Peat Inn Peat Inn, near St Andrews 01334 840206, www.thepeatinn.co.uk Tue–Sat 12.30–1.30pm, 7pm–9pm £16 (set lunch) / £32 (set dinner)

The Peat Inn has existed on this spot since the 1700s and with chefproprietor Geoffrey Smeddle picking up a Michelin Star in 2010 has become (once again) one of Scotland’s most cherished destination restaurants. There’s little that’s ostentatious about the place, with a series of charming small dining rooms making up the restaurant. A variety of menus offer remarkably good value dining for this level of cooking and service.

■ Road Hole Restaurant Old Course Hotel, Golf Resort & Spa, St Andrews 01334 474371, www.oldcoursehotel.co.uk Tue–Sat 7–10pm £46 (set dinner)

Head chef Paul Hart, who has had a wide range of experience at top restaurants around the UK, offers an eight-course tasting menu also available for vegetarians. Interesting dishes such as ragout of Glen Isla hare bring Scottish ingredients to the fore. This is all prepared in an open kitchen, allowing culinary theatre in addition to the views of the St Andrews coastline. For a more informal meal, Sands Grill is a traditional grill house, whilst the Jigger Inn serves more familiar pub food dishes.

■ Rocca Bar & Grill

CHEF’S CHOICE IAN MCEWAN ON GREAT LOCAL VEG I’ve been dealing with my fruit and vegetable supplier, Ivan Wood & Sons, for 15 years now and we have a great relationship.

Everything is brought in daily, and cooked daily, so it’s always fresh and great to work with. In winter I’ll roast their parsnips with a bit of heather honey, and in spring I’ll get rhubarb which we serve roasted with duck. One of the best sellers in the restaurant is scallops with black pudding and fennel purée – that’s fennel from Ivan and Malcolm Wood again. It’s all delivered fresh to the door and sometimes it feels that we can’t get it out on the tables quick enough.

■ Ian McEwan is head chef at Fabric in Dumfermline (see p.44). Ivan Wood & Sons are fruit and vegetable wholesalers based at Navity Farm, Ballingry, Fife, www.chefspride.co.uk

Rusacks Hotel, Pilmour Links, St Andrews 01334 472549, www.roccagrill.com Apr–Oct Mon–Sun 12.30–2.30pm, 6.30–9.30pm; Nov–Mar Mon–Sat 6.30–9.30pm; Sun 12.30–2.30pm £14 bar; £26 grill

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CHEF’S CHOICE CRAIG WOOD ON HIS FISH SUPPLIER

I’ve worked in Australia and the States, and regularly go to France on holiday, and I really believe that Scotland undersells itself with its fish. The cold waters lend themselves to great quality. Even in Australia where everyone was raving on about their fish, I’d be thinking, this isn’t a patch on what we have in Scotland.

David Lowrie is a family-run fish merchant and wholesaler from Anstruther and he supplies all the best restaurants in Fife. He seems to have all the right contacts with the fishermen to get the best langoustine and lobster coming into places like Pittenweem and Anstruther. It’s right off the boats and always so fresh. When you touch it, feel it, work with it, it gives you the satisfaction and confidence as a chef that your dishes are going to be great.

■ Craig Wood is the chef/proprietor at the Wee Restaurant, North Queensferry. See p.43.

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appropriate, for example in their carpaccio of Angus beef, or tomato and Scottish mozzarella salad. Being situated at the back of Rusack’s Hotel, there are great views over the Old Course and the beach. Downstairs, The One Under is under the same management, but in its claim to be St Andrews’only gastropub serves more British dishes such as a Scottish ploughman’s platter.

■ The Rockies Anstruther Golf Club, Shore Road, Anstruther 01333 310981, www.therockiesrestaurant.co.uk Mon–Sun 11am–9pm £8.95 (set lunch) / £21.50 (set dinner)

There are more famous and exclusive golf links in the area, and flasher restaurants associated with them, but Carl Sullivan has attracted an enthusiastic local audience at the Rockies (named after a testing shoreline par 3), with food served through the day, including a classic Scottish high tea with savoury dishes such as a pork chop followed by cakes and scones. Bar food and a hearty three-couse dinner are also available.

■ Rufflets Country House Strathkinness Low Road, by St Andrews 01334 472594, www.rufflets.co.uk Mon–Sat noon–2.30pm, 7–9.30pm; Sun 12.30–2pm, 7–9.30pm £11.50 (set lunch) / £22 (dinner)

An ivy-covered, low-key country house hotel just outside St Andrews, Rufflets avoids the glitz of many of the hotels in the area, an approach reflected in the food presented by head chef Mark Nixon in the Terrace Restaurant. Clearly upmarket but comfortably contemporary and eager to demonstrate seasonality and local produce, typical dishes include potted smoked mackerel, braised oxtail or roasted salt cod with fennel and mussel broth and chorizo. Scotch Beef Club members.

