Eldon Arms relaunch as Italian/English restaurant

The News, Portsmouth

Transcript

00:00 My name is Giovanni Vaccaro. I've been in the UK for 1984, a long time. I started to

00:17 be a pizza chef in Boris Island, then worked for Mr Feller for many years. After that I

00:27 decided to take over business. Slowly, slowly I started to. Then Giovanni in Petersfield,

00:37 then I've done Gianni's Flipbook, and then along then Sorrento in Bordelloville, Solemil

00:45 in Port Solent, Bella Galabria in North End, and other restaurants as well. Luckily, not

00:54 too bad. So now we find ourselves here today. I've never done a pub before. My son took

01:01 this pub. And this is the olden arms. This is the olden arms, yeah. Giancarlo Vaccaro

01:06 took this. And then my dad, you know, I got my full time job, can you give me some hands?

01:13 I've been in partnership with Mr Fortuna as well, and Solemil, and Bella Romagna as well.

01:20 Very good friends and family. So I spoke to him and said, "Are you happy to take over

01:25 as well?" And he said, "Yeah, if you're happy, I'll follow you." And so me and Roberto, we

01:36 said to Carlo, "Okay, if you want, we'll join in." And we tried to change over there.

01:42 So we're now looking at an Italian and English venue.

01:46 Italian-English, yes.

01:47 A bit of both.

01:48 A bit of both, yeah.

01:49 So what are we doing?

01:50 We see how it goes. We're preparing to change the menu if it's not suitable for the area.

01:54 Like I said, I'm new in the pub business. I'm new in Hortsmouth. I've been in North

01:59 End, but not in this area. We'd like to try to produce something different. So we do not

02:08 much Italian, but we do a nice roast dean on a Sunday. Monday and Tuesday, the restaurant

02:13 is closed. We open from Wednesday all day. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and

02:19 Sunday. Sunday we do a roast dinner, and we do the whole menu as well. We're happy for

02:25 private functions as well. And for this one, it's looking good. We're looking to open more

02:36 in the area.

02:37 So what has the feedback been from the local community?

02:39 I'll be honest with you. We just opened for two weeks. It's very good. It's a bit of a

02:44 surprise for me because I was expecting we'd get this response. It's good.

02:49 Looking around, obviously you've got the pool table, you've got sports. So the venue really

02:55 does accommodate quite a wide variety of people.

02:58 Yes, and locals come in with their dogs to have a drink. Friendly. I mean, they're really

03:05 happy to see something different. And what good comment we have, we're not just sticking

03:12 to the English food. We put a bit of Italians as well, and homemade dessert. Roberto makes

03:17 all the homemade desserts as well. So yes, it's looking good.

03:24 So you're obviously a very experienced restauranteur. I'm guessing this isn't the last venue you're

03:31 going to be involved in. Is there another one in the works?

03:34 It's another one on the way as well.

03:36 Right. Okay. So what's the total? How many are you investing?

03:40 I'll be honest with you. I would like to do 10. I've got two years to do it, and then

03:49 I would like to retire. I've got my son and Roberto. Maybe they'd like to... Roberto's

03:53 got a son as well, Manuel. So he'd like to invest a bit more. So I'll still be involved

04:01 in the business, but try to keep it back a bit.

04:03 Right. Gotcha. Well, I mean, it looks great, and we wish you all the very best of luck

04:08 with it. We're going to have a look around. We're going to see some food, and hopefully

04:13 we'll catch up with you in the near future in the next one.

04:15 Thank you very much.

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