James McLaren& Son

The Forfar bridie — a horseshoe of shortcrust filled with minced beef, onion and suet, no potato, eaten in the hand — is one of Scotland's protected regional foods, and James McLaren & Son have been baking them in Forfar since 1893. Five generations on, Karen Murray, the founder's great-great-granddaughter, runs the firm, with a sixth generation already working in it. There are three shops, two in Forfar and one in Kirriemuir, all within a few miles of the Market Street bakery the family built in 1902. The bridies are the reason to come — the recipe carries the reputation Bill McLaren spent a lifetime building — but the whole range is the honest work of a town bakery that never left family hands. A hundred and thirty years, six generations, one pastry done properly: this is what a heritage baker looks like when it is still a going concern rather than a museum.