Sheila Fleet is one of Scotland’s leading designer makers of silver with enamel and gold jewellery. Sheila has recently renovated a former Church into an amazing Café and Jewellery Gallery. Their food is focused on local produce catering for a wide range of dietary requirements served on bespoke crockery by Highland Stoneware and Sheila’s niece, Susan Walls who made all the drinks cups and mugs. These are also on sale in the Gallery along with a range of creative ceramics and weavings and paintings.

The Kirk Gallery & Café is at Tankerness eastwards on Orkney’s Mainland, only a few minutes from Kirkwall. The church (or Kirk as we Scots call it) is beautifully restored with its stunning showroom of Sheila’s designs and a superb cafe/informal restaurant where local produce rules supreme.

With seasonal soups and tasty beremeal bannocks, a range of light bites, mouth-watering dishes and tempting home bakes there are difficult choices to be made! We opted for the Bere Benedict: the local ancient grain baked into a fine bread topped with butcher’s ham, poached egg and a rich hollandaise sauce, and Hasselback Potatoes with local bacon, Orkney cheese and a drizzle of sour cream. They were both absolutely delicious so if you are visiting Orkney this is a must!

We took over a dozen food-loving Swedes from Slow Food Scania (pictured with Sheila) on a trip to Orkney and they still talk of their experience years later they had such a wonderful time – the seafood dish and North Ronaldsay Pies at Sheila’s Kirk Cafe are now legendary!