Michael O'Hare’s restaurant business wound up with debts of almost £1m

According to a statement of affairs filed to Companies House this week, the restaurant had an estimated total deficiency of £993,684, with the largest single creditor being HMRC, which is owed £519,000.

A further £366,848 is owed to Relentless Leisure Limited, which is owned by footballer Gary Neville.

Neville's role as a director in the business, which he was appointed to in 2018, was terminated on 24 September this year.

O'Hare announced back in October that he had closed his Psycho Sandbar restaurant​​, just seven months after launching it on the site that previously housed The Man Behind The Curtain.

At the time, the chef said the decision to close was ‘very much based’ on his own plans for the future, but also ‘reflective of the changing experience market in which we all live’.

He launched The Man Behind The Curtain in the city back in 2014 and the restaurant held a Michelin star from 2015.

However, late last year O’Hare announced plans to relaunch the restaurant as a more accessible fine dining concept​​ described as having a ‘surf shack’ feel with a brutalist design, which moved away from The Man Behind The Curtain’s set menu format to give diners more flexibility.

He said the move was in response to the changing restaurant landscape that has been hit first by Brexit, then the pandemic and most recently the cost of living crisis.