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Cafés
in Fife.

It’s 01:42 in Fife.
Fife

Where to stop for coffee.

A good café makes a day out, and Fife has some lovely ones. Several sit right on the coast, so you can stop for a coffee and a slice of cake halfway along the coastal path or after a walk on the beach. Others are tucked into old buildings in the villages, from a tearoom in the cellars of a seventeenth-century cottage to a café in an old butcher's shop, with a little shop of local things to browse while you wait. There's even one inside a chocolate shop. Whether it's breakfast, lunch or a mid-afternoon treat, these are the cafés in Fife worth stopping for.

Pittenweem Chocolate Company→
Bàern Cafe→
Spoiled Life→
The Pavilion, Elie→
The Mirador Café→
Café of the dayJust now

Pittenweem Chocolate Company.

A family-run chocolate shop and the Cocoa Tree Cafe on the High Street at Pittenweem, with handmade chocolates, hot chocolate and a courtyard garden.

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AfterwardsJust nowCulrossCulross Mercat Cross0 yardsCulrossTanhouse Brae100 yardsCulrossThe Lockit Well100 yards

Round the corner from The Mercat, Culross.

Three good places a short walk away: Culross Mercat Cross, Tanhouse Brae and The Lockit Well.

See The Mercat, Culross
Just openedJust now

1821, a café in the old stables on Falkland Estate, is named for the year Professor John Bruce bought the estate.

It is run by the Falkland Stewardship Trust, a charity, so the profits go back into the estate's woods and paths. The pastries come from its own Hidden Place Bakery.

Photograph: Mark Hay on Google MapsRead about it
From the magazineJust nowThe printed copy of Issue 06Issue 06Spring / Summer 2023

Giacomo Pesce, the baker at Baern Café in St Monans, in the East Neuk of Fife, came to bread by way of a PhD in mineral physics.

Giacomo comes from Treviso, just north of Venice, and went from his PhD into a career in fine dining. He met the chef Hazel Powell, who is from Glenfinnan, when she was working at the restaurant Fhior in Edinburgh. Together they opened Baern in the old grain store at Balcaskie, the working estate that is home to the Bowhouse food hub. The menu is small and changes weekly, and everything is made from scratch in the open kitchen, from the sausage rolls to the bread.

See Bàern Cafe · Fife
StayJust nowFifeThe Crow’s Nest4.1 milesFifeThe Old Stable4.1 milesFifeFifies4.1 miles

Stay near The Pavilion, Elie.

The three good places closest to it: The Crow’s Nest, The Old Stable and Fifies.

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From our guideJust now

Salt & Pine Creperie.

This classy creperie and snack bar, based in a converted shipping container, is pretty much exactly the kind of soul-warming sight you’d hope to find after a walk on wide-open Kinshaldy Beach. The savoury and sweet crepes are a cut above (salted caramel and apple pie, anyone?), and barista coffee, soups and salads are also on offer.

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From Issue 6 of Hidden Scotland magazineIssue 6Just nowFifeBowhouseFifeSt MonansAttractionFifeFuttle

Baern Café

Hazel Powell and Giacomo Pesce's café in the old grain store at Bowhouse on the Balcaskie estate in Fife, cooking a weekly menu from scratch around their own sourdough.

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CafésJust now

Spoiled Life.

A clothing, homeware and lifestyle shop with a coffee bar on Greyfriars Garden in St Andrews, with apartments of its own to let.

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From the magazineJust nowThe printed copy of Issue 11Issue 11Autumn / Winter 2025–26

Laura Wilson, who runs The Dundonald guesthouse in Culross, Fife, opened The Mercat café and shop in the old village butcher's because her guests kept asking where she found things.

Laura returned to the area in 2020 after a decade in Canada, and her first project was The Dundonald, a 19th-century coaching inn she made into a design-led guesthouse. 'I wanted to open a shop as guests at The Dundonald are always asking where I got the linens, vintage paintings and ceramics'. Working with an architect, she took the back of the old W. McKay butcher's shop right down to the bricks for a homeware room, while keeping its listed windows, doors and tiles. The café's Art Nouveau tiles, in buttery yellow and reddish brown, set the colours for the whole place. Culross is said Coo-riss.

See The Mercat, Culross · Fife
From our guideJust now

The Mirador Café.

A coffee-scented refuge for walkers along the Fife Coastal Path, this café and takeaway forms part of the Elie Holiday Park. It offers a ‘breakfast in a box’ takeaway, including a good vegetarian option, as well as a comprehensive spread of filled rolls, home bakes, ice creams, burgers and hot drinks.

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From the magazineJust nowThe printed copy of Issue 06Issue 06Spring / Summer 2023

At Baern Café in St Monans, in the East Neuk of Fife, leftover kimchi juice goes into the sourdough and corn from the soup becomes a sweetcorn and tarragon lemonade.

The chef Hazel Powell and the baker Giacomo Pesce share an ethos built on the seasons, the environment and zero waste, so Baern's leftovers always get used somehow. Their small menu changes weekly and comes almost entirely from their neighbours at Bowhouse, a hub set up to connect small growers and producers with restaurants and shoppers. The vegetables come from a nearby market garden, the fish is landed in St Monans, and the flour for the bread comes from Scotland The Bread, which grows small-scale heritage grains for their goodness rather than for yield. Ask Hazel what visitors must try and she names the sausage rolls, 'And always the bread'.

See Bàern Cafe · Fife

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