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The best places to find sublime seafood on your Scottish seaside holiday

Guest Expert

5 min read

Whether you’re perched in-front of a calm, turquoise bay or a wild and steely sea, seafood in Scotland is always going to be a glorious experience, so we’ve rounded up a handful of places to aim for on your Scottish self-catering holiday. Dotted along the coast are plenty of simple shacks serving just-caught seafood, homely little restaurants tempting you with steaming bowls of cullen skink soup and smart restaurants who know the exact provenance of every haul. It’s safe to say the food miles here are minuscule, and all the tastier for it.

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Bute

Bute is so small and so far off the tourist trail, despite the ferry port being an hour from Glasgow and the crossing taking only 40 minutes, that people you meet on the island will remember you from the boat. There are deserted beaches like Scalpsie Bay, which is great for seal spotting and keeping an eye out for dolphins, or Ettrick Bay which is more popular and has the added attraction of a small café on its shore. In Port Bannatyne, you’ll find the Anchor Tavern, a community-run pub that’s a heart-warming success story of people coming together to save a local institution, but you’ll have to go a little further for seafood, as they only serve crisps! When we say a little further, we mean two and a half miles down to Bute Yard, where an all-female team run a superb smokehouse. The salmon is a rare treat and there are a range of other products to sample too. A visit here makes a great part of any western isles adventure. It isn’t so much about the food itself, more an experience of genuine island life that has a naturally salty tang all its own.

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New Orleans Cottage Campeltown, Argyll & Bute

Edinburgh

Naturally, Edinburgh has many fine restaurants and many of those specialise in seafood, with Dulse and Leftfield both being particularly noteworthy. But the place we have in mind isn’t a fine dining establishment or a trendy bistro. Down on the beach in Portobello, you’ll find the unassumingly named Shrimp Wreck, set in the middle of a short run of waterfront eateries and attached to the outside of an old-fashioned seaside arcade. What began in a gazebo in Waverley station has now become a food sensation, featuring on BBC and in Netflix’s Million Pound Menu. The fishfinger sandwiches are sublime and stacked to the point of unmanageability, the battered “Buffalo Shrimp” are crunchy wonders and the spice on the fries is a mysterious but highly addictive ochre dust. To top it all, you get to sit, with your superb meal, on the promenade that runs for a mile down the beach, watching the waves and the people go to and fro.

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Skye

Skye, one of the largest of Scotland’s islands, is a mesmerising 50-mile-long checkerboard of towering mountains, glistening lochs, rugged moors and imposing cliffs, with understandably sublime seafood being lifted from the surrounding waters. Pre-order and collect fresh seafood in Staffin – lobsters, langoustines, brown crabs and scallops. Go for dinner at Loch Bay Restaurant on the Waternish Peninsula, this snug, intimate and informal Michelin-star restaurant is set in an old crofter’s cottage with lovely views to distant hills. The chef-patron adds a French flourish to Scottish menus packed with seafood from the surrounding ocean. Walkers too are spoilt for choice: scramble up the Cuillin, the UK’s most challenging mountain; wander through the weird and wonderful rock formations of the Quiraing; stroll along Talisker Bay, one of the few sandy beaches on Skye – take a bracing dip, if you dare!

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Loch Fyne

If you’re anywhere near Loch Fyne, a stunning 40-mile long, west-coast sea loch, you can’t miss a visit to the legendary Loch Fyne Oyster Bar and Restaurant. It has a glorious setting, hovering at the point where the majestic mountains meet the calm sea waters. Tuck into freshly shucked oysters, hand-dived scallops, smoked haddock chowder, or go the whole hog and order the seafood platter laden with langoustine, oysters, mussels, scallops, lobster and crab. Loch Fyne Oysters have been farming oysters here since the 1970s and are considered early pioneers of the Scottish food produce story. Today they supply award-winning and Michelin starred restaurants as well as prestigious retailers all over the globe.

Stay near Loch Fyne at The Stable Cottage >

Oban

Often called Scotland’s seafood capital, Oban is the main gateway to the Hebridean islands. It’s a pretty town spilling down to a bustling waterfront with a delightful bay and sweeping views to Kerrera and Mull – magical as the sun sets. There are any number of superb seafood restaurants but Ee-Usk is a special one, with over 25 years in the business, they know the names of the fishermen and women who drop off fresh catches each morning. Feast on lobster and crab caught from the rocky coast of Luing, scallops from Mull and langoustine, mussels, and oysters from the cold clear waters of Loch Linnhe. Gaze out of floor-to-ceiling windows and you may glimpse dolphins, seals and otters swimming around the North Pier. If you’re looking for something more simple you can’t go wrong with the Oban Seafood Hut on the pier.

See all of our places to stay near Oban >

North Berwick

Half an hour east of Edinburgh by train, North Berwick is a lively place. Wander its charming narrow streets, enjoy striking views out to the Firth of Forth and the Bass Rock (the world’s largest northern gannet colony) and bring your bucket-and-spade for afternoons on sandy beaches. The place is packed with classic fish and chip shops, ice cream parlours, traditional tearooms, trendy coffee shops and a multitude of independent shops and eateries, and we especially adore The Lobster Shack. It’s run with an eco-friendly ethos from local-as-can-be fish catches to biodegradable cutlery and packaging. Try creamy seafood chowder, grilled North Berwick lobster or a dressed crab washed down with Prosecco. Check out the Bass Rock gannets via the live webcams at the Seabird Centre or take a boat trip from the harbour to get closer to these magnificent seabirds.

See all of our places to stay in North Berwick >

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Carmen McCormack

Guest Expert

Carmen is a freelance writer specialising in travel. She once lived in a bus in north Wales, skipped off to study in Barcelona, and now calls Bristol home. When she’s not tapping away on her laptop, she can be found reading (a lot), lake swimming (a little), and pottering on the allotment with husband and two kiddos. She’s currently dreaming about cold cerveza and torta in Mexico.

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