Amy Elles, The Harbour Café: “We are nothing without our suppliers”

My husband and I spent quite a few years travelling for work before eventually putting our roots down in Elie, Scotland. Walking along the pier I saw The Harbour Café and knew that it was a sort of destiny. My daughter Isabella was only four months old when we went for it, and then six months when we opened. I wanted our own place where there would be no compromise on the food, no matter what it was going to be. Somewhere where you would want to go on your precious ‘day off’. It is located on Elie Harbour, right on a small beach overlooking the sea, with fabulous views over the Firth of Forth incorporating the famous Elie Lighthouse and the Bass Rock.

We live in the most incredible part of Scotland with its abundance of fish, organic pastures and hardworking, creative food suppliers and producers. We are nothing without them. In normal times our menu is small and based around what we get from the boats which includes the likes of half a pint of prawns, lobster and crab cakes.

During the past year we have had to close and launched an online Harbour Café at Home delivery service, utilising local lobster, langoustine and organic vegetables from a few minutes down the road, meaning we could continue to order from our local suppliers. Support for our hampers has been amazing. We have adapted our normal menu and created themed hampers. I would probably say we have quite a strong Mediterranean influence as we have spent time working and traveling abroad. We use simple garnishes to enhance the flavour of our fresh produce and really help it sing.

We have a fabulous relationship with our local suppliers and try our very hardest to only use produce from within a few miles radius of the café. Our neighbours Balcaskie Estate have a food hub called Bowhouse which is home for a selection of independent producers.

We buy our organic beef from Sophie Cumber, Butchery at Bowhouse who sources heritage breed Lincoln Red from the Balcaskie farm. Our Harbour Café at Home boxes also come with organic side salad, vegetables and garnishes, which are grown by East Neuk Market Garden which is also at Bowhouse. The couple who run the garden, Tom and Connie are magicians, and produce the most delicious seasonal vegetables. 

Our fish is landed in the East Neuk, and we buy direct from both the boats through the fisherman’s mutual in Pittenweem and through our merchant David Lowrie in St Monans. We are very lucky to source all our ingredients so locally and it is central to what we are trying to achieve at the café; organic, local, seasonal, delicious.