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One of Leicester’s oldest and best known Chinese restaurants has closed after more than five decades in business.

The Peking Restaurant, in Charles Street, has shut its doors for the final time.

The two-storey restaurant, which staged spectacular and colourful traditional lion dances each Chinese new year, is well known to generations of people from the city and county.

The restaurant opened at a time when eating Chinese food was still a novelty for most city and county diners and quickly established a reputation as the “go-to” choice for many.

TV presenter Gok Wan wrote in his autobiography, Through Thick and Thin, about his grandfather’s place, The Hung Lau – the city’s first Chinese restaurant - where Gok’s father served his apprenticeship; then his father’s The Bamboo House and The Panda restaurants, and “Auntie Maureen’s” Peking on Charles Street.

The restaurant, which claimed to be Leicester's oldest a la carte Chinese restaurant, catered for 60 diners downstairs while the function room upstairs has space for 70 guests.

Leicester Mercury food critic Tim Burke wrote in March, 2016: “The Peking has been in Charles Street for as long as I can remember.

“It’s one of those big Chinese restaurants that evolved to serve a mainly English clientele who had only the vaguest notion of what Chinese food was about, but knew they liked the novel flavours.

“It was ruled over by a matriarchal figure known to all as Maureen, a big character who ran a lively restaurant which was often full of big boisterous groups.”

(Image: WILL JOHNSTON)

He added: “Times change, and the presence of a significant Chinese student community has changed the scene significantly, but the Peking carries on.”

Maureen Cheung, who has run the restaurant for the past 25 years after taking it over when it was the Lotus House, said: “I am very, very down, it is the end of an era.

"Two old ladies put their arms around me and told me they remembered when I opened.

“I had a lot of elderly customers there and for many it was their second home.

"I am very disappointed to be leaving it, it has been my life for 25 years.

(Image: WILL JOHNSTON)

“My customers are upset and I am upset to be leaving them.

"I have run it more with my heart than in a business-minded way.”

One diner, who was passing the closed up restaurant on Monday, said: “I’ve been eating here for the past six months and they’ve not had a lot of custom, it was a bit rundown.

“I last ate here about three weeks ago. I enjoyed the food but anybody would pick up on the state of the place.

“It recently had a large window broken, which has been replaced and a door smashed.

"It’s such a shame. I used to use it a lot at lunchtime and it was reasonably priced.”

(Image: Liz Hewitt)

A neighbouring businessman in Charles Street said: “I just found out yesterday, they were loading things up onto a van, chairs, tables and fridges and other things they used.

“It’s been up and down the last few years. I don’t think they opened last week.”

Another said: “They took a lot of stuff out of there over the weekend, there was a van here and they were taking tables and chairs away.”