Having good food on location, as Jeremy Clarkson might tell you, is very important

When you’re a TV star and you’re on location, working long hours, the least you can expect when the director says wrap is a catering truck to roll up, whip out the starched linen and silverware and serve you a four-course dinner.

Maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson's culinary expectations appear not have been met during a recent filming trip to Newcastle. It's suggested that no catering had been laid on, leading to the presenter being involved in what the BBC has described as "a fracas" with a producer.

Location catering is known to be lavish, and TV studio dining options too seem to be rather more glamorous than the average work cafe. Restaurant critic Giles Core tweeted the lunch menu from “The Kitchen” at the Sky TV headquarters in Osterley, west London yesterday. The market inspired menu offered dishes such as Billingsgate pan-roasted whole plaice with caper nut butter and buttered leeks, or Covent Garden wild mushroom arancini with cavolo nero, celeriac puree and roast squash. For dessert there was white chocolate mousse, banana crisps and meringue, or Gubbeen with dates and chutney. And the best bit – the two-course menu cost just £5 or £5.50.

Specialist location caterers roll up at filming venues in their mobile kitchens and feed the cast and crew, and sometimes hordes of extras too, round the clock. S avage Food, an offshoot of Fitzers Catering, specialises in providing the food at film and TV locations around Ireland and has catered for many of the big budget films made here, as well as TV productions including Love Hate.

Caroline Cassidy, the company's outdoor and location catering manager, outlines a typical day's menu for a shoot. " We start with breakfast at 7am, then at 11am we take a snack, pastries or granola, down to where they're filming. Lunch is at 12.30pm and there are hot and cold options, cheeseboards and desserts. In the afternoon, we bring down sandwiches and fruit, and if they run late we'll bring in a curry."

Cassidy says the Love Hate crew were one of the nicest she has worked with, "they really enjoyed their food".

All sorts of diets are catered for, and Cassidy receives a list of special requests in advance. Not surprisingly, actors often ask for healthy food. “We cook a lot of poached fish and chicken, and greens, lots of greens every day.”

Chef Paul Flynn, currently working on a six-part series for RTÉ called Lords and Ladles, filming with Catherine Fulvio and Derry Clarke in country houses around Ireland, says the temptation to eat too much while on location can be a problem. "You have to mind yourself. I put on a stone when I did Surf and Turf with Martin Shanahan. " So is it fine dining at every turn, or something more prosaic? "We don't have a cook on tour with us, generally wherever we are, a local cafe or hotel might provide the food. A well fed crew is a happy crew. But there'll be cooked breakfasts every morning you're away, and you might go for a pint after filming," he says.

But it's not a constant smorgasbord for everyone involved in location filming. Rory Cobbe is a producer with RTÉ and has also directed food programmes including Martin's Mad About Fish and Surf and Turf, with Flynn and Shanahan. "In any schedule we'd allude to a feed stop. Often it's on the hoof or en route to the next gig. Crews work hard and need to be fed. Most producers would say it can be difficult managing schedules with lunch breaks and so on.

“We have less time now than before to do things, so it all gets squeezed. I have found myself feeding Ben, one of our cameramen, as he shoots. Pieces of tuna, one per shot. Ben’s a special case though; he’s always hungry.”

Filming food shows must mean there are always lovely things to eat though? “Food on camera is usually made to look good and may not necessarily be good to eat, after being poked and shoved from pillar to post in order to make it camera perfect. But yeah, sometimes it’s eaten. Depends on who it is, what it is and where it’s been,” Cobbe admits.

Clarkson, meanwhile, has taken to the kitchen, according to his daughter Emily, who tweeted: “Oh God, BBC please take him back ... He’s started cooking”.