By Jill Blair
Sundays, when I was young, were spent in the back seat of my parents’ car with my two brothers, driving to see my grandparents in Dundee. On the way back, if you were lucky, you would doze off during the Top 40 countdown on Radio 1 and wake up at home, missing the dreary drive down the M90.
These days, however, I have a new route home, and it’s via Newport-on-Tay in the north of Fife. It might be a little out of the way, but it does involve cake, and that’s always worth a detour in my book.
Towards the end of 2019, Jamie and Kelly Scott and the restaurant team behind The Newport launched their new bakery venture. Their beautiful hand made breads and pastries went down a storm at local markets, and plans to open a shop just a few minutes away from the restaurant came to life in February 2020.
Alongside firm favourites such as croissants and sourdough loaves, the offerings in the shop change all the time, with seasonal sweet and savoury pastries, numerous breads and sandwiches, as well as stocking a great range of other products including flour, charcuterie and locally made Newport preserves and pickles.
I treated myself to a selection including a giant miso peanut chocolate brownie that went down very well indeed with my sweet-toothed teenager, but the star of the show for me was a savoury tart with Arbroath smokie and crowdie. The smell of it taunted me from the back seat of the car the whole way home. It really delivered on taste as well as being incredibly pretty, with the attention to detail you would expect from The Newport restaurant.
If you do pay them a visit, they have a “fruit for pastries” exchange at the moment. Ask them about it before you go if you have a glut of fruit in your garden; what a great way to reduce food waste and to keep their ingredients local.
7 Cupar Street, Newport-on-Tay, DD6 8AF
01382 541970