■ St Andrews Farmhouse Cheese Company Falside Farm, Anstruther 01333 312580, www.standrewscheese.co.uk Mon–Sat 9.30am–4.30pm; Sun 11am–4.30pm £8

Sharing premises with the artisan cheese-making operation, the Butterpat Coffee Shop provides a decent line-up of daily soups, sodabread sandwiches, hot savoury dishes and sweet treats. Anster cheese is, inevitably, well represented, found in fresh cheese scones, a potato rosti (served with black pudding and home-made beetroot chutney), omelettes, and on the cheeseboard. Glass walls and outdoor tables allow views over the grassy pastures down to Anstruther and the Isle of May. For more see p.13

■ Sangster’s 51 High Street, Elie 01333 331001, www.sangsters.co.uk Summer: Tue 7–8.30pm; Wed–Fri 12.30–1.30pm, 7–8.30pm; Sat 7–8.30pm; Sun 12.30–1.30pm.

Closed Mon. Winter: Wed 7–8.30pm; Thu–Fri 12.30–1.30pm, 7–8.30pm; Sat 7–8.30pm; Sun 12.30–1.30pm. Closed Mon & Tue £20 (set lunch) / £30 (set dinner)

New(ish) Michelin star in tow, Bruce Sangster runs a solo show in the kitchen while wife Jackie takes care of front of house. With just 26 covers in the front room of a terraced property the atmosphere is certainly not ostentatious; the food, however, is far from home cooking.

Intense flavours, technical dexterity and attention to detail are all here; quail arrives meltingly tender having languished sous-vide in a water bath, while pork fillet stuffed with black pudding comes as neat discs alongside pommes dauphinoise and red cabbage. Booking essential.

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■ The Seafood Restaurant Bruce Embankment, St Andrews 01334 479475, www.theseafoodrestaurant.com Mon–Sun noon–2.30pm, 6.30–10pm £22 (set lunch) / £45 (set dinner)

This eye-catching, glass-walled landmark sits right beside the Old Course and overlooking the West Sands. Elegant yet unstuffy, with contemporary cooking that’s assured at every turn, chef Craig Millar has put sustainability on the menu with clear descriptions of provenance. Find Skye scallops sweetly paired with a bolognaise-filled cannelloni and parmesan foam, or halibut from Gigha in oriental garb, whilst stone bass from the French Med has a perfectly crisp skin and rests on velvety linguine with mussels and sage.

■ The Seafood Restaurant 16 West End, St Monans 01333 730327, www.theseafoodrestaurant.com Mon–Sun noon–2.30pm, 6.30–10pm £22 (set lunch) / £38 (set dinner)

The pub atmosphere of the pre-dinner drinks area doesn’t prepare you for the delight of the light-filled contemporary restaurant beyond, with its Forth-filled views. The menu is mainly fish (sustainability and provenance noted), but there are other options, such as the firm-textured ham hock terrine accompanied by a bright piccalilli.

Grey mullet from the English channel is fresh as can be, simply grilled with a well balanced lentil salsa, while elsewhere an equally simple chunk of perfectly cooked cod tops a creamy risotto. A foil to its younger sister restaurant in St Andrews, but no less appealing.

■ The Ship Inn The Toft, Elie 01333 330246, www.ship-elie.com Mon–Thu noon–2.30pm, 6–9pm; Fri/Sat noon–2.30pm, 6–9.30pm; Sun 12.30–3pm, 6–9pm £15

On a sunny day the Ship Inn is the focal point of Elie, with the cosy, wood-lined interior abandoned for the outdoor terrace with its bay views and ideal vantage for beach cricket.

Top notch haddock and chips and pies are staples on the menu, with chalkboard specials and home-made burgers for Sunday barbecues.

Owners Richard and Gill Philip have recently taken over the Golf Tavern across the bay in Earlsferry – again, expect spot-hitting bar food and real ales.

■ The Tailend

Set next to the Old Course and overlooking St Andrews’ Chariots of Fire beach, the Seafood Restaurant is Fife’s most striking and glamorous dining spot.

130 Market Street, St Andrews 01334 470070, www.tailendrestaurant.co.uk Mon–Sun 11.30am–10pm [fish counter open: Mon–Sat 9am–5pm]

A new arrival in St Andrews as this guide went to press, the Tailend has a promising pedigree, having turned heads in the past two years in Edinburgh with a fish and chip restaurant and takeaway serving a wide range of fish (not just haddock and cod) cooked not just in batter but also in breadcrumbs or simply grilled.

