Peterborough Lebanese restaurant has got the grills cooking once more

So far, Lebanese restaurant Creations Lounge - a former dessert bar on Burghley Road in the city centre - has welcomed diners for just a couple of months over the summer when restrictions eased.

Apart from that, Ahmed Maristani has been reliant on a growing and popular takeaway trade.

Now, with a marquee and comfortable seating at the back of the premises, he is finally able to do what he set out to do.

“The plan before lockdown was to open a Lebanese grill restaurant,” he said. “I saw there was an opportunity to do something different in Peterborough as the only Lebanese restaurant had closed down.

“We took over Creations, which was a dessert bar and had plenty of customers, so we kept that going and introduced the grill cooking Lebanese dishes.

“Unfortunately we have had to stay closed for about seven months, and were only open for about eight weeks in the summer. But that was really good so now we are looking to start all over again with customers enjoying our venue rather than just serving takeaways,”

With that in mind and under current pandemic restrictions, a marquee seating around 40 diners has been put up at the back on the restaurant - open every day from 3pm to 11pm - with a little Lebanese music in the evening to add to the atmosphere.