Tony Rodd and former Jamie Oliver MD team up for Margate restaurant

Chef Tony Rodd is to head up the kitchen at a new neighbourhood restaurant, wine bar and bottle shop in Margate overseen by former Jamie Oliver Group managing director Ryan Jacovides.

The 40-cover venue will be named Pomus and feature a 12-cover downstairs tasting room and events space, just ten minutes’ walk from the train station.

It is the first solo restaurant venture from hospitality entrepreneur Jacovides, who was MD at Jamie Oliver Restaurants for eight years until 2017 and later held the same role at White Rabbit Projects.

Rodd, a finalist in the 2015 series of MasterChef, ran the Copper & Ink restaurant in Blackheath with his wife Becky until it was forced to close due to cost pressures in January. The couple have relocated to Margate ahead of the new opening, where Rodd will act as head chef and oversee the food menu.

Pomus takes its name from the Ancient Greek word for fruit tree - ‘pōmus’, which also symbolises ‘new growth’.

Rodd’s low-waste, gluten-free menu will feature seasonal bar snacks, small plates, and generous larger sharing dishes.

The launch menu includes crab doughnuts with marie rose sauce; chicken karaage, buckwheat waffles and togarashi spice; barbecued red mullet, wild garlic risotto and piquillo pepper sauce; and peanut and banana bread pudding with rum and chestnut ice cream.

The wine list will champion the best of British bottles from award-winning local producers as well as smaller boutique suppliers, charging just £5 a glass for a different variety every day.

A £5 house spritz will be on offer, alongside seasonal cocktails.

Jacovides said: “My family and I have been holidaying in Margate for many generations, and back in my more rebellious years I used to bunk off school and come to Margate with friends, to visit the old Bembom Brothers, which is where the Dreamland amusement park now sits. Even back then I said I’d open a bar here, and having now lived in Margate for a while, the time feels right to live out a long standing dream.

“I’ve been a fan of Tony’s food for a while, so when he closed Copper & Ink, I decided to reach out in the hopes he would be interested in heading up the kitchen at Pomus, and luckily, he said yes!

“Ultimately, I wanted to partner with someone that champions the industry, and is as passionate about it as I am. We’re also both half Greek-Cypriot, which is a strange coincidence, but perhaps something that has led us to this place together, where family and community are set to be an intrinsic part of the Pomus ethos.”

Jacovides is also non-executive director at the Bristol-based Pasture restaurant group.