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Bootleggers Bothy back with a bang as new food trucks join line-up and former River Cottage head chef lends a hand

A husband and wife team who launched their pop-up street food venue last year have upgraded the offering, adding two new trucks to the mix and a prestigious chef to their books.

Bootleggers Bothy, which is based at the West Beach Caravan Park in Hopeman, opened last March with thousands of people descending on the small Moray village to indulge in the freshest seafood and restaurant-quality dishes throughout the year.

Ruth and Barry Scott launched the takeaway venue to help support their restaurant, The Bothy Bistro in Burghead, which was forced to close last year in line with the government’s coronavirus restrictions.

Part of the Bootleggers Bothy operation.

While the restaurant was closed Bootleggers helped the couple retrain their staff and kept them in business.

Fast forward nearly a year and a half and the venue has had a makeover, with The Salty Dog and ice cream van, Peggy, joining the line-up, and former head chef of the River Cottage, Tim Maddams, lending a hand, too.

Hand-dived Shetland scallops on the grill.

Owner Barry said: “We’ve taken what we had last year and have made things better. The breakfast offering has been improved and we’ve added a bar into the mix. The Salty Dog has everything from frozen cocktails to beers and will add to the experience.

“We have now moved Peggy, the vintage van, around the corner which is punting out whippy ice cream. We’re using Stew n’ Drew’s ice cream as we want to use local suppliers and they are based in Hopeman. We’ve just added speciality coffee as well.”

Tim Maddams

With The Bothy Bistro now open, another new addition to Bootleggers was esteemed chef, Tim Maddams, the former head chef of TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage.

Tim has been assisting the team to help redevelop and transform the menu.

Tim Maddams on the Sunday Brunch TV show. Photo credit: Ken McKay/Shutterstock.

She said: “We have Luis Vallina working with us who has been with us for four years and is fantastic, and we are also working with Tim Maddams as well which is very exciting.

“We’ve just taken on two other chefs for reopening the restaurant in Burghead.

“Tim basically ran Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s restaurants and he has now relocated to Moray and is working with us. He is phenomenal.

Luis Vallina working at the grill.

“Tim writes not just the food recipes, but the drinks recipes, too, and he has made his own cola syrup, which is made on-site. His knowledge of food is incredible.

“We seem to be attracting a lot of people again this year. We do a brisket of the week on rotation every three weeks. It is in marinade for around a week or so. In the last week we’ve had venison, pigeon, scallops, crab and lobster from Hopeman, you name it.”

Sustainable dishes

And Tim also having a good influence on the team as he has injected his passion for sustainable produce into the offering. Bootleggers will now no longer use ingredients that aren’t sustainably sourced.

Lobster sub with Bloody Mary mayo and crispy onions.

Ruth added: “We cater for everyone including vegans and cover all dietary requirements. There’s loads of healthy options.

“Tim is all about sustainability and the produce being ethical. It is all organic milk, sustainable fish and that sort of thing. We don’t offer monkfish scampi anymore or trawled prawns.

“When Tim said we couldn’t do that, we panicked at it was our best seller last year. But we got thinking, if we don’t do it, then no one else will, so that’s how we will be operating going forward.

Slow roasted barbecue brisket with crushed roast tatties and mustard slaw.

“We won’t sell farmed salmon. Our scallops are hand-dived and the langoustines are creel caught. The beef is all SSPCA assured. Before anything comes in someone is checking the provenance of it.”

Slick service

With the help of Tim the team has also managed to ensure service is speedy and of high quality, moving queues along quicker and more efficiently than before.

By streamlining the ingredients they are making and stopping using items they keep running out of, Ruth and Barry believe Bootleggers is more efficient than ever.

Owners Ruth and Barry Scott centre with staff members.

Barry said: “Everything is more controlled and we’ve got a lot of our suppliers making the ingredients to our recipe. Ashers Bakery make the burger buns to our recipe and deliver them to us, rather than us making them on site. The butcher makes the burgers to our recipe while another makes the sausages.”

Ruth added: “A problem we had last year was running out of food. With Tim, we’ve written a menu which is seven-days-a-week and features items we won’t run out of.

“There’s also specials on top of the seven-day menu depending on what the catch of the day is.”

On the move

Ruth and Barry have also submitted a planning application to Moray Council to move Bootleggers to the car park in Cummingstown in a bid to become more accessible to their customers.

Ruth said: “It has a brilliant view and no one looks over it.

“It would make Bootleggers more accessible as a lot of people try to drive into the caravan park to get to it, which they shouldn’t be doing. So ideally this move would really help.”

Bootleggers is open from 9am to 7pm and The Salty Dog s open from 10am to 8pm seven days a week. Breakfast is served 9-11.30am then the seven day menu from noon to 7pm.

The firm has also introduced an online pre-ordering service.


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