A FLOOD-HIT restaurant has been given a revamp thanks to an international artist.

The downstairs of the Mumbai Lounge in Fossgate was damaged during the Boxing Day floods, and owner Rakib Ali set out to find the artist of the original, 1920s-themed murals, to create a new look for the venue.

Through a mutual friend, he managed to contact Phil Game, who now lives in Sweden, and commissioned a series of new murals for the restaurant.

Rakib said: “I managed to track him down and he agreed to come and work over three-and-a-half months and working through long, 12-hour days, leaving his loved ones behind.”

Phil said: “I had to go home at Christmas, otherwise she might have changed the locks.”

The murals cover the walls on most of the top floor, with a Raj leading a parade, before Krishna - who Phil called “the ultimate being” - inviting visitors down the spiral staircase to the basement.

The walls of the basement include Indian revellers around the main seating area, while a corner by the bar depicts villagers in a peaceful meadow.

He said: “As you go down the stairs there are all these images about life, animals, plants and flowers. He’s the creator of life, and takes you down where they then start to party with dancers and musicians.”

Phil said he took inspiration from historic Indian artwork, adjusting proportions of his subjects to make them more in-keeping with classical work, and used background colours which matched turmeric - a key ingredient in Indian cooking. He also included the faces of some members of staff on members of the procession.

Phil said: “I thought basically an Indian restaurant has to be colourful.

“It had to be colourful, it couldn’t be anything else, but I wanted to get a curry feeling to it with the colours.

“From Rakib’s original brief, I drew out some ideas and gave a mock up for approval and he very much left me to just get on with it. He liked what he saw and said ‘go ahead’. Sometimes you don’t always get that, and clients can get over-involved in artists’ pieces.”

Phil - who has also created gardens for the Chelsea Flower Show, Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, and the BBC’s Gardener’s World Live show in Birmingham - said while he had created large scale paintings throughout his career, he had not made a large mural for several years.

He said: “I think two hours before the first guests came in, I was still painting the last few leaves on the trees downstairs, and Rakib was watching and asking if I was going to be finished in time.”

Rakib said: “It’s beautiful, we all love it, our customers do too.

“It’s really something to be proud of. This is something unique, you don’t get this type of thing often.”