A new cafe has been opened in the East Neuk village of St Monans by two brothers who grew up in the local hospitality scene.
Fife has been rising through the ranks of late to become one of Scotland’s food and drink hotspots. Home to a Michelin-star restaurant, seaside cafes and bistros, artisan food and drink markets, fine dining eateries and so much more, it’s almost impossible not to find something to savour.
And a couple of weeks ago, the kingdom’s East Neuk just grew its cafe population by one more as two brothers are opening up shop in St Monans.
The Giddy Gannet, owned by 32-year-old Henry Philip and his brother Will, 29, has already opened for takeaway in the village, with plans to open fully for sit-ins by the end of November.
Growing up with the family’s hospitality business – The Ship Inn in Elie – Henry and Will knew they wanted to open something of their own, with this new cafe in the East Neuk being their first independent venture together.
Henry says: “Our parents ran a pub for about 30 years called The Ship Inn in Elie until around 2014. So we grew up in hospitality but then we both went off to do different kinds of office jobs.
“For about the past 10 years we were sending messages to each other almost every other week after a really bad day asking each other ‘when are we going to open this cafe?’.”
Will adds: “We’ve always wanted to do something because when our parents ran The Ship we opened up our own little coffee shop in the beer garden and we did that every summer for five years.
“Then we knew we always wanted to do something later on and now we’ve finally got our own place which is very exciting!”
On the menu
For the menu, the brothers are just operating as a takeaway until their refurbishment has finished, with lots of baked goods, hot chocolate and coffee being served up to locals.
“We’re trying to keep the menu quite simple initially while we’re doing takeaway – everything is home baked and we are doing lots of baked sweet goods, such as scones, croissants, veggie sausage rolls, and that kind of thing,” continues Henry.
“Then once we’re open for sit-ins we’re going to be doing bagels and soup as well, just keeping the menu really simple but trying to make everything in house if we can.
“We’re also trying to keep everything as local as possible as well so using local producers where we can.
“We’ve got some gluten-free food on the go at the moment and some vegan stuff as well as vegetarian. We’ll try to cater for everyone really.”
Behind the name
Naming the cafe after its previous incarnation whilst also wanting to reflect a bit of the brothers’ personality and ethos, Henry and Will are hoping to show their new venture to the world by the end of November.
Will continues: “We felt the place needed a fresh start. It was called The Diving Gannet before and had been run as a cafe for quite a while but we felt like we wanted to make our own mark on the place and that needed a new name that suited the personality we wanted to inject into the place.
“We don’t have an opening date quite yet, we’re thinking it will be mid to late November. We’re doing all the renovations ourselves so we still have a bit of painting and some furnishing to do.
“Long term we want to get involved with the community as much as possible.
Henry adds: “There’s a ladies coffee group who come in individually at the moment but they are so desperate to come in and sit down as a group. They do a lot of open water swimming and stuff and are a really nice group, so I think they’ll be our first group event.
“Then longer-term we’ve got plans to host events of our own, but not for a while yet.”
The Giddy Gannet is open every day for takeaway only at the moment, from 9am to 4pm. More information can be found on Facebook and Instagram.