A POPULAR Argentinian restaurant has kitted its building out in the famous blue and white stripes of the national football team – and the number 10 of controversial icon Diego Maradona.

La Patagonia, in Camden High Street, unveiled the paint job on Monday.

Co-owner Noah Mirelman said: “My parents are from Argentina but I’m from London and I’m from that generation that still has a bit of fear of making a point that you were from Argentina. “I was a kid in the ‘80s and you would get a lot of ‘Argie this, Argie that’. You would rather not draw attention to the fact you are from Argentina and I was a bit worried about complaints.”

He added: “It was my partner’s idea, really, and we have been planning to do it for a while because we thought it would stand out. It’s an iconic concept and we thought it would go well with the restaurant.”

Maradona is remem­bered among England fans for his famous “hand of God” goal in the 1986 World Cup quarter-final.

Mr Mirelman added: “We’ve had a few players come down to eat recently – Carlos Tevez about six months ago. Lamela, from Spurs, he had a milanesa – not fried. We’ve had Ossie [Ardiles] and Ricky [Villa] too. Diego hasn’t been yet!”

Mr Mirelman’s grandfather was one of the first Argentine writers to explore the Patagonia wilderness in the 1920s and wrote a book of short stories called La Tierra Maldita [The Forbidden Land].