Planning row leaves bad taste as restaurant boss loses hope

Published on Monday 14 June 2010 11:20

A MEMBER of one of the Capital's top food families has cancelled plans for his latest restaurant in Newington and says "restrictive" regulations will stop him ever embarking on another.

Vincent Crolla had secured planning permission to transform a basement shop on Marshall Street into a restaurant but has now decided to let it out rather than press on with his own plans.

Mr Crolla said he had been pushed to breaking point after years spent battling with council officials, who forced him to abandon plans for a restaurant on Slateford Road when he was refused permission to install a gas cooker in February.

Mr Crolla took over three adjoining units on Marshall Street and turned two of them into takeaways, but both have already fallen foul of red tape.

The first was his own Nyam Nyam Italian takeaway on the site of the former Potter Roll sandwich shop.

The council's road services department ordered him to remove al fresco dining tables that were allegedly obstructing the pavement outside Nyam Nyam four months after it opened.

Mr Crolla let the second unit out to a team of Lebanese chefs who transformed the former Copy Cat printing shop into Beirut Express. Despite being fitted with new cookers and branded signs it remains closed because environmental services had ordered sound-proofing.

Mr Crolla said: "I think the council regulations are too restrictive and as a result Nyam Nyam will probably be my last major business venture.

"I have been responsible for a lot of firsts in this city. Nyam Nyam is the first authentic Italian takeaway in Edinburgh, and Beirut Express will be the first Lebanese takeaway in Edinburgh, but I don't have the heart to open up the third one myself because I seem to get hammered at every turn.

"I hope the planning permission will make it more attractive to another tenant who will come in and open up something equally unique.

"It might yet end up being another first for Edinburgh."

A council spokesman said regulations governing al fresco tables differ from location to location so there is no standard measure of what constitutes an obstruction to the pavement, and also confirmed that planning permission had been granted for the basement unit for a change of use to a restaurant.

Meanwhile, Mr Crolla has reapplied to have his Slateford Road unit, which was being used as a warehouse outlet store, converted into a pizzeria following the rejection in February.

The unit had also previously come under fire from environmental services, who took exception to its bright orange colour scheme.

Mr Crolla previously owned Da Vinci's in Livingston, as well as a number of other restaurants in the city.

The owners of Vittoria on Leith Walk and George IV Bridge, Valvona and Crolla on Elm Row and Multrees Walk, as well as Dario's Fish and Chip Shop, are all Mr Crolla's cousins.