The new venture will include a wet fish counter.

■ The Vine Leaf Restaurant 131 South Street, St Andrews 01334 477497, www.vineleafstandrews.co.uk Tue–Sat from 6.30pm. £23.50 (set dinner)

Chef Morag Hamilton’s lengthy menu displays a huge variety: scallops come with Balbirnie black pudding, while fillet of sea bass is wrapped in banana leaves with lemongrass and sweet chillies. Seasonal vegetarian dishes include butternut squash stuffed with Indian spiced vegetables and yoghurt raita, while an eight-hour, slowcooked lamb grabs the attention elsewhere. Home-made bread and icecream, plus husband Ian’s wellsourced cellar, confirm the individual touch.

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■ Wee Chippy 4 Shore Street, Anstruther 01333 310106 Winter: Mon–Sat, 11.30am–9.30pm; Sun noon–9.30pm. Summer: Mon–Sat 11.30am–10pm, Sun noon–10pm £7 (lunch/dinner)

Pillars of Hercules Organic Farm, Shop and Café has cult status in Fife for its inspiring acres of fruit, veg and herbs.

Opened two years ago the Wee Chippy hasn’t been afraid to challenge the mantle of it’s more famous neighbour, the Anstruther Fish Bar. Owners Charles Scott and Kevin MacElhinney are trained chefs with signficant restaurant experience, and offer evening meals in the winter. The waiting list is long, but the menu, comprising fresh locally sourced meat, fish and game, is already receiving rave reviews from locals.

HOWE OF FIFE & THE TAY COAST ■ Cairnie Fruit Farm Cairnie, by Cupar 01334 655610, www.cairniefruitfarm.co.uk Tue–Sun 10am–5pm

Cairnie’s busy set-up includes a tearoom serving hot drinks, homebaking, breakfasts and lunchtime options including soup, sandwiches and kids’ packed lunches. The farm’s produce appears in fruit muffins, smoothies and ice-cream made for them by Janettas.

See also entry under Where to Buy, p.29.

■ Fairways Elmwood Golf Course, Stratheden, by Cupar 01334 658782, www.elmwoodgc.co.uk Mon–Sun 8am–8.30pm £9 (lunch) / £12 (dinner)

Elmwood Golf Course, owned and managed by Elmwood College (see p.8), provides a practical, working environment for students studying for a career in green keeping or other aspects of the golf business. Located in the clubhouse, with views over the 18th green and Tarvit Hill beyond, Fairways provides a comprehensive range of food throughout the day, with plenty for 40 The Fife Larder

those playing the course as well as the general public. Mostly it provides hearty, mainstream food, but there’s an eye for good local produce in east coast fish or venison sausages from Fletchers of Auchtermuchty.

■ Fisher & Donaldson Café Tearoom Ceres Road, Cupar 01334 652551, www.fisheranddonaldson.com Mon–Sat 8am–5pm; Sun 10am–4.30pm £7 (lunch)

The smart wood and glass extension to Fisher & Donaldson’s main bakery just south of the railway station in Cupar houses a shop counter, chocolatemaking gallery and easy-going 40-seater café, with the obvious sweet treats complemented by a range of hot savoury food available at a servery. See also Where to Buy p.30.

■ Hatters 241 High Street, Newburgh 01337 840146, www.hatterscatering.com Wed–Sat 10.30am–5pm; Sun 11am–5pm £5

Located at the western end of Newburgh’s long main drag, Hatters is one of Fife’s more individual eating spots, in their own words a ‘shabby chic Alice in Wonderland inspired tea room and ice-cream parlour’. The interior is sparklingly white and unashamedly chintzy, but the food offering is wholehearted and imaginative, with doorstep bacon and egg sandwiches alongside cakes and home-made cordials. Look out for Friday night ‘Round the World’ evenings and other themed events.

■ Muddy Boots Seasons Café Muddy Boots Farm Shop, Balmalcolm 01337 831222 Summer: Mon–Sat 9am–4.30pm; Sun 10am–4.30pm. Winter: Mon–Sat 10am–4.30pm; Sun 10am–4pm £10

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Part of an expanding operation with farm shop and kids’ activities, Muddy Boots’s café has chunky pine tables and huge logs crackling in a central glass fireplace. The compact menu makes the best of seasonal fare and showcases many products available in the farm shop. A typical summer quiche of the day might combine home-grown asparagus with Anster cheese. The first rate all day breakfast includes sausages and bacon from nearby Puddledub Pork and free range eggs.

