SPANISH restaurateur Antonio Lopez whose Restaurant Elizabeth in St Aldate's became a byword for top-class cuisine, has died. He was 75.
Senor Lopez put the Elizabeth on the market earlier this year, announcing that he had decided to "consider retiring."
He was born in a small mountain village near Granada, and having served his apprenticeship in hotel catering following the Spanish Civil War, he moved to Britain to learn English and made it his adopted home.
In 1958 he came to Oxford to work for Kenneth Bell at Restaurant Elizabeth, and bought the lease in 1966, later acquiring the lease of an adjoining property to enlarge it.
Senor Lopez and his wife Dolores loved to entertain at their home in Charlbury Road, north Oxford.
His well-attended funeral was held on Friday, October 4, at St Aloysius' Church in Woodstock Road.
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