COOKING UP A STORM
Like a pebble washing onto the beach, it took Amy Elles a while to arrive at her forever home, the picturesque fishing village of Elie on the Fife coast. But now, the well-travelled chef and her husband Jack can’t imagine living anywhere else. ‘Our garden gate leads straight out onto the beach,’ says a contented Amy, whose children, Harry, 8, Leo, 4, and Isabella, 3, are learning to swim, paddleboard and kayak in these bracing waters. From their house she can see over to the Harbour Café, the small business she runs with Jack which has earned rave reviews from food critics and visitors alike for its simple, delicious seafood menu, served up within the spectacular setting of the Firth of Forth.
After gaining a wealth of restaurant experience – at Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck, Moro and spells cooking at hotels in Piedmont and Galicia – Amy and Jack moved up to Scotland a decade ago to settle down. ‘We started out in Edinburgh, but I didn’t want to live in another city so we soon moved out to a chocolate box cottage in Caputh, Perthshire, which was just an amazing place to live, with its hills and streams.’ Eager to start their own business, the couple
