A RESTAURATEUR praised by television chef Gordon Ramsay for making the best dumplings he had tasted has closed her feted Chinese eatery a little over a year after opening.
Liquidators have been appointed for Chop Chop in Glasgow's Mitchell Street following earlier creditors meetings as it is wound up.
The restaurant was the latest venture from chef Jian Wang and Roy King, co-owners of the firm's Edinburgh flagship Chop Chop premises in Haymarket.
The Chinese chef, who arrived in Edinburgh from Changchun in north-eastern China in 1997, moved to expand her business creating the Glasgow outlet in 2015.
Ms Wang's business flourished after attracting the attention of Gordon Ramsay and making it to the finals of the F Word.
He famously described the chef's dumplings as the best he had tasted.
Chop Chop was voted Britain’s favourite Chinese restaurant in 2010 and 2012 and managed to work up a loyalty club with more than 20,000 members.
Both the Edinburgh and Glasgow restaurants won the AA Rosette for the quality of the food, which is based on traditional recipes and features no flavour-enhancing additives.
The firm set up a factory supplying supermarkets with products including dumplings.
Colin Borland, a spokesman for the Federation of Small Businesses in Scotland, said Chop Chop's closure would be "upsetting for everyone involved" and highlighted the challenges facing the Scottish pub and restaurant trade.
He said: "These firms are dependent on discretionary consumer spending – and people are much less likely to pop out for a mid-week bite to eat if they’re worried about the economy or their job.
"In addition, recent changes to the national minimum wage alongside the introduction of compulsory pension schemes have increased costs in the service industry.
“While some places will thrive despite these issues, unfortunately others will fail.
"A single unsuccessful expansion doesn’t necessarily mean that plans for growth are shelved forever.”
Chop Chop experienced a surge in popularity following the television exposure prompted owners to open its second Edinburgh restaurant at Leith. This was later closed amid reports the owners wanted to focus on other areas of the business.
When the closure of Leith Chop Chop was announced in 2014, the company said it still had ambitions to expand around Britain.
The 55-year-old chef and her husband and former business advisor had hoped to create a UK chain, with Ms Wang saying then that they had been looking for new restaurants to open and adding: "There are many chains of restaurants across the country but none of them are Chinese
Michelin-starred chef Tom Kitchin took over the premises which adjoined his Commercial Quay restaurant before embarking on a £1 million refurbishment.
A meeting of those connected with Chop Chop was held in Edinburgh earlier in January and it moved that the company be "wound up voluntarily" and that Ian Michael Rose and Catherine Lee-Baggaley of Doncaster-based Silke and Co were appointed joint liquidators.
In an earlier interview, Ms Wang said she did not do so much of the cooking now is "always in the kitchen, checking the food", adding: "If something is not right I notice it straight away."
Ms Wang met her husband met in 2000 and they have a daughter together.
The telephone number for the Glasgow restaurant is no longer in use and the Chop Chop owners could not immediately be contacted for comment.
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