Elie is Edinburgh’s answer to Southwold, an ancient fishing port turned short-break idyll with a blue-flag beach and cobbled wynds, a sailing club and Victorian holiday homes. Here, on a sandy lane above the sea walls — they serve as the Ship Inn CC clubhouse for beach cricket matches in summer — this always-busy pub-with-rooms is a cracking base for coastal yomps and beachy days, serving above average pub grub including locally landed seafood. Comprising two knocked-together 1700s fisherman’s houses, it is an East Neuk institution, a place to hunker with a loved one in winter or scamper about barefoot with kids in summer.
Overall score 8/10
Main photo: The Ship Inn, Elie
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Rooms and suites
Score 8/10
Best of the six well-priced rooms is the third-floor Admiral Nelson, which has a rolltop bath, a vintage chaise longue and a wide bay window with sweeping views across the beach to the Bass Rock. Staff (and guest-book entries) rave about “snuggle days” when North Sea storms lash the windows. Decor in all rooms is warm and welcoming, with sensible dark tan carpets well used to sandy boots. There are gleaming modern bathrooms, though only two have tubs. The sea views are the star, however even the two rooms without views are just the job after one too many whisky cocktails at the bar. Extra beds for kids can be added for £50 per night.
Food and drink
Score 8/10
There are two dining rooms: one downstairs fair hoachin’ with hounds, a second upstairs sans dogs with great sea views, art for sale on the walls and a striking diving gannet mural by the East Neuk artist Hazel Terry. A light, crispy haddock ‘n’ chips is the best you’ll ever eat, but food across the board is solid, with the local chef sourcing lobsters, langoustines and crabs landed four miles round the coast in Pittenweem. There is also a good wine list (including five sparkling wines), a tempting kids’ menu and free private transfers to anywhere within a five-mile range of Elie.
What else is there?
Score 8/10
The bar is the heart of the place. It has a low-ceilinged sea-dog vibe, with original stone floors, soot stains above the crackling fire and tables made from upcycled beer kegs and diesel barrels. The provision of free half-time snacks during Six Nations games tells a tale, likewise a dog snacks menu at the bar, which also has a good collection of games. Young, sparky bar staff serve a long list of gins, single malts, local real ales and house cocktails, including a dangerously delicious Old Fashioned made with peach bitters. Fireside port-red leather sofas cry out for after-dinner drams; a beer garden on the sea walls does Pimm’s and barbecues in summer.
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Where is it?
Score 10/10
Right on the beach, you’re also bang on the East Neuk Coastal Path, which leads walkers out along the dunes to a string of cute, cobbled fishing villages such as St Monans, Anstruther and Pittenweem (home to a summer art festival). Picture-perfect Crail, handsome St Andrews, and Scotland’s creepily fascinating secret Cold War command centre are all less than a 30-minute drive away, the command centre hidden 100ft beneath an innocuous farm house. A water sports operator ten seconds from the front door offers paddleboarding and wakeboarding, windsurfing and sailing; an excellent nine-hole links course is a 15-minute walk away. The East Neuk is famously good for food, with Michelin-starred restaurant the Peat Inn close by. In Lower Largo, the Ship Inn’s sister pub hotel, the Crusoe, is worth a trip for shell hunts on the beach below and bowls of Cullen skink.
Jeremy Lazell was a guest of the Ship Inn
Price B&B doubles from £100
Restaurant mains from £16.95
Family-friendly Y
Dog-friendly Y
Accessible N
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