AMID the numerous events planned to celebrate the town’s alleged association with King Canute and all things Danish, your readers may care to know that more than 50 years ago I opened a Danish restaurant in part of the complex of the building then known as The King’s Coffee House and now home to La Belle Epoque restaurant and hotel.

Named ‘The Tavern’, it was one of only three Danish restaurants in Great Britain, the others being The Old Howgate near Penicuik, south of Edinburgh, and the Ebury Wine Bar in Ebury Street in Central London.

The Tavern gained early entry in The Good Food Guide and was well reviewed by that great jazz trumpeter and raconteur, Humphrey Lyttleton, the then restaurant critic of Queen and Harper’s Bazaar magazine.

Staffed by Danes, from its spisekort (menu) one could choose such dishes as Kalvefilet med Skinke or Kyllinger med Løg.

Much-loved by sophisticated Knutsfordians, it passed gently away in the late 1970s/early 1980s and is now incorporated as a beautiful additional dining room in La Belle Epoque. It was officially opened by the then Manchesterbased Danish consul, Mr Edward Bacon – a Danish Bacon, if ever there was!

John Howard Knutsford