The best restaurants in West Mainland Orkney Islands Highlands and Islands

If you are visiting Orkney, book a table in advance, you won’t regret it. Absolutely delicious sourdough pizzas, freshly made in front of you. The Goatee was perfect! Nice atmosphere, comfortable surroundings. And you can pick up frozen sourdough croissants to bake at home for breakfast. The lovely wee beach just down the road is a bonus for a pre-dinner walk.

Had the best latte here. The view was lovely and we could have sat there all day! The menu looked really interesting and we were disappointed that we had already eaten!

Drinks and KINKS The clue is in the name if you are into an ALTERNATIVE LIFESTYLE then this is the place for swapping DRINKS are also available but If it’s KINKS you want this is the place to be.

This is my favourite cafe in Orkney. Staff are absolutely lovely, really friendly and accommodating and they do the best egg mayonnaise sandwiches I have ever eaten, anywhere! The brunches, scoffles and the cakes and scones are superb. I love this place!

Visiting the brewery was one of the highlights of our visit to Kirkwall. The beer was amazing. The proprietor welcoming.

I'm on Orkney for work with some spare time before flying home. On my way from Brodgar to Scapa I passed through Finnston and situated on a pretty bay with picnic tables is Leigh's van. "A real taste of Orkney", it says on the side. Wow. Beautiful friendly, chatty service. Good knowledge of the local produce and to top it all, the best sandwich I've ever had from a van. Have the steak rossinni burger. Again, wow.

This small community is to drive through, and not a destination. Because of the hour, we elected to stop here for dinner. The small restaurant was cozy, the service friendly and helpful and the food, surprisingly very good, beyond our expectations. The scallops were outstanding and the steaks were nothing less than perfect. A selection of food items for kids simplified our stop, and the selection of beers and ales made it even more interesting.

There were four of us and we all rated The Merkister highly! Indeed it shared top place of our many dining places during a two week stay in Orkney. The welcome was warm, the service excellent, quiet and gentle and venue pretty amazing. We all ate different dishes and were all 'wowed' by what we selected. The Westray Seafood Parcel for starter was simply amazing and the seafood salad exquisite - as was the monkfish curry! Hopefully the Merkister will be at the top of the dining out list when we return to Orkney - twice - in 2025. Top marks all around.

Great meal last Friday. Menu has plenty of varied choices and when the plates arrived the food was excellently presented. Really nice and friendly staff made it a lovely evening.

A small shop serving predominately ice-cream treats plus the sort of fudge, sweets and candies that your grandmother bought for you when you were small. The ice-cream treats are ice-cream based deserts with all manner of toppings and flavours (a normal scoop on a cone is also available!). Downside is that there's nowhere to sit inside; there's a bench outside (though you may - as we were - be attacked by midges) and you're next to a busy main road.