Coins to cod? Fish and grill restaurant Lussmanns eyes up old HSBC building

The HSBC on Tring High Street which closed in July

Plans are bubbling up to turn Tring's old HSBC building into a fish and grill restaurant for the High Street.

Lussmanns, which has branches in St Albans, Hertford, Hitchin and Harpenden, wants to add Tring to its empire after the HSBC closed in July.

The swanky restaurant chain, voted the People’s Favourite in the Food Made Good Awards 2016, describes itself as ‘proudly independent’, and ‘relaxed’, providing ‘sustainable and ethical’ dining.

A planning application has been submitted and group director Andrei Lussmann hopes to sign the paperwork this week.

He said: “I think it will be a huge addition to Tring.

“We can’t comment much more because we have not yet signed the contracts, but I can clarify that Lussmanns is in discussions with HSBC.”

Plans for the restaurant  include making the most of the building’s grand frontage using simple signs and menus on the outside.

The only structural alteration will be the insertion of a small mezzanine floor in the main banking hall to provide additional seating. There will be a wheelchair-accesible toilet on the main floor.

In the hole where the cash machine has been removed, a small window will be inserted.

Lussmanns was voted ‘people’s favourite’ in the national Independent Food Made Good Awards 2016 and has been recommended by The Good Food Guide for eight successive years as ‘doing Herts proud’.

HSBC closed its Tring High Street branch in the summer because the ‘rise in internet banking’ had seen footfall across its UK branches drop by 40 per cent.