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The celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson has been credit crunched, forced to close four of his restaurants after his bank, Lloyds, refused to extend credit and diners deserted him, forcing his company into administration.
Worrall Thompson confirmed that AWT Restaurants went into administration on Friday, saying the decision
had been "difficult but unavoidable".
He said he had battled to save the firm - even considering mortgaging his home at Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire, which he shares with his third wife Jacinta - but it had been a "horrendous risk".
"It makes me cry," he said.
"It is just appalling. I am furious, to be honest, that the banks didn't support me. I am absolutely gutted about this whole situation."
The 58-year-old broke the news personally to 100 staff members at his food empire.
It is estimated that 60 will be made redundant, although up to 40 could be rehired after the chef bought back two restaurants and a delicatessen - the Windsor Grill, the Kew Grill, and the Windsor Larder.
"These guys are all like my family and I have promised to do everything that I can to get them back on their feet," he added.
The Notting Hill Grill and The Lamp at Satwell, Oxfordshire closed their doors on Friday night, following in the footsteps of the Barnes Grill and The Greyhound at Peppard, near Henley-on-Thames.
Worrall Thompson is the latest in a series of celebrity chefs to feel the pinch of recession in the notoriously precarious restaurant trade.
Global culinary superstar Gordon Ramsay was last month forced to deny reports that he was in financial trouble and that two of his London restaurants were to close.
The fiery young chef Tom Aikens has lost his three south London restaurants over the past six months.
Worrall Thompson, who opened his first restaurant, Menage Trois - an institution famous for serving only starters and puddings - in Knightsbridge in 1981, said recently that trading conditions were among the worst he had ever known.
"If people like Gordon Ramsay - who is a great chef - are feeling the pinch, then all of us are for it. I walked into The Ivy the other day and got a table straight away; usually you have to book weeks in advance. It's just one of those things.
"People are now going back to the way they were eating in the 1970s, and only coming out on a Saturday night or for Sunday lunch."
It has been a difficult 12 months for Worrall Thompson.
In August he was forced to make an embarrassing apology after recommending the potentially fatal herb henbane as an addition to salad in an interview with Healthy and Organic Living magazine.
Subscribers were sent an urgent warning by the publishers saying that henbane "is a very toxic plant and should never be eaten".
He was also in trouble in 2006 when his recipe for Snickers pie was criticised by the independent food watchdog, the Food Commission, as one of the unhealthiest recipes ever published.
A single slice of the pudding, which he recommended as a children's party treat, was found to contain more than 1,250 calories - the equivalent of 22 teaspoons of fat and 11 teaspoons of sugar.
- INDEPENDENT
