Javier Bardem's restaurant latest victim of Spanish financial crisis

La Bardemcilla in Madrid's trendy Chueca district opened 14 years ago serving tapas dishes named after the 44-year-old actor's most famous roles in an establishment adorned with film posters and family photos.

The eatery was owned jointly by the Hollywood star, his siblings Monica and Carlos and his mother Pilar, who are all also actors, and employed 11 workers.

But Monica Bardem, who managed the restaurant, announced this week it would close permanently "after two years of prolonged losses".

Javier Bardem, who has said the restaurant was established to provide regular income to the family of jobbing actors, reportedly injected cash into the ailing business and had used interviews to promote his latest films to plug the family restaurant.

But a steep drop in the number of diners at the once thriving restaurant as Spaniards suffer the fifth year of economic strife and with rising unemployment, meant its model had become "unsustainable",

"Like many small businesses, including many small firms in this country that no one rescues, La Bardemcilla is closing its doors," read a written statement signed by each of the four partners.

The decision immediately provoked criticism when it emerged the restaurant's staff would receive the redundancy package introduced under the new labour reforms by Spain's conservative government of Mariano Rajoy, and which Bardem had spoken publicly against.

The family was forced to backtrack on Wednesday and announced that instead they would offer their own, more generous, redundancy package.

"They will exceed the amounts currently fixed in law in light of the long working relationship between the Bardemcilla and their employees," said a statement from Monica Bardem.

Bardem, who played the villain in the recent James Bond film 'Skyfall' and who won an Academy Award as psychopathic hitman Anton Chigurh in the 2007 'No Country for Old Men', has been an outspoken critic of the government's austerity measures.

He was branded "a great villain and not just on film" by ruling Popular Party member Rafael Hernando for suggesting in an interview that the government was unconcerned with the nation's burgeoning unemployment rate.

Bardem married fellow Oscar winner Penelope Cruz, 38, with whom he starred in 'Jamon Jamon' and 'Vicky Cristina Barcelona' at a private ceremony in the Bahamas in 2010.

The pair have a two-year-old son Leo, and announced last month that they are expecting their second child this summer.