The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Masterchef star’ s seafood shack plan
Masterchef: The Professionals 2016 winner Jamie Scott, who owns The Newport Restaurant in Fife, has big plans for spring 2021.
Set to expand his foodie empire by moving his baked goods operation into a warehouse facility in Dundee, the chef also plans to open a second bakery and will launch a seafood shack, the first of its kind in the area in March or April.
Jamie, who opened The Newport Restaurant in March 2016, launched his first bakery premises, The Newport Bakery, in February last year, just before the pandemic hit.
Due to demand and the shop operating seven days a week, he has now invested in a new production facility in the West Gourdie Industrial Estate in Dundee to keep up with demand.
He said: “We’ve taken on a warehouse in Dundee which will supply space for the bakery and my street food catering truck Smoking Barrels. It will boast an office space, too.
“When the restaurant reopens we may have to consider moving our ‘at home’ operation over there as well.
“We’ve had a lot of inquires for retail and wholesale of our bakery products so we intend to kick that off in March.
“We will be keeping the shop in Newport-on-tay High Street and there’s plans to open another shop.
“The second shop will possibly be in Fife, I can’t say where, but the idea is for all of the baked goods to be produced at this one facility.”
With numerous successful businesses under his belt, Jamie says it is time to flex his offering and hopes to serve up his baked goods to another area, which he is keeping a tightly-guarded secret.
His bakery already supplies other venues and Jamie hopes this new production facility will open more doors, too.
He added: “We feel now is a good time to take the next step and supply another few places locally and further afield.
“We want to do a bit more, too, as people have been asking me to make things that we just can’t in the space we have.
“We make everything for the Daily Grind Coffee Shop in Dundee and Arbroath, which I’m also involved in. We have two of them and we opened the Arbroath one in October during the pandemic.
“Once the one in Dundee reopens it will be really busy. The bakery also makes the buns for my street food truck, Smoking Barrels, too.
“This new production facility will really help us scale up and do everything we want to.”
Looking to launch Fife’s first seafood shack, Jamie is excited to bring a new concept to The Newport Restaurant where the shack will be based.
Predicting that al fresco dining will be the big food trend for 2021, he hopes the new venture, which he plans to launch in the coming months, will attract more people to the area.
He said: “At the front of the restaurant we have five car parking spaces which look on to the water. We’re going to be moving that.
“We’re going to be building a seafood shack there and run our own seafood bothy.
“That is going to be our main focus as I doubt hospitality will be open until April or May anyway, so when restrictions relax a little more for outside we are going to do stuff from there via the restaurant.
“Seafood shacks are really popular on the west coast so we’re bringing the concept here. No one else has anything like it for 30 to 40 miles so we’re not stepping on anyone’s toes.
“My street food company Smoking Barrels is also something we’re looking to push this year as I think al fresco dining will be big.”
With his ‘at home’ dining service also continuing to prove extremely popular, especially over the Valentine’s Day weekend, Jamie knows he will have to hire more staff when all of the other operations kick into action.
However, for now, he is concentrating on the staff he has, having brought nearly them all back off furlough.
“We will be recruiting more bakery staff and Smoking Barrels staff for spring. As soon as the restaurant reopens we will definitely need to bring more staff on,” he added.
“We have had a really good year with our ‘at home’ offering... Every week it has sold out.
“We can prep the menu within a day and a half, but it takes around two days to package, label and put instructions on everything.
“The prep is the easy bit, it’s the labelling, individual tubs, the bags and numbering everything that takes longer.”