It is what everybody, from all over the world, thinks about what a historic English city should be like.

Those were the words of Rick Stein speaking about Winchester as he toasted the opening of his first restaurant outside Cornwall.

Mr Stein, who has opened Rick Stein on the High Street with the help of his family, said Winchester was an obvious choice given his existing clientele and his own history with the city.

“The main reason we came here was because my son lives near here and I used to visit my brother,” he said. ”I’ve always had a special affection for Winchester and when I came looking for places I thought this is where we need to be. Lots of our customers come from around here; it just has the right feel.”

With uniform black, white and blue table settings and Cornish artwork adorning the walls of Jamie Oliver’s former Union Jacks restaurant, the new site seats 69 customers, employs around 30 staff members and cost £300,000 to refurbish.

His eldest son Ed, who helped develop the design, said: “There as an infrastructure in place that we have adapted really. It took six weeks just to get the drawings and the design finished off so it’s probably taken about three months from start to finish.”

Rick added: “It’s nice to be in a lovely city. It feels right. It’s a prosperous city but it’s a tourist city as well. The thing that really attracts us is we have got year-round trade but in Padstow it dips in the winter but here we can be full all year.”