THE owner of an award winning restaurant says he has been forced to close after spiralling energy prices left him with a £20,000 bill he cannot afford.

My Kitchen, a popular multi-cuisine establishment on Gourock's Kempock Place, is shutting at the end of this month amid soaring costs.

The restaurant opened six years ago and since then it has won countless awards.

While the business was able to weather the pandemic, owner and head chef Sushil Kc says the sudden spike in costs has been too much to bear.

He told the Telegraph he was 'devastated' to be closing the restaurant.

He said: "I'm so sad to go.

"This place is like my child, but I've been forced to do it because of the costs rising.

"Every week prices are going up, my energy bill is more than double than what it used to be.

"Before everything got worse, it would cost about £7,000 to £9,000 a year to heat this building, now it's more than doubled.

"The bill now can be as high as £15,000, even £20,000 - we can't survive that.

"I always want to buy quality ingredients and produce a good product, but the costs have gone up and up.

"I try to set cheap prices and have good food, but it's just too difficult right now.

"Running costs have gone up more than 30 per cent, everything from ingredients to energy to other costs has risen.

"Everyone is sinking economically, this is the time we live in - it's all just too much.

"All we can do is pray things get better."

Sushil has already made arrangements for a new owner to take over the restaurant, with the establishment set to re-open in the near future as an Indian called Tulsi.

The industry veteran says he is pleased that his staff, many of whom are young locals, will keep their jobs.

He added: "My Kitchen is going to close permanently, but there is another group of people who are going to come in to open a new Indian restaurant.

"They've been successful in Glasgow already so I'm sure they'll do a good job here.

"Luckily the staff are being taken on, they're young kids and I didn't want them to lose their job.

"I always tried to bring local kids on and give them a chance.

"I want to say thank-you to all of my customers, they are the greatest.

"If they weren't coming in then we couldn't be here.

"I invested the money in here and ran the place, but it was theirs too, it was public property.

"I was lucky to have such lovely people helping me too.

"I hope I can open up something else at some point in the future when things get better again."