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Alistair Myers, co-director of Rafters at Riverside House in Derbyshire, said he did not know who was behind the “cyber-attack” which had left him feeling “nervous and anxious”. He said staff at the award-winning restaurant and hotel became aware of the stunt while they were checking Sunday lunch bookings.

They were shocked to find that 80 percent of the tables, 109 seats, had all been reserved using bogus phone numbers and email addresses.

Mr Myers later learned that the online bookings had been made using two devices on January 3.

He now plans to give this information to the police but still does not know who is behind the malicious attack which could leave him thousands of pounds out of pocket.

He said: “This cyber-attack has been damaging as Sunday is one of our busiest days of the week. It’s horrendous. It’s upsetting.

“I don’t believe I have any enemies in the hotel. I don’t know what it is, but I think it’s pathetic more than anything.

“We’re grown people, with a reputable, amazing business and to have it done to us, it’s knocked our confidence.”

He added: “It does make you really nervous and anxious, but we’re just having to put it to one side.”

Mr Myers said his concerns were first raised last weekend at the 14-bed hotel and restaurant which holds two AA rosettes and is listed in the Michelin Guide.

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He said: “The restaurant does courtesy calls to basically confirm the booking for the week ahead.

“As we were doing these, there were a couple that had wrong phone numbers so we sent them an email to follow up which bounced back.

“As we started going down, it became a handful of wrong phone numbers, so we became suspicious.

“We then realised this Sunday coming, we had 23 bookings in total, which equated to 109 people, that weren’t actually booked.”

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He explained that the provider running his booking services confirmed that all the reservations were made within a few hours and came from two IP addresses.

He said: “There were two IP addresses that made all these bookings within a two-hour window. They were also made in the evening – at 8-9 o’clock at night.”

Mr Myers said that he and his staff have had to rush to re-book the restaurant for one of their busiest and most profitable times.

He said: “Our Sunday lunch is £34 for two courses, £42 for three.

“Even if we averaged it at a very moderate £40 – because on Sunday some people go big on the wine – it would have cost us over £4,000.

“If we went at £50, it’s £5,5000 at the top, and it could have been more if we’d not caught it.

“They pretty much targeted it around Sunday lunch, so 80 percent of the bookings were on Sunday lunch.”

He added: “It’s definitely a targeted attack.”

Since the prank, Mr Myers has been forced to impose a deposit of £10 per person for each booking at the restaurant.

He said: “We’re only going to do a modest £10 per person, but now we’ve had to go down that route.

“That should put off anyone who is not genuine to make these bookings as they’d have had to spend £1,090 had we got that in already.”

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