Outlander Jamie Fraser actor Sam Heughan is Edinburgh chef Tom Kitchin’s choice to play him in biopic

Pair have been good friends since actor filmed hit TV series in chef’s award-winning restaurant

Tom Kitchin has been asked who he’d like to play him in a movie of his life – and the celebrity chef opted for none other than Outlander heartthrob Sam Heughan.

The owner of celebrated Edinburgh restaurants The Kitchin, Scran and Scallie and Kora – who became Scotland’s youngest Michelin star chef at just 29 – is good friends with the actor.

The pair first met when Heughan was filming the first series of his award-winning series Men In Kilts, and since then the Jamie Fraser star has teamed up with the Kitchin group to allow its Scottish venues to serve his multi-award-winning The Sassenach Whisky.

Tom Kitchin, left, has revealed he would want Outlander actor Sam Heughan, right, to play him in a movie of his life.

In January, Heughan took to social media to congratulate the restaurateur after The Kitchin was named in trusted UK guide Harden's list of the 100 top restaurants in the UK for 2023.

He wrote: “Congrats buddy, to you and the whole team! So well deserved.”

Now, in this month’s edition of lifestyle magazine Scottish Field Magazine, Kitchin is asked who he’d like to play him in a film of life.

“I’d like Sam Heughan to play me in the movie of my life,” says the chef, who also owns Gullane restaurant The Bonnie Badger.

“Either him or my eldest Casper because he’s started to replicate me in certain things. But Sam gets all the good gigs, he could be the next Bond, really, so I’m not sure he’d want to play me.

“He represents Scotland in a modern way and he’s doing a great job. He’s a lovely man.”

Last year, Heughan opened up about his family’s move to Edinburgh when he was a teenager – saying it was like a “like a whole new world for him”.

The 42-year-old moved from his native Dumfries and Galloway to the Scottish capital at the age of 12.

In his memoir Waypoints, which topped the New York Times bestseller list, he talks about what it was like to be uprooted from a quiet community to a bustling city.

In a chapter titled ‘The Wake-Up Call’, Heughan reveals that his family moved to Edinburgh so his mother could enrol at Edinburgh College of Art.

He writes: “After years of living in a quiet community, my mother, my brother and I packed our belongings for what felt like a whole new world.

“Swapping the stable and the castle ruins for a suburban street in Edinburgh, we set about settling in for this new chapter in our lives.

“It was a big change, but also hugely exciting for two young lads like Cirdan and me. I had just finished at my little primary school, so I started high school at the same time as all my new classmates.

“It was a little overwhelming to begin with, but since I could now see without the dreaded glasses, I soon started to make friends and feel comfortable in a crowd.”

The 12-year-old Heughan attended James Gillespie's High School, which he recalls as having “very strong on rules and discipline”.