■ Pillars of Hercules Organic Café Pillars of Hercules Farm, Strathmiglo Road, Falkland 01337 857749, www.pillars.co.uk Mon–Sun 10am–5pm £4

Sharing a Wild West-style wooden hut with the excellent Pillars of Hercules farm shop, the café serves up a short

menu intimately connected to the fertile surrounding acres. All organic and mostly veggie, there are soups, sandwiches, salads and a daily dish, along with hot drinks, great baking and good kids’ options. Seating inside isn’t plentiful, but there are tables on a covered outdoor terrace. Once a month the ‘Restaurant at the End of the World’ opens for dinner, with a set menu and live music. See also p.14 and 32.

■ Ostlers Close 25 Bonnygate, Cupar 01334 655574, www.ostlersclose.co.uk Tue–Fri 7–9.30pm; Sat 12.15–1.30pm, 7–9.30pm. Closed Sun/Mon £28

For nearly 30 years Ostlers Close has been the hidden secret of fine Fife dining. Tucked down a Cupar close, owners Amanda and Jimmy Graham keep their menu seasonal and clearly invest time and care sourcing or

Special Summer Offer at The Old Rectory Inn We are renowned for our warm welcome and great food, imaginatively presented using only the finest quality fresh produce delivered daily from our local suppliers and complimented by a selection of fine wines.

Enjoy 2 courses & a glass of wine for only £12 per person (Offer valid until 31 Aug 2010)

Open for Lunches & Suppers Tuesday - Friday 12-2pm* & 7-9.30pm* / Sunday - 12.30-2.30pm* A La Carte Dining Tuesday - Saturday 12-2.pm* & 7- 9.30pm* (*last orders)

West Quality Street, Dysart, Kirkcaldy, Fife, KY1 2TE Tel. 01592 65211 www.theoldrectoryinn.com The Fife Larder 41

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growing their ingredients. Jimmy’s foraged chanterelle mushrooms enrich his meat dishes or add texture to a herby risotto and local damsons are gathered to create a tangy sorbet and a plum-scented gin to counterbalance to a silky dessert of vanilla pannacotta. It’s not flash, or big, but it is a beacon of great Scottish cuisine.

With rows of soft fruit stretching behind, the busy Blacketyside Farm Shop and Café makes the connections from field to plate plain for all to see.

■ The Tannochbrae Tearoom High Street, Auchtermuchty 01337 827447, www.tannochbrae.com Mon–Sat 10am–5pm; Sun noon–5pm.

Closed Tue £8 (lunch) / £21.50 (set dinner)

On the quiet streets of Auchtermuchty, Neal Robertson’s tearoom defiantly dances to an old-fashioned tune. Soup, corned-beef stovies, bacon rolls and baking from granny’s recipe book, all made from scratch on the premises, can’t be faulted as honest guid fare, though anyone used to hissing coffee machines and goats’ cheese panini will probably feel a little lost. Look out for references to the tearoom’s starring role in the filming of Dr Findlay’s Casebook, as well as Neal’s challenge for the World Porridgemaking Championships.

■ Thai Teak Muirhead of Pitcullo Farm, Dairsie,

by Cupar 01334 870211, www.thaiteak.net Mon–Sun 10am–5pm £10

One of Fife’s more unusual farm diversification enterprises, Thai Teak comprises a converted farm building full of chunky, carved wood furniture and other artefacts imported from Thailand, with a separate, raised wooden cabin housing a daytime café.

The menu is headed up by a daily soup and a Thai dish of the day – commonly a curry – with conventional toasties and panini alongside, as well as lots of cakes, home-made ice-cream and teas and coffees.

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GLENROTHES, KIRKCALDY & SOUTH CENTRAL FIFE ■ Blacketyside Farm Shop Blacketyside Farm, Leven 01333 423034 Berry season: Mon–Sun 9am–7pm.

Other times: Mon–Sun 10am–4pm

Blacketyside has expanded significantly in recent years with a shop and spacious café occupying a large, purpose-built wooden building, and both a garden shop and an expansive kids’ play area with trampolines and sandpits immediately alongside. The café offers a fairly mainstream selection of soups, sandwiches and cakes, with one or two simple hot dishes as daily specials.

There is also a ‘young farmers’ menu for kids and a few outdoor tables.

■ The Old Rectory Inn West Quality Street, Dysart, Kirkcaldy 01592 651211, www.theoldrectoryinn.com Tue–Sat noon–2pm, 7–9.30pm; Sun 12.30–2.30pm £14 (lunch) / £21 (dinner)

Hidden behind a plain, whitewashed wall in the historic burgh of Dysart, the Old Rectory Inn carries the atmosphere of its Georgian setting with elegance but also ease. The loyal local following enjoyed by proprietors Maxine and Spencer Barrie reflects the care and thought they put into their menus, with home-smoked salmon, slow braised beef and intriguing dishes such as mussel, barley and ham broth displaying a confidence in classic cuisine as well as an awareness of modern trends.

