A new Caribbean restaurant wants to open in Chester city centre .

Turtle Bay aims to locate within Grosvenor Shopping Centre in Pepper Street, opposite the first phase of Chester Dining Quarter.

With a focus on Caribbean cuisine and cocktails, the chain describes itself as ‘All about capturing the heart and soul of The Caribbean. Relax with friends, share food and conversation’.

Mouth-watering dishes include jerk chicken, Guyanese curry duck and halloumi and mushroom burger, with a Little Turtles menu for children.

Lip-smacking rum-based cocktails are on offer such as Passion Rum Punch, Jamaican Mule and Bahama Mama.

This is where the new Turtle Bay restaurant would be based.

The Turtle Bay name surfaced after the company lodged a planning application to change the previously agreed opening hours at the empty unit.

This would mean it could open until 1.30am on Fridays and Saturdays, an hour later than already approved.

A supporting document states: “At the time of the previous application, there was no end user. The current applicants, Turtle Bay, are currently in legal discussion for the lease of this unit. Turtle Bay are a high quality restaurant operator with 42 existing restaurants.

An offering from the Turtle Bay menu.

“The applicants have applied for a suitable premises licence for the property and are looking to occupy the premises when the works are complete.”

Turtle Bay says the new opening hours would be in line with those agreed for its other restaurants ‘located in similar mixed use areas’.

The Bristol-based Turtle Bay chain was launched in 2011 by Ajith Jayawickrema who previously founded Las Iguanas, which has a restaurant in phase one of the Chester Dining Quarter on the other side of the road.

Chimichanga in Pepper Street, Chester, has now closed.

Turtle Bay Chester would be in unit five, within what had originally been envisaged as the second phase of the dining quarter. Those ambitions were reined in due to a ‘challenging trading environment’ which last week saw the closure of Chimichanga in a radical restructure at Prezzo restaurants.

The space that would have been occupied by the second phase of the dining quarter will now be reconfigured. Two ground floor units will merge to create a larger space for Turtle Bay.

And shopping centre owners HIG Chester Property Sarl aim to transform the remainder of the vacant retail and office space into a 94-bed hotel, with bar and restaurant, to be operated by Premier Inn. A planning application has been submitted with a decision awaited.