Sommerin to open Barry restaurant
MICHELIN-STARRED chef James Sommerin is set to open a restaurant at a new development in Barry.
Sommerin, who has long been among the best chefs in Wales, is one of two bigname tenants taking a place at the Goodsheds development near the town’s railway station.
Also taking space in the former railway building will be Spectrum Collections, the make-up brush company started by two sisters from the town who have since grown it into a multi-million-pound global brand.
The third business in the red-brick building, which was previously known as the Gwalia Buildings, will be a craft beer bar called Craft Republic. Above the businesses will be 11 apartments.
As previously announced, outside the building will be 50 shipping containers that will house permanent restaurant units, shops, community spaces, a bar linked to the nearby Academy coffee shop and offices.
Loft Co has also bought back part of the railway line and will house a number of businesses in former carriages. This will include a 16-seater cinema.
Simon Baston, managing director of Loft Co, the developers behind the project, describes the scheme as the UK’s first urban street, with people able to live, work and play all on the site.
Restaurant James Sommerin in Penarth was listed in the Good Food Guide 2020 at 35, with a cooking score of seven. It is one of six Welsh restaurants given a star in the 2020 Michelin Guide and one of our website WalesOnline’s 50 best restaurants in Wales.
Mr Sommerin runs the Penarth restaurant with his wife Louise. He has been working in restaurants since he was 12, and after building up his experience – and meeting Louise – he moved back to Wales in 2000, working at the Whitebrook before obtaining his first Michelin star in 2007. They opened the Penarth restaurant in 2014.
The Goodsheds development will be completed in summer 2020, with the new Sommerin restaurant to open at that time.
In the shipping containers, Mr Baston says there will be, among others, outlets for well-known brands Dusty Knuckle, Meat & Greek and Mr Croquewich, as well as an outlet of the nearby Hang Fire Southern Kitchen.
In all, he says the site will be home to 30 businesses and anticipates it will create about 150 jobs.
Spectrum Collections is a local success story. The business was only started about five years ago by sisters Sophie, 31, and Hannah Pycroft, 29, in their garage and is now worth more than £12m.
Spectrum Collections is a vegan and cruelty-free beauty brand and its multicoloured brushes and brush sets are sold all over the world. It has had huge support from beauty bloggers, partly because of the photogenic designs in mermaid marble and rainbow brights.
The company has teamed up with the Hollywood studio Paramount to produce a collection tied in with the movie Mean Girls. It also signed a deal with Disney to create a Little Mermaid Collection.