French police warned yesterday that the Paris branch of the Hard Rock Cafe faces temporary closure after health inspectors seized 300 kg of reportedly British beef in its kitchens.
A police spokesman said the restaurant in the Rue Montmartre has been given four days to provide documents to back its claim that the seized meat was from Ireland.
A restaurant spokeswoman said there was "no question" of closure. Confusion had arisen because the meat, packaged ink Ireland, was exported under seal via a processing plant in England which deals only with Irish meat export to European countries.
She said the Hard Rock Cafe had "for a long time used Irish meat in all its European outlets, because of its quality".