20-05-2025
The Kinneuchar Inn and Aeble team up for cider-paired supper club in Kilconquhar
Despite often being packaged, marketed and priced like beer, cider actually has more in common with wine.
That is the point the people at Aeble, Scotland's first cider bottle shop, and renowned Fife restaurant The Kinneuchar Inn are making at a five-course, cider-paired supper club on Sunday.
'We want to demonstrate the quality and breadth of cider by serving products that boast a real range of characteristics,' Jaye Hutchison, co-owner of the Anstruther-based bottle shop, told me.
To do this, staff will serve four ciders and one perry (a pear cider).
Jaye described one cider, Naughton Cider Company's Overture, as 'one of the best drinks, globally, that I've ever tried'. Excitingly, this cider and one other that'll be served are both produced in Fife.
Serving local food and drink is nothing new to James Ferguson and Alethea Palmer, who run The Kinneuchar Inn, in Kilconquhar.
'The produce here, in this area, is second to none,' James said as he handed me a fresh sugar snap pea. After eating it, I can only agree with him.
Cooking at The Kinneuchar Inn requires flexibility; the menu changes depending on what produce is at its best.
'We find the good produce and then write the menu after that,' James noted.
For the upcoming cider-paired supper club, James has put together a menu that highlights the local area's natural bounty.
For example, Tamworth pork, sourced from just up the road, will be paired with local stuffed and baked onions. Strawberries from the East Neuk will be served alongside palmiers and milk ice cream.
Just about everything served on the night will have been produced in-house. From the bread served during the meal to the three types of charcuterie in the first course.
Freshness is at the heart of what Kinneuchar do. So, when I visited the inn 10 days before the supper club, the pig had yet to arrive. The onions that will accompany it had six days until they were pulled from the ground.
Instead of the supper club dishes, I tried a couple of items from that day's menu to get an understanding of the type of food that The Kinneuchar Inn serves.
I enjoyed a dish of cockles, verdina beans and fresh peas that was incredibly flavourful thanks to the addition of some housemade sobrasada.
The other dish I tried was a testament to the inn's produce-led approach. Thick slices of wonderfully ripe apricots were served over a generous pile of mozzarella and topped with hazelnuts and basil.
Given the quality of these two dishes, I have no doubt that the food served at the supper club will impress the guests just as much as the cider will.
The Kinneuchar Inn runs various supper clubs during the quieter months of the year. It teams up with other businesses or invites distinguished chefs to cook at the restaurant for a night.
Given that summer is just around the corner, the supper club with Aeble will be the last of these events until autumn. However, the team have plenty to keep them busy until then.
Aside from expanding their general opening hours during the summer months, the team at Kinneuchar will also sell their famous fried chicken buns, which started as a lockdown-era takeaway offering, every Monday during July and August.
They expect to sell over 200 of these fried chicken buns every day that they are on offer.
The popularity of the buns is just one indicator of how well-respected The Kinneuchar Inn is, and its success has acted as a catalyst in the East Neuk. Now, the area is home to several other exceptional food and drink businesses, including Aeble.
Supporting these local business was one of the reasons why James and Alethea teamed up with Aeble for Sunday's ticketed event.
As James told me towards the end of our interview, 'Right now, we should all be supporting small, local, independent businesses because if we don't, we'll lose them.'