■ The Orangery Balbirnie House Hotel, Balbirnie Park, by Glenrothes 01592 610066, www.balbirnie.co.uk Mon–Fri noon–2pm, 7–9.30pm; Sat/Sun noon–9.30pm

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£14 (set lunch) / £35 (set dinner)

The Orangery offers a smart, dining experience in central Fife’s premier up-scale hotel: a large carpeted room, starched tablecloths, low lighting and classy contemporary touches. The menu places emphasis on Scottish ingredients with classical continental techniques, so you’ll find Loch Duart salmon, smoked in-house, with celeriac slaw, or roast lamb with kidney and parmesan polenta. Also in the hotel is the more casual Balbirnie Bistro.

■ Room With A View Forth View Hotel, Aberdour 01383 860402, www.roomwithaviewrestaurant.co.uk Wed–Sat noon–2.30pm, 6pm onwards; Sun noon–2.30pm. Closed Mon/Tue. £15 (lunch) / £21 (dinner)

A fish restaurant situated within the Forth View Hotel at Aberdour’s craggy Hawkcraig point. A friendly, familyrun ambience pervades, with amazing views across the Forth estuary from the elegantly clad windows. Chef Tim Robson’s short menu changes weekly and offers choices such as salmon fillet poached in sweet elderberry and grape court bouillon or seabass on a bed of crab meat, shrimp and shredded pak choi.

■ Valente’s 73 Hendry Road, Kirkcaldy 01592 203600 Mon/Tue, Thu/Fri 11.30am–1.30pm & 3.45pm–11.30pm; Sat/Sun 3.45–11.30pm. Closed Wed

Tony Valente’s father first pushed his ice-cream barrow through the streets of Kirkcaldy in the early part of the last century, and now it’s widely regarded as the town’s best fish and chip takeway. Despite the queues, or perhaps because of them, locals still wait for their food to be freshly cooked to order. Ice-cream is made on the sister premises at 73 Overton Road.

■ The Waterfront Bar & Restaurant 461 High Street, Kirkcaldy 01592 202095 Wed–Mon noon–2pm, 6pm–late.

Closed Tue. £10 (lunch) / £18 (dinner)

Recently built flats have rather deprived this place of its ‘Waterfront’ status, but this isn’t a place you’d come for stylish location and setting.

The draw is a mainstream menu dotted with various individual touches, including game casserole, seafood stew in saffron and lemongrass cream sauce or black pudding served with home-made apple, pear and mango chutney.

With the high tide lapping at its walls, the Seafood Restaurant in St Monans (p.39) captures the East Neuk’s history and scenery superbly.

■ The Wee Restaurant 17 Main Street, North Queensferry 01383 616263, www.theweerestaurant.co.uk Mon–Sun noon–2pm, 6.30–9pm £16.75 (set lunch) / £25 (set dinner)

Wee it may be but the power house in the kitchen really lifts this place, tucked under a leg of the Forth Bridge, to a high level. Simple set menus are packed with delight: melting rabbit boudin balanced by a rich black pudding and super-fresh salad leaves, or a classic veal blanquette modernised with a delicate light sauce and home made pasta that’s a triumph of balance and wellmarried flavours. Chef Craig Wood sources well, combines ingredients with flair and cooks them briefly. One of Fife’s best.

DUNFERMLINE & WEST FIFE ■ Biscuit Café Culross Pottery, Sandhaven, Culross 01383 882176, www.culrosspottery.com Mon–Fri 10am–4pm; Sat/Sun 10am–5pm £9

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Craig Wood’s Wee Restaurant in North Queensferry (p.43) has earned a big reputation for great cooking at excellent value prices.

ancient burgh’s charming old stone buildings, the modest image of this daytime operation is enhanced by its postive attitude to well-sourced and homecooked food. From the brief menu of soup, sandwiches, platters and proper home baking ingredients from Fife and around are impressively strong, not least the veg and herbs from the historic walled garden behind the nearby Great Lodging.

■ Fabric 2 Canmore Street, Dunfermline 01383 733430, www.fabricdrinkanddine.co.uk Sun–Thu 10am–9pm; Fri/Sat 10am–10pm [bar open: Sun–Thu 10am–midnight; Fri/Sat 10am–1am] £7.95 (set lunch & pre-theatre) / £12 (dinner)

Head chef Ian McEwan counts Edinburgh’s Witchery and Balmoral Hotel among his former employers, and this fiercely contemporary corner bar and restaurant is certainly aiming for big city style. Bright and airy during the day and stylishly bustling at night, the good quality food served stretches from cod and chips, burgers and steak to sea bass, Perthshire venison and a starter of scallops and Stornoway black pudding. Set lunch and pre-theatre menus also help take the edge off the bill.

