TRIBUTES have been paid to the “Renaissance” businessman who put Jevington on the world culinary map by making it the birthplace of the banoffi pie.

Entrepreneur Nigel Mackenzie’s brainwave to combine boiled condensed milk, bananas, coffee and short-crust pastry has delighted millions of pudding eaters since it was created more than 40 years ago.

His family said they would remember the 71-year-old for his creativity, energy and a “tremendous humour”.

Mr Mackenzie created the mouth-watering dessert with his head chef Ian Dowding in 1972 at The Hungry Monk in Jevington, near Eastbourne.

The restaurant was opened by Mr Mackenzie and his wife Sue in 1968 after converting a former monk's rest with no running water or mains drainage.

Mrs Mackenzie, who was married to Mr Mackenzie for 49 years, said the early years at the restaurant were a time of constant experimentation with the menu changing every night.

She said: “We knew that we wanted to do something with boiled condensed milk because it tasted so good.

“We tried it with apples before we realised that combining it with bananas and coffee cream would be absolutely delicious.

"It just took off that very first night, everybody loved the sound of it.”

The dessert became an instant hit with customers intrigued by the mysterious name of Signor Banoffi’s Pie.

It was included in The Deeper Secrets of The Hungry Monk recipe book in 1974, which sold more than 100,000 copies, and subsequent Hungry Monk cookbooks.

A blue plaque was erected at the restaurant in 1972, the dessert was formally recognised by the Oxford English Dictionary in 1997 and American ice-cream firm Häagen-Dazsn was given Mr Mackenzie’s blessing to create a Banoffi Pie flavour in 2002.

Mrs Mackenzie said they had few regrets about not trademarking their culinary invention despite potentially missing out on millions of pounds.

She said: “We never realised it would be so successful.

“Nestle printed the recipe on the side of their tins, they probably would have gone out of business without it.”

The pair closed down the restaurant in 2012 to convert it into holiday homes and it was just one of a number of businesses that Mr Mackenzie was connected with.

He also founded Mackenzie Cook Shop, was involved in Eastbourne’s Enterprise Centre and Riverside shopping hall in Lewes, and also Rainbow Children’s Holidays, which for 21 years gave thousands of deprived inner-city children holidays in the country.

At their father’s funeral in Ripe near Lewes last month, his children Ludo and Lucy said their father, who was also a keen artist and sculptor, had a “profound influence on so many lives”.

They said: “Creativity was paramount to Dad.

“He absolutely believed that it was central to his happiness and he sought it out in almost everything he did

“He always wanted to know what made a person ‘tick’ and he invariably wanted to help them get the most out of their life.”