 We closed October with a real treat, with a visit from the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service. We were honoured to welcome local Station Manager Jim Differ to the café, where he presented us with a plaque in recognition of our support for the local community fire station.
Both Colin McGeoch and Ivan Stankov are fully trained reserve fire fighters and full time members of our management team. We are incredibly proud of them and their contributions both at the café and within the fire service. The whole team support Colin and Ivan and have allowed them to create the time they need to train and attend incidents whilst the café continues to serve hundreds and thousands of visitors. We’re grateful to be recognised by the fire service as a business that supports and encourages its employees in making a difference with a wider contribution to the community. Well done everyone!
 We’re really proud to have been nominated in The Great Outdoors Magazine Reader Awards 2018 – and now we need your votes to win it!
We’ve been short listed in the ‘Walkers Cafe of the Year’ category, and we’d really appreciate your votes to help us over the finish line. Voting shouldn’t take longer than three minutes, and you can cast your votes in as many or as few categories as you wish – but obviously cast your vote for us at the very least! Click below to cast your vote online. https://www.tgomagazine.co.uk/awards/reader-awards/  October has only started and already we have more good news! The team have achieved an A Grade certification from Coeliac UK for the fourth year running. We’re incredibly proud of all the teams’ efforts, but particularly of Colin and Mirela who assisted Coeliac UK’s auditors.
Coeliac UK conduct unannounced visits to assess whether venues are knowledgeable about gluten free products and are preparing food safely, so that staff and visitors to the café can have confidence that gluten free means gluten free when eating at the café. We’re proud of our gluten free offering, and know that many of our customers from afar to eat with us. Our gluten free chocolate fudge cake has a two star Great Taste Award, and our gluten free fish and chips are award winning, with everything on the plate being suitable for coeliacs, from the batter and the mushy peas to the vinegar! If you want more information on how we prepare our food safely, you can find out on our dietary requirements page.  The cafe team are celebrating once again as we reach the regional finals of the Scottish Thistle Awards! We’ve been named as a finalist for the Best Eating Experience in the Central, Fife & Tayside region.
The Scottish Thistle Awards are arranged by VisitScotland along with a number of food and tourism associations across the country, and find the best tourism businesses in five regions in Scotland which then go on to the national finals. For over 20 years the Scottish Thistle Awards has been recognising Scotland’s tourism talent in what is the Oscar’s for the industry, and we couldn’t be prouder to be involved. One of the main focuses of the awards is supporting Scottish suppliers and sourcing ingredients sustainably, which is something that is very important to us. We have recently been given Marine Stewardship Council Certification, which means that over 95% of the fish we use comes from sustainable fishing grounds. Our Smoked Salmon is from Uig Lodge on Lewis in The Outer Hebrides, and we regularly have daily specials from local fisheries, like oysters from The Caledonian Oyster Company at Loch Creran even our popular chocolate fish and chips are made locally by the Oban Chocolate Company! We’re also members of the Scotch Beef Club, which means all our beef products can be traced back to the farm as accredited Scottish beef and we buy all our meat through Letterfindlay Butchers at Fort William. We work closely with lots of suppliers across Scotland – Such as Innis & Gunn, Mackies of Scotland and Albert Bartlett. If you want to find out even more, you can check Our Suppliers page with a map of where our food comes from. We’re facing two top competitors in our region, the Black Watch Museum and Café, Perth, and two AA rosette Thyme at Errichel Restaurant, Aberfeldy; but we’ve worked very hard and come a long way from the cafe’s former life as a Little Chef and we’re looking forward to the #ThistleAwards ceremony at Prestonfield House on the 15th November. #ScotlandisNow  We’re delighted to have received certification from the Marine Stewardship Council as serving fish from sustainable sources.
The MSC has spent the last 20 years ensuring our oceans are healthy and full of life by promoting sustainable fishing practices and encouraging us to eat fish from eco-friendly fisheries. The blue fish with the white tick is a recognisable symbol on fish products in supermarkets, and the café will now proudly display the logo on its menu. In order to be recognised for certification, restaurants must serve dishes which source 95% of its seafood from sustainable fisheries. We work closely with Smales & Son Fish Merchant to procure the best quality and eco-friendly haddock that we can, for our menu. We have found that using fish caught using modern trawlers in the Arctic waters of the Barents Sea and the North Atlantic best suits the needs of of our business from the points of view of consistency in quality, practicality and sustainability. Next time you visit The Real Food Café, eat sustainably and choose the blue fish! |
