The Island cafe in Kirkwall has hit the national news headlines today for all the wrong reasons for its coal roasted, pulled puffin bap breakfast.
The unique culinary invention has been dreamed up by Steampunk Steeve, owner of Island, as a way of gaining a competitive edge over rivals in a crowded tourist market and help deal with the perennial problem of birds pooing on cliff ledges.
“This came to me while I was greasing down my antique moustache curler,” Steeve told the Herald’s fine dining correspondent, “I think the uproar is great. It shows I’m sticking it to the traditionalists who lack the imagination to invent unique breakfasts. I intend to source some of the local stone you see lying about here in the fields for use as crockery. It’ll give other dishes a local flavour.”
The puffin breakfast is served on a shovel though, that doubles as a napkin for when you’ve finished.
“There’s a little bit of trouble serving the meal. The shovels come out hot from the coal burning pizza oven in my kitchen and my waiter has to wear kitchen gloves to serve. It also takes ages to pull a slow roasted puffin into stringy strips. It’s amazing how tough the little birds get even with hours cooking.
“It’s worth it though. The customer who ordered one yesterday was happy to stand over by the window and wait while we extinguished the tablecloth after the red hot shovel set it alight.”
Steeve, not originally from the island, hopes that his original thinking will see him capture more headlines.
“My media studies degree isn’t wasted. Look at all the free publicity I’ve achieved with just one slow roasted, pulled puffin?”
