Shetland food and drink: a rich and varied larder

A wealth of fish

It’s no surprise that fish is still very prominent in Shetland’s larder, because the islands are surrounded by some of the most productive fishing grounds in the world. In 2021, Shetland boats landed 136,472 tonnes of fish and shellfish, worth £138.5m. In fact, the weight of finfish landed in Shetland was greater than in all the ports in England and Wales combined.

There’s cod and herring, but many more species are landed. Haddock is the staple when it comes to fish and chips, but local fish counters may feature species such as catfish, halibut, mackerel, megrim, monkfish, plaice, lemon sole, ling and the salmon that’s farmed around the coast.

We land far more fish in Shetland than we can eat, so most finds its way to fish markets and restaurants not only in the UK but also in mainland Europe and the USA.

However, fish features on almost all local menus and there’s growing interest in creating new products for both local consumption and export. For example, salt cod – once such a mainstay of the local trade – has been revived and Shetland folk have been enjoying classic recipes, the most celebrated of which is Portuguese bacalao.

Mussels are plentiful; in fact, Shetland produces around two-thirds of the mussels grown in Scottish waters, and it’s an entirely natural process. Mussel spat (seed), which is naturally present in the sea, settles on ropes suspended from long lines of buoys, and mussels – perhaps 5kg to 7kg on each rope – develop until they’re of harvestable size.

On the horizon is a revival of oyster growing. Oysters were harvested and sold in Shetland until around the end of the 19^th century; the last such sale was held in 1906. Locally grown oysters will be available very soon.

Not all of our fish comes from the sea. Shetland is blessed with more than 300 freshwater lochs and many are stocked with brown trout by the Shetland Anglers’ Association. A season permit is extraordinarily good value and it covers most lochs in Shetland, subject to just a few conditions. The larger lochs produce fish that would grace any dining table.

Meat and dairy

Meat also features strongly in Shetland cuisine. Sheep-rearing has long played a big part in the lives of Shetland crofters and many lambs are exported for finishing in mainland Scotland. However, there’s increasing interest in rearing Shetland native lamb, typically grazed not only on grass and heather but also sometimes seaweed; these small native sheep are brilliantly adapted to the Shetland environment and the meat is full of flavour.

Native lamb was awarded the European Union’s PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) status. and some producers directly supply shops or retail customers in Scotland or farther afield. For example, Lidgate’s, in London’s Holland Park take lamb from Uradale in Scalloway. All this is possible thanks to the fact that Shetland has its own modern abattoir.

You can also order meat – and other Shetland products – by getting in touch with any of the local producers who offer mail order. All the members of Taste of Shetland can be found on this website.

Shetland’s most-celebrated food tradition is probably ‘reestit mutton’. A leg or a shoulder, or smaller pieces, are brined and then air-dried, a process that used to be completed by hanging the joints above the peat-fired stove.

Reestit mutton takes pride of place at any Shetland celebration. It’s used to flavour a much-loved and very tasty potato (tattie) soup and it’s often served on bannocks, too. Shetlanders ‘exiled’ in Edinburgh or London have it delivered by post, a very tangible reminder of home.

Although Shetland’s terrain is mostly better suited to sheep than cattle, the islands do have pastures that support beef and dairy herds. Just as there is a breed of native sheep, there is a native cow, and like the sheep it’s a smaller animal than some other traditional breeds. The meat is of excellent quality. Pork is produced in Shetland too, albeit in much smaller quantities than beef or lamb.

Shetland also has its own unique, well-spiced sausage meat, called sassermaet. It works well in a cooked breakfast or in a morning roll, but can turn up in other guises too, for instance in a pasta dish or a Shetland version of cottage pie.

A substantial proportion of the milk sold in the islands comes from Shetland’s dairy herds and you can also buy local cream and butter. Something else you’ll see in Shetland shops and supermarkets (but a rarity elsewhere in the UK) is buttermilk that’s not only fresh but local. That testifies to a very active home-baking community!

