Sherlock's Bar in Southsea launches new menu cooked by former Italian Bar and Grill head chef

Sherlock's Bar at 17 Clarendon Road, Southsea, opened its kitchen for the first time on Thursday, March 9 and launched a new menu featuring classic pub meals and daily specials, all cooked by an established chef.

Landlord Richard Peckham, who runs the bar with his wife Debbie, said that the dishes have proved popular with regulars as well as attracting new customers.

Richard said: ‘Debbie and I opened the bar purely as a bar because we weren’t really foodie people. Because we are so busy in the bar, and because we’ve got a very nice kitchen, we asked a local chef with a very good reputation around town if he wanted to open up our kitchen and make his own variety of food.

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‘Our Sunday roasts have all sold out every week. Every single person who has eaten our Sunday roasts has commented on how lovely the crackling is and there’s plenty on the plate – nobody ever says “can I have some more”.

‘We now do traditional pub food, like cottage pie, ham, egg and chips and those sort of things you would expect in a bar. I think there was an opening for that sort of food in Southsea. We had kind of maxed out the bar – we couldn’t get any more people in. The next natural step was to introduce food into the bar.

Earliest this year, Sherlock’s Bar, which opened in July 2020, was nominated as a finalist in the The News Business Excellence Awards for the second year running. Richard has more plans on the horizon to capitalise on the business’ success and has set his sights on expanding. He is considering opening a second branch under the Sherlock’s banner in areas such as Cosham, Havant or Waterlooville.

Richard added: ‘We were over the moon. We are young business and it shows that we are on the right track to as far as pleasing our customers is concerned. We are possibly looking at another venue. What we’ve found with Sherlock’s Bar and the kitchen is that we’re not a young person’s bar – we have a slightly older clientele which works really well in Southsea. Sherlock’s being synonymous with an older person’s bar may well work in other areas too. We’ve found a pretty good formula in Southsea with our clientele and what we offer, and to be able to repeat that somewhere else would be fantastic.’

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New head chef Steve Nielson formerly owned the Italian Bar and Grill in Great Southsea Street before its closure in 2019. Steve said: ‘I had a restaurant before which did Sunday roasts which was quite popular and I think a lot of people have come in and enjoyed it again. Everything is homemade on the premises on the Sunday morning.’

The new menu also features a soup of the day, pork belly, beef brisket and a meat free roast.