A restaurant named after a celebrity chef was found in breach of planning rules by Dacorum Borough Council.
Carluccio’s applied for permission to install a new floating timber-effect floor in its Berkhamsted Town Hall base, which was refused – and is now subject to appeal.
But the firm did install the floor over a central part of the Grade II-listed building, where its original flagstone surface had been replaced with tarmac, then patterned tiles in the 1990s.
In a retrospective application for the work, a report states that eatery bosses do not think they would need planning permission for the work – but the council does.