English workers forced to eat noodles while Chinese staff tucked into 'finest' sushi win race case against restaurant

So when two English waiting staff noticed their Chinese counterparts tucking in to the finest sushi and meat dishes, they were more than a little disgruntled.

They launched a claim for racial discrimination - and won their case.

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The owners of the Elements Oriental Buffet Restaurant in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, were told to pay more than £36,000 to the pair and three others after a tribunal ruled they had been treated differently from Chinese employees.

Whitfield, 20, along with Michelle Darch, 19, from Singapore, Thai national Aw Owen, 29, and Joao Dos Santos, 31, from Brazil, all missed out on perks at the restaurant simply because of their ethnic origin.

While Chinese staff could eat expensive sushi and meat and fish off the Japanese Tepanyaki grill, the others had to make do with noodles.

The Chinese workers also regularly went home with a bigger share of customer tips, the tribunal heard.

When the non-Chinese workers complained about the discrimination, little was done. Instead the staff, who earned around £5.10 an hour, had their working hours cut.

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Speaking after the ruling Mr Whitfield, who worked at the restaurant for three years until January last year, said: "I was oblivious to the discrimination at first but it got more and more severe as time went on.

"The bosses would short-change the non-Chinese speaking staff when it came to tips and deny us certain privileges other people were given.

"They enjoyed the best food the place had to offer, while we had to settle for noodles or whatever they gave us. It was hurtful.

"This victory is not just for me but for British workers. You hear about foreigners being treated unfairly and getting justice, so it's only right to highlight that British people can be racially victimised too."

Mr Dos Santos, who started working at the restaurant in January 2006 but has since left, agreed.

He said: "We used to get our tips in envelopes and on a number of occasions I would see more money being put into the envelopes of Chinese staff compared to my own. I complained all the time, but there was never a satisfactory answer.

"When I first started I was told I could not eat sushi or food from the Tepanyaki grill on my break because there wouldn't be enough food for the customers.

"But at break time I would see Chinese staff eating the expensive food without ever being questioned about it."

The restaurant, which serves Chinese, Japanese and Mongolian food and can seat up to 230, claimed it cut the employees' hours because of a downturn in business.

But the tribunal said there had been no such downturn, and in fact the restaurant was taking between £20,000 and £32,000 a week.

The restaurant also claimed the lack of tips was because customers gave only around 1 per cent of their bills as tips, but the tribunal dismissed this as "just not believable".

The tribunal said the evidence of Nick Cheung, the restaurant's general manager, was "unconvincing, untruthful and unreliable", and of Mandy Tang, the current manager, was "evasive and uncertain".

The pair had denied racial discrimination. They were unavailable for comment last night.