Tang selling shark fin soup in Hong Kong

A restaurateur has been dragged back into a row over the sale of shark fin soup after apparently continuing to offer it at his venues in Asia.

Sir David Tang's China Tang restaurant at The Dorchester Hotel was criticised this month for offering a diner the chance to sample the Chinese delicacy "off-menu".

Unfortunately for Sir David, the diner was conservationist Lord Anthony Rufus Isaacs, who protested in an email to the businessman.

The restaurant said it had removed the dish from the menu three months ago and claimed it had been offered by mistake.

But after discovering it was still on sale at its sister restaurant, Island Tang, in Hong Kong, charity People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals launched an email campaign to have the dish banned. The soup is condemned by animal welfare groups because sharks are routinely "finned" and thrown back in the sea to bleed to death.

Peta's director of special projects Poorva Joshipura said: "Sir David's decision to sell the soup in Hong Kong while taking it off the menu in the UK for ethical reasons is hypocritical."

In an email to the Standard today Sir David says : "I have taken sharks' fins off my menu. And I am prepared to engage in rational and scientific debates.

"What I abhor is Peta writing to me to say that if I couldn't confirm to them my policy of sharks' fins worldwide, they will tell the press about it, which is what they have done. That is blackmail and totally unacceptable."