An Indian restaurant has hit back after a man allegedly found a fag butt in his takeaway.

The curry lover, who did not wish to be named, ordered meals for himself and his partner from Masala Reef restaurant, Sheerness, last Saturday.

According to the 32-year-old, he called the Hope Street takeaway and paid £30 for his order of a Tandoori mixed grill, a curry, onion bhajis and poppadoms over the phone.

But the Minster resident says when he arrived to collect his order at around 7pm, alarm bells in his head started ringing as the restaurant appeared to have issues.

He said: “To be honest, there were quite a few things; you had the person taking the money and then putting the food in the box and not washing hands in between.

“But I was thinking if I walk out now, I will be losing money.”

It was only when he got home and began plating up the food that the dad-of-one says he noticed something was wrong with his order.

“I started dishing up everything, but as soon as I opened my Tandoori mixed grill the smell hit me, it smelled liked wet fag.

“Because I smelled it, I sort of looked a bit more and then I saw it was a butt.

“I had been picking at it while before then, I was so put-off, it was disgusting.”

But after he called the Masala Reef to complain and ask for a cash refund so he could buy a meal from a different takeaway, he alleges he could hear the manager swearing about him in the background.

He added: “When I got on the phone with the manager, straight away he was denying it saying, ‘I dished it up and there was nothing there.’

“Had he said, ‘sorry, I don’t know how this happened’ and then refunded me, it would have been fine. But he didn’t.”

But the manager of Masala Reef, Sharik Ahmed, has defended his restaurant, accusing the complaining customer of trying to get a cash refund and free meal.

Mr Ahmed said: You always get people like that; people saying there’s hair, the skin of a tree [in their food]. We even get blonde people cutting their hair off and putting it in the food.

“That cigarette butt did not come from our place. We have got one person who smokes here, [the customer] found a yellow cigarette butt and this man smokes white ones.”

A spokesman for Swale council confirmed the incident had been reported to it and it would be conducting an investigation to ensure the restaurant is meeting its legal requirements.