Fruit and vegetables

Vegetables, and especially carrots, potatoes, turnips, sometimes beetroot, have long been grown in Shetland; and in some places you’ll see small drystone enclosures, called planticrubs, in which cabbages and kale were planted, giving protection from both wind and sheep. Some are still in use.

There’s a local breed of potato – the Shetland Black – which has a purplish-black skin and some purple colouring in the flesh. A floury tattie, terrific roasted, it’s not always easy to find even in Shetland; elsewhere in the UK, you may occasionally come across it in good greengrocers or Waitrose.

Another very familiar sight in Shetland gardens is rhubarb, an astonishingly versatile plant. It grows really well from early spring and appears in all sorts of puddings, cakes, savoury dishes and drinks, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. Its tartness is a perfect foil for oily fish, particularly mackerel. Recipes appear in local cookbooks and a whole volume – Rhubarbaria – has been devoted to it; more about these books in a moment.

So far, so delicious. But the past decade has seen a real transformation in fruit and vegetable growing and the reason is not hard to find. Everywhere you go in the islands, you’ll see the storm-proof greenhouses, invented in Shetland, known as Polycrubs. They’ve enormously expanded the range of vegetables and have added fruit to the basket, too.

Many people now grow their own salads, peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, courgettes and much more. They’re also enjoying apples, pears, raspberries, strawberries and grapes.

Although this trend is mostly to be seen in folks’ gardens, there’s also some commercial growing. Strawberries from Yell have been available for many years and Transition Turrifield, in the west mainland, supplies shops and restaurants with a wide range of fresh vegetables and herbs. The produce is that much fresher, of course, than anything that has spent a few days in trucks, planes, warehouses and the ferry.

It’s easy to find fresh local vegetables in shops around the islands. In Lerwick, for example, Scoop Wholefoods sells fresh vegetables and salads from Transition Turriefield and other producers.

The bakers

One of the things that has been a constant in Shetland has been the presence of excellent local bakeries. Four of them, in Baltasound, Voe, Waas and Sandwick, have been producing bread, rolls, pies and cakes for decades.

But they’ve been joined more recently by some others, for example in Yell and on the westside, each with their own distinctive offerings. Everything they produce is always going to be fresher than what’s imported, and of course they’re able to meet our needs on those occasions, albeit rare, when there’s disruption to transport.

Again, there’s a renewed interest in traditional ingredients and recipes, sometimes with a new twist. Beremeal – an ancient grain – is used in bannocks and other delights, and the Unst bakery uses sea water in its oatcakes.

Talking of sea water, sea salt is produced these days in Scalloway. The water is collected around mussel farms, where filtering by the mussels ensures purity, then it’s filtered again on shore before being evaporated to produce beautiful salt crystals. It comes in either natural or smoked forms and, in 2020, it won a Great Taste Award.

Home baking is woven into the fabric of Shetland life and, over the past ten years, several home-bakers have created something entirely new, a network of self-service cake fridges stretching right across the islands, as Perez and Tosh revealed in an episode of Shetland.

You’ll find cakes, scones, bannocks, shortbread and pastries. Some offer various puddings including cheesecakes, crumbles and tarts. One, in the south mainland, focuses on picnic food. At least one also provides pastries to local shops. All of them operate on the honesty-box principle. You simply put your money in a box and there’s usually change available, should you need it.

If that doesn’t completely satisfy the sweeter tooth, there’s more. Island Larder in Lerwick produces that most intriguing of Shetland delicacies, Puffin Poo, and they make local ice cream, too.

Both Scoop and Island Larder also carry many products such as jams and chutneys from local makers.

Sunday teas

This tradition of baking has also given us another much-loved element in Shetland’s food scene, namely Sunday afternoon teas in community halls. These have been running for many years, mostly in the summer months and – like so much else in Shetland – are held to raise money for charity or for hall funds.