■ Khushi’s 1 Canmore Street, Dunfermline 01383 737577, www.khushis.com Tue–Sat noon–3pm, 5–11pm; Sun noon–3pm, 5–10pm. Closed Mon £12 (lunch/dinner)

With close links to one of Edinburgh’s most admired Indian restaurant operations, Khushi’s is a high quality addition to the dining landscape of Dunfermline’s town centre. Decked out in sleek wood flooring and leather banquettes, with Indian fabrics and ornaments adorning the place, it’s a suitably grand location in which to enjoy a typical range of Indian dishes and desserts, with particular emphasis 44 The Fife Larder

placed on the special tandoori-cooked chicken, lamb and fish. No alcohol is served, so BYOB.

■ Reuben’s 10–12 New Row, Dunfermline 01383 739071 Mon–Thu 8.30am–6pm; Fri/Sat 8.30am–8pm; Sun 11.30am–4.30pm £8.50 (lunch)

A local café of a particularly high standard for Dunfermline, Rueben’s also has a deli corner serving a selection of high-end oils, biscuits, chocolate and cheeses from Iain Mellis, as well as cold meats and fresh, local bread from the new Steamie Bakehouse (see p.11).

Bustling through the day and preshow at the nearby Alhambra Theatre, highlights of the café’s menu include haggis, stovies and pasta bowls, alongside salads, sandwiches, antipasti sharing plates and a wide range of cakes.

■ The Unicorn Inn 15 Excise Street, Kincardine 01259 739129, www.theunicorn.co.uk Tue–Thu noon–2.30pm, 5.30–9pm; Fri/Sat noon–2.30pm, 6–10pm; Sun 12.30–9pm £13.95 (set lunch) / £20 (dinner)

Kincardine is one of those places that’s more waypoint than destination, but tucked a couple of blocks back from the main drag is this dignified and hospitable 17th-century coaching inn serving assured brasserie food such as Shetland salmon with chorizo and three-bean cassoulet or confit duck leg with pickled walnuts and orange salad. In both the lounge bar and 30-seat restaurant there’s a pleasant blend of tasteful contemporary comfort in the historic setting.

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The Fife Diet

The Fife Diet hen Mike and Karen Small initiated their ‘experiment’ in local eating in 2007, it attracted lots of media attention. As Mike says, ‘it’s a mad world we live in when an idea such as eating food from near where you come from is seen as groundbreaking and extraordinary.’ The idea, however, was never to eat only food from Fife, but to celebrate what was already being produced and explore what could grow in the region. Now with over 1000 individual members, the project has developed into an officially funded body with full-time employees aiming to localise food consumption generally and explore sustainable food.

The organisation is involved with

■ fifediet.co.uk

> THE BIG TENT FESTIVAL The Big Tent Festival at Falkland Estate is Scotland’s biggest environmental festival, with live music, crafts, family activities, workshops and debates. The food zone is known as the One Planet Food Village and features stalls and catering from a range of small food and drink producers based in Fife or immediately nearby.

The festival takes place 23-25 July 2010.

■ www.bigtent festival.co.uk

COURTESY OF FIFE COUNCIL

W

various community initiatives based around growing and sourcing local food.

It uses a regularly updated blog to publish ‘growing ideas’ as advice for gardeners with vegetable patches, and local producers are consistently promoted. Recipes from Fife Diet participants are also often posted as a way of raising awareness not just of what’s available locally, but what to do with it once you’ve got hold of it. The profile of Fife Diet has also galvanised other groups around Scotland and the world to initiate their own local diets, inspired by the realisation that relocalising our diets can, in Mike Small’s words, be ‘liberating’.

One Planet Food Based at the Falkland Centre for Sustainability, One Planet Food is an initiative to encourage a sustainable, healthy and inclusive food culture across Scotland and, hopefully, beyond. Starting from the perspective that if everyone in the world ate food the way it’s currently consumed in Scotland it would require three planets to support, One Planet Food provides advice and encouragement to local food initiatives, as well as researching and developing regional policies and projects promoting sustainable food systems. The centre is also taking a role in influencing national food policy, linking issues of food security and food production in Scotland with the global debate on food sovereignty and climate change.

