Chiltern Firehouse head chef Nuno Mendes launches £1.75m Seedrs crowdfunding to re-open restaurant Viajante in Wapping
The Michelin-starred head chef at Chiltern Firehouse is hoping to raise £1.75m on crowdfunding site Seedrs to re-open his restaurant Viajante, in a Victorian warehouse in Wapping.
Nuno Mendes is offering 33.3 per cent of the equity in the new venture, along with rewards for big investors, ranging from priority booking, to private meals. The minimum investment is £10.
The fundraising will also be eligible for enterprise investment scheme tax relief, allowing some shareholders to claim 30 per cent of their investment back.
Pre-funding, the business is estimated to be worth around £3.5m.
Mendes said he wanted the fund to be open to all food-lovers:
We have secured an amazing location and we have decided to launch Viajante through an equity crowd funding platform because we want to give our friends and supporters, the people of London, Portugal and from around the world, a chance to become part of making our dream a reality.
The aim is to open the restaurant, on the waterfront at Metropolitan Wharf, in autumn of 2016.
Mendes first opened Viajante in 2011 in Bethnal Green, and won a Michelin star in eight months, but in 2014 he closed it to move to the Chiltern Firehouse, where he will remain as executive chef.
He added:
Viajante was a very special project for myself and the team, a project that we were all incredibly proud of and extremely sad to have to end. We all believed that the restaurant was going from strength to strength at the time of closing and ever since I have been committed to launching it one day.