Our cafés and tearooms

If you are a foodie, our cafés and eateries across the Trust have everything from award-winning scones to homemade soups using produce straight from the garden. Our passionate employees and volunteers across the Trust make, bake, taste and grow the items on our menus, so there really is something to satisfy all types of taste buds! Find your future favourite, and explore what’s on offer across the Trust.

For some foodie inspiration and to start your adventure, we’ve selected five of our favourite cafés across our places in Scotland. Each one is in a unique location, with a great view and a menu full of fresh produce and special treats.

Looking for more? Scroll to the bottom of the page to find our map, with a pinned location for every Trust café.

Home Farm Kitchen, Culzean

Whether you’re after a sumptuous feast, intimate dinner or casual dining experience to fuel your day at Culzean, you’ll enjoy outstanding service and creative menus bursting with fresh, local and seasonal Scottish ingredients, some of which are sourced from Culzean’s own gardens.

Home Farm Kitchen serves a selection of delicious freshly prepared hot and cold food, including a range of baking and ice cream for those warmer days. Offering both indoor and outdoor seating as well as family-friendly facilities, Home Farm Kitchen is an ideal stop on your visit to Culzean.

Located at the Swan Pond, the Swan Pond Café and the Aviary Ice Cream Parlour are perfect pit stops offering a selection of hot and cold snacks.

Home Farm Kitchen, with beautiful sea view across to the Isle of Arran

Terrace Café, Threave

The Terrace Café champions fresh local produce, using specifically grown items from the walled garden on their menu daily to create mouth-watering quiches, soups, salads, and scones. Their unrivalled tradition for home baking continues, with new cakes and sweet treats on the menu daily like this red gooseberry scone! There are ample tables indoors, as well as outdoor seating from which to enjoy the views over the garden, estate and the Galloway hills.

During the summer season, you can also pick up a light bite or refreshment at the Stables Café. Set in a pretty spot at the centre of the garden, the courtyard itself is a real sun trap, and is also one of the best places in the garden to spot birds and squirrels enjoying the feeders put out by the garden team.

Fresh and creative baking at Threave, like this red gooseberry scone

Bessie’s Café, Culross

The gardens team at Culross are always busy growing fruit and vegetables in the organic palace garden for the kitchen team to use in a variety of soups, quiches and scones on their menus at Bessie’s Café. You can also buy freshly grown seasonal herbs, fruit and vegetables to take your for your own kitchen creations, such as British Colleen potatoes, Thorle Pippin Apples and Nun’s Belly Button Beans!

Plus, the cheese scones at Bessie’s Café were voted 10 out of 10 by Scone Spy at The Sunday Post in April 2023: ’Scone score - Light, soft, creamy with a wholemeal hint. Perfect. 10/10’. Read the full review!

Tuck into a 10/10 scone at Culross

Stables Café, Newhailes

After enjoying all that Newhailes House and Estate has to offer, you can treat yourself to a delicious lunch in the Stables Café. The team use items from their market garden (run by volunteers) for the soups and salads. Both indoor and outdoor seating is available, and with an early opening time of 9am, you can enjoy a hearty Scottish breakfast roll – the perfect way to get your day off to an amazing start!

Newhailes have also turned the old dairy into an ice cream parlour and traditional sweet shop. Situated just opposite the entrance to Weehailes Playpark, pop in to choose from the wide range of flavours made by Mackie’s.

Fresh produce from the market garden at Newhailes

The Hill House Café

The café is a warm and welcoming space in the Hill House Box, offering a range of delicious sweet and savoury products seven days a week. The café has indoor seating which reflects the interior of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s domestic masterpiece, with dark, oak-stained wood and atmospheric lighting, and on the second floor we have an amazing sheltered roof terrace with stunning views across the Firth of Clyde to Arran. Furry friends are welcome on the roof terrace, and the Box has lift access to both areas of the café so everyone can enjoy what we have to offer.

Every morning we serve freshly baked scones served with butter, jam and clotted cream. If you’re looking for something extra special, why not try our bespoke Mackintosh-style Empire biscuits – the most photographed biscuits in the west of Scotland!

A cafe roof terrace under the Hill House Box structure. It is a sunny day.

A roof with a view at the Hill House Café

A tray of four Empire biscuits, iced in the style of Charles Rennie Mackintosh's designs: two are white with black lines and red dots, and two have a rose design, created with pale red icing and finely piped black lines to create petals.

Try the new Trust coffee blend

Our official Trust coffee blend is launching very soon! Our blend’s name is ’Nàdar’, which means nature is Scottish Gaelic, and has been developed in collaboration with our tea and coffee supplier Matthew Algie, based in Glasgow. It is Fairtrade certified and sourced from farming co-operatives in Brazil, Honduras, and India.

The recipe has been carefully designed to capture the essence of the Trust, and its profile can be described as roasted, earthy, sweet and pinewood. The personality of our coffee can be summed up as cosy: think roasting marshmallows on a bonfire, long walks in the country, or a pine wood on a windy day.

Our coffee blend will be available to take home from our cafes and gift shops very soon, so keep your eyes peeled!