The Good Feud Guide: How a garden centre restaurant loved by the rich upset neighbours

And the restaurant, run by celebrity chef Skye Gyngell, has become a fashionable eating-out destination itself, attracting the likes of Madonna, Richard E. Grant and Nigella Lawson.

But it has become a victim of its own success.

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For many of its neighbours are so fed-up with the constant coming and going of the well-to-do diners in their four wheel drives, spoiling the area's tranquillity and causing parking problems, that battle lines have been drawn in a bitter feud in which the restaurant's very existence is at stake.

The London borough of Richmond-upon-Thames has ordered owners Francesco and Gael Boglione to apply for planning permission for the restaurant, which is listed in Tatler's 2007 Best Restaurant Guide.

ts fate will be decided by councillors on November 29.

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"The owners think we're operating a witchhunt but the restaurant has caused a lot of aggro," said Vanessa Fison, chairman of Ham and Petersham Association.

"What started out as a little cafe in a garden centre has ended up being a famous destination restaurant.

Hordes of well-heeled people with big expensive cars are coming from all over. It's time the restaurant was cut down in size."

But others are equally firm in their defence of the restaurant, including Joseph Ettedgui, founder of the upmarket Joseph clothes chain, celebrated photographer Homer Sykes, Mayfair art dealer Gerrard Faggionato and the managing director of Barclays Capital, Bartolomeo Aquaviva.

The Duchess of Cornwall's brother Mark Shand suggested there was a "vendetta" against the Bogliones in his strongly-worded letter of support.

Other local residents adopt a stance of bemused detachment.

"This is a local war of words, snobbery and inverted snobbery between rich, metropolitan types and the meddling Hyacinth Buckets of this world who are just jealous," said one.

When Skye Gyngell took over the restaurant in 2004, it served just 15 people and as it was regarded as "ancillary" to the garden centre it did not need planning permission.

A spokesman for Richmond Council said: "If the planning decision goes against them, they have a right of appeal.

"But if that fails, the restaurant may have to close."