Lunchtime on a sparkling autumn day and I am in a Scottish fishing village which is so perfect it looks as if its construction has been overseen by a film production designer with an acute eye for detail. Old stone, whitewashed buildings crowd in along the curving quayside, and in places the road is strewn with seaweed from when the tide last came in. Because here in St Monans, in the East Neuk of Fife, the place where the land ends and the sea begins feels as if it’s negotiable.
At its heart is a small stone pier and, on it, a blue-painted building, the East Pier Smokehouse, which, I have decided, is the most perfect place in all the world right now. It was launched a few years back by James Robb, an Edinburgh-based contract caterer, to produce various products for retail and for his own purposes. Then two years ago he began opening it for food on the premises. You order downstairs, then take a number and wander up to the simple white-painted dining room in the attic upstairs, with its wood-fired burner. There are views of the crashing waves on both sides and, out back, a terrace for warmer days.