■ www.centreforstewardship.org.uk The Fife Larder 45

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Farmers’ Markets www.list.co.uk

Fife Farmers’ Markets

A taste of one of Iain Spink’s hot Arbroath smokies fresh from the barrel helps make a visit to one of Fife’s farmers’ markets memorable

FIRST SATURDAY OF EACH MONTH

SECOND SATURDAY OF EACH MONTH

St Andrews Argyle Street Car Park

Dunfermline Glen Gates, Bridge Street

THIRD SATURDAY OF EACH MONTH

FOURTH SATURDAY OF EACH MONTH

Cupar Bonnygate Car Park

Kirkcaldy Town Square (in Dec: Sunday before Christmas)

All markets run 9am–1pm; www.fifefarmersmarket.co.uk

Found in Fife In addition to Fife farmers and producers, the following from outwith the region attend one, some or all of Fife’s farmers markets.

BEEF, LAMB & OTHER MEAT Barker’s Highland Beef wwwbarkershighlandbeef.co.uk Gartmorn Farm Poultry www.gartmornfarm.co.uk Hilton Wild Boar www.hiltonwildboar.co.uk

CHEESE & DIARY Arran’s Cheese Shop

Fife Food Network With more and more emphasis being placed on the importance of local produce, the Fife Food Network was set up in 2010 to promote and develop the quality food and drink found in the area. The Network’s aims are to: ■ encourage greater working between

local businesses ■ promote local food businesses to

visitors and locals ■ increase opportunities for

developing skills and learning ■ develop and promote the region’s

food identity

BREAD, CAKES & CHOCOLATE Laura’s Chocolates www.lauraschocolates.com Achray Farm Baking www.achrayfarm.co.uk Hudson’s Home Baking Handmade Oatcake Company www.thehandmadeoatcakecompany.co.uk

FISH & SHELLFISH Iain Spink’s Original Smokies from Arbroath www.arbroathsmokies.com

FRUIT & VEG SPECIALISTS East Pilmore Farm (vegetables) West Park Nursery (vegetables) www.westparknursery.com

WHISKY, BEER & OTHER DRINKS Cairn o’Mhor Fruit Wines www.cairnomohr.co.uk 46 The Fife Larder

Under the banner ‘Food from Fife’ the network will be working to increase awareness of the Kingdom’s quality food and drink.

The Network includes primary producers including farmers, food businesses from bakers to fish processors, retail outlets, farmers’ markets, farm shops and delis, and the hospitality trade’s restaurants, hotels and cafés.

■ For more information about the Fife Food Network and ‘Food from Fife’ contact: jimmy@fifefarmersmarket.co.uk

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Index

Index Adamson’s Bakery of Pittenweem 10 Albert Tavern 21 Alex Mitchell Butchers 32 Allanhill Fruit Farm & Shop 15, 26 Anster Cheese 13 Anstruther Fish Bar 25, 35 The Anstruther Fish Shop 26 Anstruther Golf Club see The Rockies Apple Days 16 Arbuckle, Andrew 17 Ardross Farm & Shop 7, 15 B Jannettas 12, 26 Balaka Bangladeshi Restaurant 35 Balbirnie House Hotel see The Orangery Balgove Larder 7 The Balgove Larder 15, 26 Balhelvie Farm 6, 7 Barnett, GH see GH Barnett & Son Baxters 34 Beekeeping 14 Bellfield Organics 29 The Big Tent Festival 30, 45 Birrell, John & Son see John Birrell & Son (The Orchard) Biscuit Café 43 Blacketyside Farm Shop 15, 33, 42 Brackenbury, Richard 29, 37 The Bread Club 11 Brewster’s 7 Butler and Company 27 Cairnie Fruit Farm Shop & Café 15, 40 The Cellar 36 Ceres Butchers 30 Clentrie Farm 7 The Cocoa Tree 27, 36 Craigluscar Farm Highland Beef 7 Crown Tavern 21 Culross girdle 10 Cupar Farm Shop 30 Daftmill Distillery 22 Dairsie’s Pittormie Farm 15 Dalachy Beef and Lamb 7 Divito’s Ice Cream 34 Dobbies Farm Foodhall 35 The Doll’s House Restaurant 36 Dunfermline Beer Festival 23 East Pier Smokehouse 19, 27 Elie Deli 27 Elmwood College Farm 8 Elmwood Golf Course see Fairways Restaurant Esperante 36 Fabric 44 Fairmont Hotel see Esperante Fairways Restaurant 8, 40 Falkland Palace Apple Day 16 Falkland Centre for Sustainability 45

