UK Scotland - Fracas over TV chef's fish & chips shop praise wracks touristy Oban

When top TV chef Rick Stein told Lilian MacDonald her fish and chips were the best he’d ever tasted, she couldn’t wait to tell the world.

She put up signs at the Oban Fish and Chip Shop, as well as an advertising board on the pavement outside her business in the bustling Argyll port, quoting the comment by her No1 fan.

But now a war of words has broken out after the neighbouring Nories establishment, on a shiny new advertising board, attributed similar words of praise about their fish and chips to a surname-less ‘Rick’.

Nories, just along from Mrs MacDonald’s shop in George Street, is run by the Di Ciacca family, who have served fish and chips to the people of Oban for three generations.

The board outside Nories quotes ‘Rick’ saying: ‘Best fish and chips I’ve ever had’ – while the one at the Oban Fish and Chip Shop quotes Rick Stein saying: ‘The best fish and chips I’ve ever tasted.’ Renato Di Ciacca said Nories did not wish to comment.
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It is the second time that TV chef Stein has been at the centre of a local culinary storm. In 2000, he left a bad taste in the mouths of staff at a sea life museum as he filmed for the new television series.

Staff at the Scottish SEA LIFE Sanctuary in Oban claimed Stein borrowed five of their lovingly nurtured colony of rare horse mussels, known as ‘clabby doos’, but only returned four of them.

And they believe the TV chef ate one raw after a fisherman showed him the best way to eat it.

Museum curator Mark Steward said: ‘We’d had our horse mussels for seven years and we hadn’t nurtured them for so long just to provide a tasty treat for Rick Stein.’
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