STAR OF THE SEA
Billy Boyter is determined to make The Cellar in Fife the new number one restaurant in Scotland
Fabulous fish from Billy Boyter at The Cellar in Anstruther
Billy Boyter is from a long line of fishermen in Fife who have dedicated their lives to gathering the harvest from the sea. But he is making his contribution to the industry in a different way – by cooking the fish.
The talented 33-year-old is serving up local dishes like the roast hake shown in the recipe overleaf in his restaurant, The Cellar in Anstruther. In the process, Boyter has created a real frisson of excitement in foodie circles with his fresh, clean cooking style.
As soon as you look at his menu and try his food, it is clear that he has a genuine passion for the ingredients available to an East Neuk chef. As the son of a fisherman who grew up in the area, he remembers the joys of fresh prawns from Pittenweem and mackerel line-caught in the Firth of Forth. ‘I have always loved fish and you cannot beat fresh produce from the East Neuk of Fife,’ he says.
He also appreciates the effort fishermen go through to land a catch as an uncle was sadly lost at sea. ‘People do not realise what others go through to get your fish on the table,’ he says. ‘I appreciate that.’
In another age perhaps Boyter would have been a fisherman himself, but after leaving school at 16 he worked his way up from kitchen porter to become head chef at the Michelin-starred Number One restaurant at The Balmoral hotel in Edinburgh by his early thirties.
However, he is a son of Fife who had always wanted to come back to home, so when the Cellar in Anstruther came up for sale it seemed like a perfect fit. Tragically, the former owner Peter Jukes, who turned the restaurant from a slightly faded and rundown Fife establishment into an award-winning restaurant, was found dead on the coast in 2012. The 17th century former smokery and cooperage lay empty for a year, until Boyter came along and, like Jukes, saw the potential.
The young chef is determined to do justice to his predecessor. ‘Peter put The Cellar on the map and I’m really thankful for that,’ he says. ‘I was not coming into a restaurant people did not know about, it already has a reputation.’
Now he wants to make the restaurant award-winning once again with not just seafood but other dishes. Fishermen and chefs gone before couldn’t be more proud.