Craigie's
West Craigie Farm, South Queensferry, Edinburgh, EH30 9TR.
Call 0131 319 1048 or visit www.craigies.co.uk.
Style: Farm cafe and deli.
Food: Lunches and snacks.
Price: Around £10 for main course, cake and coffee.
Wheelchair access: Yes.

Visits to West Craigie fruit farm were always something to look forward to as a child; sharing the back seat of the car on the way home with cartons of soft fruit was always an excellent opportunity for filching strawberries and raspberries otherwise intended for jams and summer puddings. And as a treat, I'd be allowed to buy a small piece of the homemade fudge for sale in the farm shop.

It must be well over a decade since my last family visit to the fruit farm, but in recent years I've become a big fan of the produce of West Craigie's Jam Kitchen. Its chutneys - everything from classics such as windfall to more unusual flavours such as beetroot and apple - is, in my opinion, is the best on the market; stuffed full of fruit and free of additives and nasty things such as garlic powder.

The Jam Kitchen had a stall at the Edinburgh farmers' market until last summer, when its visits became more sporadic and eventually ceased altogether. The Sinclair family, which runs West Craigie, had opened a cafe and shop onsite and Kirsteen Sinclair, who usually manned the stall, now had quite enough to do running the restaurant and shop without selling chutneys and jams in person to the good people of Edinburgh on a Saturday morning.

Now I've been meaning to take a look at Craigie's deli and cafe since the place opened last summer, but it wasn't until last week, chutney stockpile finished, that I finally managed a visit. "It's very nice," said my parents, who seem to have made surveying such ventures one of the projects of their retirement - "the coffee is excellent and there's a great view from the terrace".

They were right on both counts. Craigie's location (just off the road from Edinburgh to the Forth Road Bridge) gives it an amazing panoramic view that stretches from the Firth of Forth across to the Pentland hills. What used to be an operation running out of a small converted farm building now has a shiny, purpose-built venue. It's nothing fancy; a bit barn of a place that's light and airy with the farm shop at one end and an order-at-the-counter cafe at the other. The furniture is simple and modern, with rustic benches and trencher tables by the windows at one side, and little vases of wild flowers on the tables.

The first visit was a morning coffee and cake recce where the homemade lemon-drizzle cake alone was enough to convince us of the necessity of a return lunch visit. We duly turned up a couple of days later on a beautiful Saturday only to discover the place overrun with excited small children. We had, it seemed, arrived on the farm open day. Somewhat to our dismay, the cafe was accordingly running a reduced menu; platters and salads (such as a ploughman's lunch), the daily specials and paninis and sandwiches were off the menu. In the event, though, nobody felt cheated by what was on offer.

The extremely generous portion of roast vegetable and goats cheese quiche and the pork and apple burger, both served with an interesting selection of salads (roasted vegetable, sweet potato, tomato and mozzarella) were as good as anything you'd expect to be served in any fancy city-centre deli/cafe, and would set you back considerably more than £5.95 and £6.75 respectively. The delicate flavour of the burger, served in a large floury bap, needed something more subtle than the ketchup on offer, so I commandeered some of the chutney - peach on this occasion - which set it off perfectly. The shared slice of chocolate cake, the old-fashioned homemade variety with the different kinds of chocolate icing that followed was entirely unnecessary but proved irresistible.

Not only is all the food made in the cafe's kitchen, most of the ingredients are for sale in the deli - everything from vegetables and Craigie's own fruit (strawberry season has already started) to cheese, bread and meat. The coffee in the restaurant is fair trade and the apple juice is of the pressed, single variety sort rather than the concentrated stuff that comes out of a carton.

It's all very in tune with today's local produce, environmentally-aware ethos and, to judge from the three visits I've made so far (I needed another visit to remind myself just how good that chocolate cake was), it's deservedly popular. Another thing I can report: it still sells the homemade fudge.