The glorious and wholesome bakery that's opened on Scotland's North Coast 500 route
This is a beautiful and remote spot
The people at the gorgeous Alba Bakery in restored historic village trading post Burr’s of Tongue are currently kneading and proving through their first ever summer season.
We asked their head baker, Abby Hart to tell us more about the Sutherland business, which is owned by conservation organisation, WildLand.
Tell us a bit about Alba Bakery
Alba Bakery was created to celebrate great baking, local craft, and the incredible community and landscape we get to be part of. Everything at Alba comes back to simplicity and quality: slow-fermented sourdough, seasonal bakes, carefully sourced Scottish pantry goods, and a really good cup of coffee. Alba sits inside Burr's of Tongue, which went through a major renovation back in 2024. I love that Alba is a place for absolutely everyone - locals popping in for their morning coffee, walkers and cyclists passing through, guests staying at nearby hotels, and visitors making their way around the North Coast.
Burr's of Tongue is part of something bigger too: WildLand's wider vision for Sutherland, to create places that connect people with nature, celebrate heritage, and support rural communities that are genuinely thriving. I really believe food has this ability to bring people together, and that's what we're chasing here - somewhere that feels warm and welcoming, deeply rooted in this part of the world.
At the end of the day, we're just trying to make delicious things, showcase the incredible produce and people of the Highlands, and build somewhere people want to slow down, gather, and feel at home.
Tell us about your background in baking and hospitality?
I properly fell for sourdough in Malta, as the country has such a deep love of bread, and it pulled me in completely. Before I knew it, I'd opened a micro-bakery there and was supplying several of the island's Michelin-starred restaurants. But I wanted to keep learning, so I moved to the UK and trained at some of the country's top bakeries. Through all of it, what I really wanted was the same thing I'd had in Malta: to create, to talk to customers, and to hand them something warm, straight from the oven. I found that again at Alba.
Tell us a bit about the building you're operating from?
We're so lucky - it's a beautifully restored wooden building on the edge of Tongue, right on the NC500, brought back to life by WildLand. It has real history: it was built as Burr's Store back in the early 1900s, run for decades by the Burr family as a shop, tearoom, and bakehouse, with vans delivering as far as Thurso. It was the heart of the community for a long time before it fell into disrepair.
When WildLand took it on, the plan was originally just to save what they could, but once the restoration started, they found so much of the original timber and fittings still there underneath everything that had been added over the years. So instead of stripping it back and starting fresh, they restored it properly, keeping as much of the original building as possible. It even won a silver award at the Scottish Design Awards last year.
Being able to bake bread on the same spot where the Burr family once ran their own bakehouse, generations later- that's not lost on me. It's jaw-droppingly beautiful, and customers who come in can't quite believe it. There's something really special about a building that's been given its life back, and getting to be part of its next chapter.
What is the team like at Alba?
We're an energetic, joyful and (currently!) all-women team, encompassing a yoga teacher, an art student, and an absolute operations mastermind, all bringing kindness and passion.
That's really what shapes the atmosphere here. It's catching up with regulars who made us feel welcome from the very first day we opened, pointing travellers towards the best hikes and beaches nearby, getting to know everyone who walks through the door. We now know so many people by name - it still catches me off guard how much we've built together in such a short time.
But the wider team from WildLand is bigger than the four of us behind the counter - me, Caroline, Emma, and Heather. Every week, Otto and Sophie come and do our flowers and bring us fresh herbs. Roy, our handyman, is always happy to fix a wobbly doorknob. And the wider Wildland team has been endlessly supportive, never afraid to jump in for a last-minute shift when we need an extra pair of hands. Alba's team, really, is everyone who shows up and puts something into what this place has become.
What goodies are on the counter this summer?
The menu is always shifting, as it’s shaped as much by what walks through the door as by us. Neighbours bring us fruit and veg from their gardens, ideas come out of conversations, and the counter changes with the seasons. But the thread running through it all stays the same: everything fresh and warm.
Right now, that means a local rhubarb compote and blood orange buttercream sandwiched between two oat biscuits made with spelt and raw honey. We have heritage flour cookies, a plant-based option, and a gluten-free burnt Basque cheesecake. For something more savoury, there's an einkorn pastry quiche with chard from WildLand’s Clune Farm, and a grape schiacciata - and the cheese scone is always on, or there'd be a riot.
Any recipes in development?
I've got plenty fizzing away. First out will be an ice cream sandwich with local fruit, tangy Greek yoghurt, and a beremeal brownie. I'm also working on elderflower custard brown butter buns and beremeal caramel shortbread. And once our three-phase electricity is connected, we're excited to start baking bread properly, which is something I'm really passionate about. There will be potato loaves, buttermilk tins, soda bread, maybe even sausage rolls with local venison. The list goes on.
What other Scottish bakeries do you rate?
Scotland has so many wonderful bakeries right now. For me it's never just about the products - it's the welcome, the feeling of the place, talking to the bakers and staying connected to what's happening around you. One of my favourites was Hobz in Leith, which is now closed, but Matt is working on opening Cormo Bakery in the East Neuk. You can find him at different markets in the meantime. I highly recommend his panettones when the season comes round.
What has been your bestseller since opening?
Cheese scones, hands down. We hand-laminate them using the same technique as a croissant, folding layers of butter through the dough so they puff up short and impossibly flaky rather than dense. They're loaded with Isle of Mull cheddar, which is sharp enough to hold its own against all that butter. Honestly, if we ever took them off the counter for even a single day, I think our locals would riot. You just can't beat one fresh out of the oven.
What kind of customer do you attract?
Such an eclectic mix including locals alongside travellers living out their NC500 dream through the Highlands. You genuinely never know who'll walk through the door. After weeks of becoming great friends with one of our (many) favourite regulars, we discovered she's actually a TED Talk speaker with over 17 million views. We've got people who've called this area home since birth, people who've left the rat race of the big cities behind to start a pottery studio, and we were even honoured to have the Arsenal Women's captain in. It's still early days - who knows what surprises are still to come.
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