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With the coming of Chinese New Year on Monday, Bahrain welcomes its newest Chinese restaurant with celebrated London connections.

Memories of China has operated out of restaurants in the English capital's Belgravia and Kensington areas for almost 30 years and is well known as a haunt of celebrities such as actor and former James Bond, Pierce Brosnan.

Now it has come to Bahrain as the first franchise outside the UK and is promising diners a taste of London Chinese with a menu exactly the same as that you would find in Ebury Street, with the addition of a dim sum station.

And this really is Oriental cuisine with the four chefs all being authentic Hong Kong Chinese who have learned to prepare the dishes they cook in a traditional way.

And keeping it in the family, Executive Chef Donny is even the younger brother of the man who has taken up founder Ken Lo's mantle at the London venues.

Situated in Adliya, close to the New York Institute of Technology, Memories of China is housed in a gorgeous state-of-the-art, architect-designed building created specially for the restaurant.

The outside is a mix of angles and glass while the dining area inside is bright and airy, while at the same time managing to be intimate.

The upstairs bar and seating area features deep divans in themes of black, white and rich purples and inside the door a life-size terracotta warrior stands guard the same as in the London counterparts.

On the menu you will find signature dishes such as crispy aromatic duck, smoked chicken, crispy seaweed and, in a departure from its London sisters, Memories of China Bahrain also has a dim sum station where a range of authentic light dishes are available.

And if you are lucky on some weekend nights Chef Donny actually takes to the floor to show off his noodle making skills.

Bringing Memories of China to Bahrain has taken two years of planning and negotiation and co-owner Hussein Al Sharif says it has been worth the wait.

He said: "Memories of China is part of the London Fine Dining Group and this is the first venture outside London. It has taken around two years overall to set it up and so far it's going really well.

"We wanted to do this because we felt there was nothing to match this already in Bahrain."

Acting manager, Cyrus Graesslin, added: "I think what is so important here is that all the chefs are genuine native Chinese, this is the cuisine they have grown up with and they learned to cook in the traditional ways in the land where this cookery is from so they make the dishes with a real passion, it's not just their job.

"I think if you want to experience the cuisine of a place you must have people from that place, who have learned to cook there, producing the food."

And so far that passion is paying off with the 100-cover restaurant boasting great bookings since it opened just over two weeks ago. Cyrus added: "It's really exceeded our expectations, which is great because we had pretty high expectations to start with."

The Happy New Year headline, above, is for our Chinese friends in Bahrain.