M&M Spink

The Arbroath smokie — haddock hot-smoked over hardwood until the skin blackens and the flesh turns the colour of a conker — carries a protected designation, which means it can only be called that if it is made within a few miles of Arbroath. M&M Spink make theirs the old way, in a barrel pit in the yard behind the Marketgate shop, and you can stand and watch it done. The Spinks are one of the harbour town's fishing families; Martin Spink has run the firm for years, and a younger Spink, Rudy, came onto the books in 2025 — the succession that keeps a smokehouse alive. Buy them warm, straight from the pit, and eat them the same day with bread and butter: it is one of Scotland's great pieces of food, and that it survives at all is down to a handful of families like this one still smoking by hand on the coast that gave the smokie its name.