Award-winning Wirral restaurant Burnt Truffle 'closed for good' after ten years

The Heswall restaurant opened in 2015 and quickly received rave reviews from critics and two prestigious AA rosettes. Becoming Elite Bistros’ second eatery, Burnt Truffle is believed to have been the UK’s first crowdfunded restaurant.

In a video shared on X on January 8, Elite Bistros owner Gary Usher said: “I need to share some news with you and unfortunately it’s not great news. I’m sat here in Burnt Truffle and we are now closed for good. So, Burnt Truffle had a ten year lease and that lease has come to an end. I could have renewed that lease but the honest truth is I’ve never been able to make it work here.

“I’ve been quite vocal about how difficult the government have made it over the last few years but ultimately I’ve never been able to make it work here so the best business decision for us is to close. So, we’re closing Burnt Truffle from today. I know there’s going to be lots of questions over the next few days and I’ll answer all of them.”

Usher continued by saying anyone with vouchers for Burnt Truffle can use them at any of his other venues, including Wreck in Liverpool, Sticky Walnut in Chester, Pinion in Prescot, and Kala in Manchester, adding: “If you’re not happy with that I’ll redeem your voucher.”

He added that he has sadly had to make staff members redundant and said: “It’s a sad day, it really is. When I think back to when we opened here with the likes of Jay Rayner and Lisa Markwell coming and we got two rosettes quite quickly too. We were the first crowdfunded restaurant in the UK with non-investment crowdfunding so that started our journey with crowdfunding actually.

“So what does it mean for the business moving forward? Well we can carry on. We just keep going and keep trying and we keep innovating to get through these tough times and that’s it really. Thank you to everyone that came, thank you to all the team thank you to all the guests we’ve loved being in Heswall we’ve loved being in Burnt Truffle but that’s the end.”