Croxton's Kitchen & Tap House in Southsea is an award winning venue in the heart of the city. The kitchen and tap house has been going from strength to strength over the past few years and it is known for its tasty food and locally sourced drinks.
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00:23 Hello, I'm Brad. I'm the owner and head chef of Croxton's in South Sea.
00:28 Brilliant. And obviously you've been nominated for an award. Could you tell me a little bit about that please?
00:34 We've been nominated for the Casual Dining Award for Muddy Stilettos.
00:39 And a few other restaurants have been nominated.
00:43 So if you don't mind telling me a little bit about how you guys started.
00:47 So there's four of us. We all started back in 2018. So we're six years old next month.
00:54 Just got together a group of friends and got the business open.
00:58 Used to be a co-op and post office and then we ripped everything out and then rebuilt it.
01:05 And all of the owners live in Portsmouth, live in South Sea, love South Sea and love Portsmouth.
01:12 And what kind of made you want to start this? Do you guys have backgrounds?
01:17 A few of us have hospitality backgrounds. One of the other owners is a massive foodie, eats in all the best restaurants.
01:24 And eats a lot. He's a plasterer by trade to be fair. But he obviously works hard and eats a lot.
01:31 And then a graphic designer is one of the owners as well. He sorted all that out.
01:36 So he designed the whole interior. He works for a local company as well in Portsmouth.
01:42 Then we started doing community projects. So we started the Rung Club.
01:47 And in Christmas we fed the domestic violence ladies charity in Portsmouth.
01:56 And we fed about 60 of those Christmas dinners. And we do a lot of stuff for the community.
02:03 And I mean how does it feel, obviously you said that you're coming up to your sixth anniversary.
02:07 How does that feel to have been here six years?
02:10 It's amazing. To start off with it was a bit of a struggle. Obviously with John Lewis, Debenhams closing.
02:15 But now year on year we've just got stronger. This is definitely our strongest year since being open.
02:20 We just had an end of year last week and we've had a record year.
02:24 Day trade's not amazing because of John Lewis, Debenhams. But once that gets regenerated the area will be good.
02:31 It's all about our evening trade here. And weekends obviously.
02:36 And if you could pick one thing off the menu, your go to choice, what would it be?
02:41 My go to choice. We do a lot of small plates to be fair. I like picking from other dishes.
02:47 So maybe the honey pork belly which is really good. Salt and pepper mushrooms.
02:55 Jerk prawns are really good. So I'd go small plates.
02:59 And what would you say makes you different from all the other places?
03:06 We've got super friendly staff. Our interior's pretty cool.
03:11 We used to be order at the bar service but since Covid we changed to completely table service.
03:17 We found we have a better connection with our customers.
03:20 And we do loads of collabs with local businesses. So we had a wrap a go in here last month for a wine night.
03:26 We've done stuff with Hobo Hotlets which is a hot sauce designed in Portsmouth.
03:32 Done stuff with Crack Burgers, they're based in Portsmouth.
03:36 We just do loads of collabs. And all of our beer we shop local.
03:41 So all the breweries are Portsmouth, Gosforth, South Sea.
03:47 We try and use as many local suppliers as possible.
03:50 Brilliant.