A NEW restaurant is set to open in Cirencester promising a traditional English menu and plenty of locally sourced food.

Gaye Green and Lee Buchanan snapped up the property the day after it was put up for let and are now in the process of refurbishing the inside.

Lee said: “This is a completely new venture for us. We spent 20 years working in IT and it was we didn’t want to spend any more time in meetings trying to get people to give us millions of pounds.

“We’re freezing nothing except ice cubes and ice cream, which we’ll make on site,” he added “We’re making fresh bread and fresh pasta every day.”

The plans for their restaurant, The Coterie, are for around 30 seats serving a range of food including vegetarian alternatives to traditional roasts.

As well as buying meat from a local butchers and insurance from a local firm the pair are recruiting through Witton Recruitment in Cirencester for a handful of staff.

Gaye added: “We are both very passionate about what we do and we want to share with the good people of Cirencester. We have worked with local people in almost everything that we have done so far from uniform supply and embroidery to plumbers and carpenters.

“We intend to continue with local suppliers and are engaged in conversations with local butchers and wine merchants. We want to become part of the local community and not just take from it.”

They hope to open before Christmas but as they are doing a total refit of the building it may be delayed until the New Year.