Mediterranean restaurant Valletta undergoes major rebrand following huge demand for Sunday roasts
After months in the making, a Meditteranean restaurant in Drayton has undergone a rebrand following customers’ huge appetite for a Sunday roast.
Valletta, located in Havant Road, opened its doors back in 2022 during the pandemic fallout with the view of dishing up high quality Meditteranean meals.
Following a ‘successful’ three years, co-owner, Councillor George Madgwick, and his partner made the difficult decision to rebrand the restaurant as Steak + Roast Portsmouth.
The newly refurbished joint comes following the considerable popularity of Valletta’s Sunday roasts and steak dinners which dominated orders.
George said: “As I always say to people, when I opened a Mediterranean restaurant I never expected our most popular dishes on the menu to be our roast dinners but it became famous in the area and it was nearly impossible to get a table on a Sunday and that’s why we decided to change things.
“We looked at our books and just shy of 85 per cent of our dinners were roasts and steaks - we were originally going to rebrand in January but we wanted to wait for a quieter time so it’s been six months in the planning.”
George added: “For the most part we just refurbished and made everything clean and fresh again. We’ve got new carpets in and we have all new lighting and signage outside but we have invested quite heavily in our cooking equipment because cooking steaks and chips is quite different from what we offered before.”
From an 8oz flat iron steak to a roast dinners complete with all of the trimmings, the new restaurant, which opened last week, has already gone down a treat with customers.
The 35-year-old said the rebrand welcomed over 150 people through the doors on the first full day of trading (Sunday, May 25).
He continued: “We were absolutely rammed the first night - like everything new, there are always going to be some teething issues but it was really good and by the Sunday it was smooth as a daisy and we actually had our busiest Sunday since opening full stop.
“I opened the restaurant as a hobby because I love restaurants. It is not my main business but I absolutely adore cooking food and I love running a restaurant.”