Nick Nairn closing Aberdeen cook school 'due to oil and gas downturn'
Celebrity chef Nick Nairn is to close his cook school in Aberdeen.
The business opened in May 2012, but a slowdown in the local economy following the oil and gas downturn is being blamed for the closure, which will happen at the end of June.
It had expanded to include a pizza restaurant, which will remain open.
A consultation process is under way with staff and there are expected to be a small number of redundancies due to the cook school closure.
More than 60,000 customers are said to have taken part in the classes in Aberdeen since it opened.
Mr Nairn said: "Expanding into Aberdeen had been a long-term passion of mine as we had a huge number of loyal customers regularly travelling from the north east to our Cook School in Port of Menteith.
"We enjoyed a great run of custom for a number of years but like many other businesses in Aberdeen and the surrounding areas, we are not immune to the downturn in the north-east economy.
"Our corporate custom suffered in particular for understandable reasons and we have worked exceptionally hard for the last 18 months to diversify our offering, but we have now reached a point where the Cook School is no longer commercially sustainable."