Southsea pub The Eldon Arms relaunched as Italian restaurant owner takes on historic Portsmouth venue

Giovanni Vaccaro, who owns a number of popular restaurants in the Portsmouth area – including O Sole Mio in Port Solent – has taken on the Eldon Arms in in Eldon Street, Southsea - joining his son Carlo Vaccaro. It comes after Carlo took on the historic venue - which is a Stonegate Group pub - alongside business partners Razvan Ionascu and Ross Macinally. Carlo's former partners have decided not to move forward with the venture and the pub will now be run by the father-and-son team alongside Giovanni's business partner Roberto Fortuna.

Now, Giovanni has relaunched the Eldon Arms yet again, this time as part English pub and part Italian restaurant. The pub’s seating area and kitchen have been revamped and Mr Vaccaro has unveiled a new menu. He told The News that the relaunched site has enjoyed a “very good” response from customers since it reopened earlier this month.Giovanni said: “I’ve never done a pub before. My son took this pub and then he said ‘dad, I’ve got my full time job as well, can you come and give us a hand?’ I’ve been in partnership with Mr Fortuna from O Sole Mio - a very good friend of the family. I spoke to him and said “are you happy to take over as well?” and he said 'yeah, if you’re happy I’ll follow you. We’d like to try to produce something different. Locals have come in to have a drink - really friendly. They are really happy happy to see something different.”

The revamped menu features pub classics like Sunday roasts alongside Italian dishes and homemade desserts. Giovanni is looking to hire more staff and added that this has proved more difficult across all of his venues since Brexit, as previously many of his staff were Italian and from other European countries. Going forward, he aims to run a total of 10 restaurants before retiring a few years down the line.

You can find out more about the Eldon Arms by visiting www.eldonarmssouthsea.co.uk.

Here are 16 splendid pictures of the newly revamped pub: