A NEW Italian restaurant being set up by a popular York restaurateur is to open on Thursday.

The new Silvano’s, by Silvano Scanu, who has owned a number of restaurants in the city, is the result of about £500,000 investment in the old Venture photographic studios in Micklegate.

The building, which was a restaurant before it became a studio, has been refurbished in a Roman style, with lemon trees, marble tables, an eight-metre-long granite bar imported from Italy, which has cost £70,000 and the kitchen installation has cost £120,000.

Silvano, originally from Sardinia, first came to York in 1976 from Italy, where he had worked as a professional chef in hotels.

He was asked to move to England to run Bibi’s restaurant in Micklegate, which he grew to serve 5,000 people a week.

He worked for other restaurants in York and Leeds before in 1981 setting up his first restaurant, the Birdcage in Bishopthorpe.

He said: “I decided I don’t want to work for other people making them money. I wanted to work for myself.”

He went on to set up Silvano’s in Goodramgate, York; Scunthorpe and Cumberland Street, York each time running the restaurant for four to five years and then selling it on.

When he sold the Cumberland Street restaurant, as well as his farm where he also bred horses, and opened two restaurants in Leeds, the deal included a provision he couldn’t open another restaurant in York for three years.

Now four and a half years later, he’s free to return.

“I moved my business to Leeds and realised how beautiful York is. I missed it, so I took the first chance I had to come back.”

After hunting for sites with agents Tim Mudd and Barry Crux, the 180-seater restaurant will be open just in time to benefit from the Races crowd next weekend.

The business will employ 20 people and Silvano, who said he buys his fruit and vegetables himself from Newgate Market, is also planning a lobster festival and Porcini truffle festival.