As the BBC’s Simon Parkes discovered, volunteers produce vast amounts of first-class home-baking and sandwiches, which you can wash down with bottomless cups of tea or coffee. On any given weekend, there’s usually a choice of between two and five venues, and connoisseurs have been known to fit in more than one Sunday tea on a given afternoon. We won’t judge, promise.

Drinks, too…

Another relatively recent development is the brewing of beer and distilling of gin in Shetland. In Unst, a brewery operated between 1997 and 2017.

More recently, the island has hosted a gin distillery and it produces several varieties under the Shetland Reel banner. These gins are quite widely available in off-licences well beyond Shetland. It’s planned to distil whisky in the future, but the firm is meantime among the pioneers of ‘blended malt’, incorporating whiskies from Highland distilleries, and the result is impressive.

Brewing in Lerwick began in 2012, with the establishment of the Lerwick Brewery. Its range has steadily expanded and now includes lagers, several pale ales and an oatmeal stout, sold in bottles and 5-litre kegs. Again, these are being enjoyed in many places around the UK.

Eating out

Something else has changed, too: and in this case, what has happened in Shetland mirrors a wider trend. There is far more emphasis than there once was on eating out and the opportunities have greatly expanded. All of this owes something to the media prominence of food but it’s also a tribute to the creativity of chefs, and local ones do us proud.

Not so long ago, the venue for an evening meal in Shetland was usually a hotel restaurant or one of the two Chinese or two Indian places. All of these options are still available and they continue to delight their customers. However, the expanding market means that there’s a much wider choice.

In Lerwick, imaginative menus featuring local ingredients are to be found in No. 88, The Dowry (both on Commercial Street and in the Shetland Museum) and Fjara, all of them new in the past decade. We’ve added a Thai restaurant, Phu Siam. and a third Indian restaurant, Saffron, in that period, too, not to mention the very authentic French/Spanish C’est La Vie.

New openings haven’t been confined to Lerwick. In Scalloway, two more eating places have made their mark, the Cornerstone and KB. They join the long-established Da Haaf, in the village’s university campus.

The Braewick Café in Eshaness nourishes hungry walkers and Victoria’s Vintage Tearoom in Unst is a very welcome pit-stop for locals and visitors. And outwith Lerwick, there are several hotels and guest houses that do food for non-residents as well as residents.

If a takeaway is required, there is, again, a good choice, with options in Lerwick, Scalloway and Brae. What’s more, local halls also occasionally host takeaway evenings, which might feature Chinese food or fish and chips. Talking of which, Shetland’s chippies are pretty good. One of them, Frankie’s in Brae, has won several awards, and of course the fish in all of them is local and really fresh.

Despite the fact that Shetland has been producing and exporting wonderful ingredients for centuries, it’s only quite recently that islanders have come together to celebrate that rich larder. The range of recent cookbooks is testament to that, and the Taste of Shetland Festival, held in the autumn each year, is a showcase for all that is best from land and sea.

The event always features at least one celebrity chef, masterclasses, and cooking competitions, with opportunities for all the family to get involved; you can get the flavour of the event in these short videos about the 2019 and 2021 festivals. The 2022 event ran on 22 and 23 October and included cookery demonstrations in the Food Theatre by the well-known Scottish chef, Nick Nairn, seen above. The Taste of Shetland YouTube channel also offers a selection of other videos about Shetland food, including topics such as mackerel, meat and the islands’ food heritage.

The festival takes up just one weekend, but the work of supporting and promoting Shetland food goes on year-round, as you can see on the Taste of Shetland website. It lists all the organisation’s members, several of whom can send food by mail order, and there’s an online shop. The team picked up an award for their work at the 2022 Scotland Food and Drink Excellence Awards.

That reputation for good food is long-standing but it's never been stronger than it is now. The range of food produced in the islands continues to expand and local producers are committed to offering the very best, whether in local shops or by mail order.

That same spirit motivates our local restaurants and cafés, who make excellent use of local ingredients and have transformed the dining scene.

There’s a great deal to enjoy.