Falkland Estate 30, 45 Falside Farm 13 Farm Shops 14, 15 Farmers’ Markets 46 Fife Coastal Path 24 The Fife Diet 45 Fife Food Network 45 Fisher & Donaldson 11, 25, 27, 30, 40 Fisherman’s Mutual Association 18 Fletchers of Auchtermuchty 7, 8, 30 Fordelhill Farm 15, 30 Forth View Hotel 25 Fyfe Brewing Co., The 21, 23 G&J Wilson 27 The Game Cart 7, 31 GH Barnett & Son 13, 27 The Glass House Restaurant 36 The Grange Inn 36 Harbour Bar 21 Hatters 40 Haven Restaurant 37 HS Murray 33 IJ Mellis Cheesemonger 10, 28 Iain Spink’s Original Smokies from Arbroath 45 The Inn at Lathones 37 Jamesfield Organic Centre 15, 31 Jannettas, B see B Jannettas JB Penman 28 John Birrell & Son (The Orchard) 28 Kerachers 28 Khushis 44 Kilduncan Eggs 7 Kingdon of Fife Beer Festival 23 Kings Barns Distillery 23 Knowehead Products 31 Ladybank Butchers see RH Waters & Sons Langraw Farm Highland Beef 7 The Little Italian Shop 25, 28 The Lobster Store 25 Loch Leven Brewery 21 Loch Leven’s Larder 15, 33 Lochend Farmshop 15, 33 Lochore Meadows Country Park Apple Day 16 Luvians 12, 28, 31 Macari 35 McEwan, Ian 37, 44 Mellis, IJ Cheesmonger see IJ Mellis Cheesemonger Millar, Craig 34, 39 Minick of St Andrews 29 Mitchell, Alex see Alex Mitchell Butchers Mitchell, Steve see S Mitchell of Puddledub 33 Muddy Boots Farm Shop & Seasons Café 15, 31, 40 Murray, HS see HS Murray Nelson’s of Culross 12 Newburgh Orchards Group 16

Newburgh Plum Market 16 Old Course Hotel see Road Hole Restaurant 37 The Old Rectory Inn 42 One Planet Food 45 The Orangery, Balbirnie House Hotel 42 Ostlers Close 41 Peacehill Turkeys 7 The Peat Inn 27, 37 Penman, JB see JB Penman Petite Epicerie 29 Pillars of Hercules Organic Farm Shop & Cafe 15, 32, 41 Pittormie Fruit Farm and Nursery 32 Puddledub Buffalo 7, 33 Puddledub Pork & Fifeshire Bacon Co 7 Real ale 21, 23 Reediehill Farm see Fletchers of Auchtermuchty Reuben’s 44 RH Waters & Sons (Ladybank Butchers) 32 Road Hole Restaurant 37 Rocca Bar & Grill 37 The Rockies 38 Room with a View 25, 43 Rufflets Country House 38 Rusacks Hotel see Rocca Bar & Grill S Mitchell of Puddledub 33 St Andrews Farmhouse Cheese Company 13, 29, 38 Sangster’s 25, 38 Scotmed Herbs 34 The Seafood Restaurant St Andrews 39 The Seafood Restaurant St Monans 39 The Ship Inn 25, 39 Smeddle, Geoffrey 27, 37 Specialist Potatoes 32 Spencerfield Spirit Company 22, 34 Spink, Iain see Iain Spink Steamie Bakehouse 11 Stephens 35 Stuart’s of Buckhaven 34 The Tannochbrae Tearoom 42 Tay Salmon Fisheries Company 20 Thai Teak 42 The Tailend 39 Trotter, Christopher 24, 30 The Unicorn Inn 44 Valente’s 43 The Vine Leaf Restaurant 39 Waterfront Bar & Restaurant 43 Waters, RH & Sons see RH Waters & Sons (Ladybank Butchers) Watson’s of Leven 34 Wee Chippy 40 The Wee Restaurant 24, 43 Well County Inn 21 Wilson, G&J see G&J Wilson Wood, Craig 38, 43 Your Piece Baking Company 11 The Fife Larder 47

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FifeLarder THE GUIDE TO FIFE’S FOOD & DRINK

Fife is leading the way in developing and celebrating the quality and rich diversity of locally produced food. At the same time, the growing range of high quality restaurants, markets and farm shops across the county are attracting international attention. Building on the success of The Larder, the Guide to Scotland’s Food & Drink, this new publication features: ■ the wide range of excellent produce from Fife ■ the stories of the people who create the unique flavours of Fife – the farmers, fishermen, cheese makers, fruit growers, bakers and others ■ guides to sourcing the best produce from leading chefs ■ listings of the best shops, markets and producers ■ a guide to the best restaurants Praise for The Larder

the

Larder

THE GUIDE TO SCOTLAND’S FOOD & DRINK

FIRST EDITION

“a magnificent first edition of a much needed, and what I am sure will be a much utilised, compendium of Scotland’s glorious food” Phillip Contini