Cafés on Skye: The Best Stops for Coffee, Cake and a View

For an island that feels so remote in parts, Skye has an unusually good café culture. It’s not flashy, and rarely overdesigned, but it’s thoughtful, personal, and grounded in place. Most cafés here double as something else—a converted container with a granola bar and sea view, a repurposed bakehouse full of sticky buns, a roastery tucked behind a Scandi-style shopfront. The coffee is often roasted on site. The cakes are rarely bought in. It’s all done with care.

There are places that reward effort. Birch in Portree feels like the sort of café you’d find in a quiet part of Copenhagen, but it’s just off the harbour and serves serious coffee with house-made ceramics. In Broadford, Lean To Coffee operates from a container and a ruin, and offers chai lattes and sourdough toasties with candied walnuts. Then there’s the wood-smoke and handmade pizza at Café Sia, the oat milk lattes and old-school iced slices at Dunvegan Bakery, or the summer-only pop-up yurts and sponge cakes at YURTea&Coffee.

Some sit right in the thick of things—like Deli Gasta in Broadford or Café Arriba in Portree, where walkers stop mid-itinerary. Others appear right where you need them most: near the Fairy Pools, up a quiet lane towards Neist Point, or beside Talisker Distillery. And some go further still—roasting their own beans, sourcing their own ceramics, or pairing cakes with views of seals and sea lochs.

What ties them together is a sense that these cafés are doing more than just serving food. They create pause points—small places to sit, sip, and reset before heading out into the next stretch of wind and weather.

BROADFORD & SURROUNDS

Lean To Coffee
///thrilled.foggy.dished
A ruined crofter’s cottage with makeshift seating scattered through open-to-the-elements or Perspex-roofed ‘rooms’, the café itself in a converted container. On the menu, honey-soaked chai latte and matcha latte, homemade granola, sticky cinnamon buns and sourdough toasties: the ‘Noserider’ filled with Strathdon blue cheese, pear and candied walnut.

Amy’s Place
///twitching.rebounder.dearest
It’s all about owner Alison’s homemade cakes – with a side of soup – in this purple painted, tin-roofed tea room on the road to Elgol. Tuck into a slice of traditional raspberry jam-filled Victoria sponge, lemon and elderflower, lime and blueberry, chocolate or Millionaire (a nod to millionaire’s shortbread) cake, washed down with a pot of tea from Tiree.

Deli Gasta
///huts.dumplings.shine
Simple, good food is the tagline. In a picture-perfect stone cottage in tourist hub Broadford, Deli Gasta’s signature sandwiches include ‘The Monarch’, stuffed with Great Glen venison salami, plum and apple chutney and Scottish cheddar and ‘The Dunvegan’, roast butternut squash and garlic hummus with vegan feta and roasted red pepper.

Café Sia
///fortunate.various.lordship
The roasting machine is inside Café Sia and if you’re lucky you might catch barista and master coffee roaster Craig Steele at work as you tuck into one of the famous wood-fired pizzas. For a seafood fix try ‘Over the Sia to Skye’ topped with sesame seaweed, silverskin anchovies, Hebridean hot smoked salmon, capers, prawns, mussels and tomatoes. Siaway is their takeaway joint and there’s now a second branch in Portree – Pizzaway.

Coffee Bothy
///blurs.barbers.cubed
A small, friendly café just off the main road in Broadford offering hearty breakfasts, toasted bagels, filled rolls, and proper coffee. It’s a good option for an early start, and popular with both locals and travellers looking for something unfussy and satisfying before heading north.

PORTREE & CENTRAL SKYE

Birch
///encounter.massive.connected
This pared-back little coffee shop down an alley in Portree, all granite-grey woodwork on the outside, pale wood and a Scandi-chic vibe within, was set up by Niall Munro in 2021 after spending time in Australia where he was inspired by the café culture in Melbourne, the home of the flat white. Now evolving into a sleek mini-chain there’s a roastery on the edge of Portree, also serving coffee and cake, where customers can learn more about the coffee and get an insight into the roasting process, and a second café in Inverness, launched in spring 2024.

Café Arriba
///cake.beak.destined
Hippy chic, old-school café in the heart of Portree with brightly painted tables and chairs and views of the harbour. On the menu: classic café staples, soups and specials – with the odd wild card thrown in: chilli scone, bacon, halloumi and spicy roast tomatoes for breakfast? This is a great choice for vegetarians and vegans.

TROTTERNISH
The Hungry Gull
///handbags.calms.croutons
On the specials board you’ll find dishes such as Pork Belly Benedict; ‘poachies on sourdough with a gochujang hollandaise and sesame’, on the counter white choc chai sticky buns and biscoff-stuffed cookies. This popular pitstop also offers takeaway in the evening; classic fish and chips along with the Gull Burger topped with Orkney cheddar, smoked bacon, caramelised onion with a side of hand-cut chips.

The Galley Café
///wing.blitz.grips
This bright blue clapboard seafood café and takeaway dishes up the best local fish and shellfish from Loch Snizort – langoustines with chilli or garlic butter, prawns fresh off the boat, crab and smoked salmon salads and classic fish and chips.

WATERNISH, DUNVEGAN & DUIRINISH

Bog Myrtle
///backpacks.intruded.rods
The founders of the Skye Bakehouse – Mania (the pastry chef) and John (the baker) – took over this leafy, pot plant-laced vintage-chic café in 2023. Think old velvet sofas and stools positioned in front of picture windows for sea-gazing while you tuck into a pretty bowl of basmati rice with pesto, tzatziki, broccoli and pickled red onion – or nibble a sticky cardamom bun or salted caramel brioche doughnut.

Dunvegan Bakery
///backfired.flips.bead
This village bakery is said to be the oldest on Skye dating back to around 1870 and does a mean line in old-school gooey cakes from retro apple turnovers and sugary doughnuts to lemon and blackcurrant iced slices washed down with oat milk lattes. The only downside is that you need to be quick as the bakery opens at 10am and closes when they’re sold out of treats. With a queue that stretches out the door it doesn’t take long!

YURTea&Coffee
///ironclad.teams.oath
SkyeSkyns on the Waternish Peninsula runs a quirky pop-up tea tent during the summer with a woodburner for cooler days, sheepskin-strewn seating inside, picnic tables outside, a barista on board, home-made soup, quiche and cakes. Rhubarb and custard sponge anyone?

Café Lephin
///optimally.risen.twig
Grab a seat by the wood-burning stove or at a table outside this contemporary grey clapboard, family-run café on the remote road out to Neist Point in the north-west of the island, for a bowl of soup and scone or slab of homemade cake – or a thirst-quenching local ale.

MINGINISH & THE CUILLIN HILLS

Caora Dhubh Coffee Company
///nightcap.awards.assume
Gaelic for Black Sheep, Caora Dubh is a hip little coffee shack and roastery opposite Talisker Distillery and overlooking Loch Harport in the village of Carbost. Jamie Fletcher’s wood and tin-roofed takeaway is small in stature, big on local community, ethical trading, sustainability and funky merch.

Cuillin Coffee Co
///faded.companies.mega
Close to the Fairy Pools in the Glenbrittle campsite at the foot of the Cuillins you can slurp a speciality flat white in the smart shed-chic café courtesy of the Cuillin Coffee Co.

SLEAT

An Crùbh
///shepherds.pull.upwards
Gaelic for ‘the hub’, An Crùbh is a bright contemporary café, shop and events space built by the local community. There’s a cosy inglenook and woodburning stove for dreich days, outdoor seating for when it’s brighter and vast picture windows framing spectacular mountain views.