A COOK who once served the Queen a cream tea has reopened a popular Peebles café.

Sarah Bosma, 53, has taken a three-year lease for the former Ramblers café, which closed about four months ago.

For the first time in decades, the eatery, within Castle Warehouse, next to its cook shop, has been renamed “for a complete break with the past.”

Sarah said: “The Cozy Kitchen is a clean sweep, it is not what was here before and my style of cooking is totally different.

“Cakes, bakes and pastries are my love.”

Gone is the deep fat fryer and in has come a cook, dedicated to producing food “from scratch using as much local produce as possible”.

Sarah and her team – Linda Smith, James Bromham and Elle Jones – ran the catering operation at Whitmuir for a year after it reopened in 2022 before she decided to open her own business.

The cook has a huge range of experience from working across Scotland geographically since finishing a catering and hospitality course in Aberdeen many years ago.

“Our food will be about being home cooked, from scratch, using local ingredients and next year I hope to have our own beef from my husband’s Macbiehill farm and his goat’s cheese,” she said.

“I previously helped two friends set up The Loft Café in Haddington.

“I heard about the lease here from my sister-in-law and a friend who texted on the same day.”

Sarah’s varied work has included 18 years in private service cooking for lords, ladies, dukes and duchesses.

It was during this period cooking for a cousin of the Queen at Fettercairn that she served her royal cream tea.

Sarah continued: “I worked for conservationist Sir John Lister-Kaye at Aigas, near Inverness, and ran a shooting lodge on the Isle of Lewis where I learned Gaelic.

“This led to a spell cooking at the Gaelic college, Sabhal Mor Ostaig, on this Isle of Skye.”

Sarah moved to the Borders on marrying her Dutch husband, Wim, in 2009 when he was running a farm at Roslin Institute.

Castle Warehouse completely overhauled The Cozy Kitchen’s interior space before the opening.

Sarah said: “Kate Jones from Castle Warehouse was paramount in the café design but also liaised with me about the decor and it became a collaborative project.

“We repainted the tables and a friend who runs Junkshop Antiques supplied all the chairs, which are an odd assortment, as I am a bit vintage!”

“I like a mix of staff both young and more experienced but I will be in the kitchen making everything onsite.”