Deep-fried Mars bars off the menu as chef in a kilt takes on negative stereotypes of Scottish food

Scottish chef Andy Waugh's new restaurant The Wild Game Co will bring the best Highlands produce to London
Tartan cuisine: chef Andy Waugh is opening a new restaurant in Fitzrovia
Rod Kitson9 September 2014

Deep-fried Mars bars, pizza, haggis …  when it comes to food, Scotland has no shortage of negative stereotypes.

But a chef is seeking to change all that with a new restaurant which will bring the best Highlands produce to London — and alter the perception of his country’s “misunderstood” cuisine.

Andy Waugh, who grew up an hour north of Inverness, has been running a street food stall and monthly pop-up restaurant in east London for the past four years. Now he is opening a restaurant in Charlotte Square, Fitzrovia.

Tartan cuisine: chef Andy Waugh is opening a new restaurant in Fitzrovia

The award-winning chef, 31, said: “Scottish food has been misunderstood. It’s a yin and yang — on the one hand there is the deep-fried Mars bars and pizzas, which is part of our food culture, but on the other it has some of the best produce in the world.

“There’s not that many Scottish chefs in the capital, and we’re quite modest. We don’t really shout about it.

“If you go to France they tell you their salami is the best in the world, but Scots don’t really do that. I like to show it off in a modest way. But I like to wear my kilt every now and again, so maybe I am shouting about it.”

A sample menu

The new restaurant, called The Wild Game Co, will open in October. The produce will come directly from his family, who are game butchers.

Waugh said: “The restaurant will be somewhere between the street food and Struie Road [his pop-up].

“During the day it’s going to be more of a takeaway, social, hard and fast, while in the evenings we’ll light a candle and do more refined food. But it’s still going to be very informal.”

Latest restaurant reviews

1/128

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Sign up you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy notice .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in