Bunhill: Harry Ramsden fish restaurant opens in Hong Kong

One wonders whether the portly Chris Patten, a fish and chip and Tetley bitter man if ever you saw one, will make the official opening in Hong Kong today of Harry Ramsden's latest fish and chip restaurant.

The pounds 1.5m, 200-seater restaurant started testing demand for its product last Friday and found trade so brisk it quickly ran out of chips and the Tetleys required to wash them down.

'We got through two tons of chips alone,' said a spokesman for the legendary Yorkshire company started in a wooden hut at Guiseley near Leeds.

'The difficulty is that the Hong Kong restaurant is in the centre of the city and space is at such a premium that the potatoes and beer have to be stocked outside the city centre.'

A lion dance is likely to stop the traffic for the opening while the Royal Hong Kong Police band supplies pomp and circumstance. The restaurant is expected to become a haven for the increasingly unsettled expatriate community.

Harry Ramsden's has invited the Governor. 'We have no idea if Mr Patten will come, but he certainly looks like a man after our own hearts, and he would be very welcome,' said the spokesman.