A north-east fish and chip shop owner went “on the road” to serve up his award-winning offering to the cast of the Outlander TV series.
Calum Richardson who owns The Bay Fish and Chips in Stonehaven took to the road and travelled to an undisclosed area in Scotland where the crew and cast are currently filming season six.
The food firm was asked to attend the set for the first time, having catered for the Starz drama series previously at the Outlander season five end of season party in 2019.
Having impressed producers with his food offering at the party, he was contacted a week ago to pop-up at a secret location to feed the cast and crew.
“It was really good fun,” he said. “They are filming season six just now. I cooked for Outlander’s end of season five party around two years ago now in Glasgow. One of the producers, or someone who is part of the show, was a customer of The Bay and suggested that we went along to cook.
“When we were serving everyone that night, you don’t really know who anyone is because they’re not in old fashioned costumes. The owners and producers of Starz were there – the company which produce it – and they came for fish and chips at around 1am in the morning and they had come back for seconds and were taking some home with them. They said we’d be good for them on-set sometime if it went further.
“They contacted us last week about coming to cater for them. They didn’t tell us where, it was mainly just rough numbers. They wanted us to serve up the same as last time.
“The guys who set up our electric points for the van said it would be mental when the cast came off set around 5pm, but we’re used to being busy so it wasn’t too bad. A lot of it initially was runners grabbing five suppers as they’d all been working from around 4am. At the end the cast started coming along.”
‘He doesn’t want chips?’
Scottish actor Sam Heughan, who plays Jamie Fraser in the hit show, one of the leading roles, was just one of the cast looking to get a taste of The Bay’s offering. However, things didn’t quite go to plan after a miscommunication from one of the drivers left the star without any chips.
Calum added: “There was some folk still filming quite late and we had sold all that I was meant to be selling. I still had some left so I just kept cooking.
“One of the drivers came up and said ‘Do you have a fish supper for Sam?’, so I gave him one and the driver said he didn’t want chips. I said, ‘He doesn’t want chips?’ so I put them out of the box and gave him a chickpea fritter and off the guy went.
“We had finished selling everything and then the driver came back and said ‘Sam wants chips’ and I didn’t have anything cooked left! I didn’t have any chips for him. I said to the driver, when he was leaving, to drive Sam round and I’d sort him out. And so he drove him around and Sam jumped out. He came and spoke to us and remembered us from the party two years ago.
“He enjoyed the supper and he said he was going to try and get us back as he wanted us to be on set again.
“We’re big fans of Outlander – we started watching it a few years ago. It was hard to recognise everyone, it was easier to recognise them when you saw them in their outfits. When they were at the van, you could tell who some of them were, but it is hard to tell.”
180 portions
Serving up his award-winning fish and chips, Calum and Viktorija, who works for The Bay, cooked 180 portions for the team.
He said: “We had to cater for vegan, vegetarian and a normal diet. We did mini fish and chips which is our usual North Sea haddock and I made some of our homemade chickpea fritters. We did around 180 portions. It was a serious set up and was very impressive.”
This is the second celebrity Calum at The Bay has fed this week after welcoming former defence secretary Michael Portillo to his Stonehaven-based chip shop who was filming for up-coming BBC TV series Great British Railway Journeys.
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