Hamburger? No. Chicken fillet? No. Fillet o'fish? No - McD's goes veggie

McDonald's is to open its first vegetarian restaurant.

The fast food chain is planning to create the outlet in northern India near the Golden Temple in Amritsar after the company decided to create menus for the large Hindu and Muslim communities in the country.

Rajesh Kumar Maini – spokesman for McDonald's, which has 271 restaurants in the country – said: "The reasons were very compelling - cow slaughter is not allowed because of religious reasons and we couldn't do pork either.

"There is a big opportunity for vegetarian restaurants as many Indians are vegetarian.

"At the moment, India is still a very small market – we just have 271 restaurants in India and across the world we have nearly 33,000."

While McDonald's is yet to open a full-on vegetarian restaurant, a number of its dishes in the country focus on such tastes including the spicy fried potato-based burger.