A new project from respected Porthleven chef Jude Kereama has been causing a stir after he announced he would be opening his third restaurant.

Jude, of Kota and Kota Kai, said he was "chuffed" with the response to his plans to open restaurant Kuki, as part of The Valley luxury holiday complex at Carnon Downs.

While catering for guests in the cottages, it will also be open to the general public for lunches and dinners.

The news has been attracting huge interest both within the industry and locally - but it almost never happened.

Jude told the Packet that as a busy man with two popular restaurants already, he had no plans for expansion when an email arrived from The Valley director Alex Horsfall.

"He emailed me and apologised for being so blunt, but asked if I'd like to come down and have a look at what he'd got.

"I'm a very busy person and I said, 'To be honest I've got enough on my plate at the moment', but just out of curiosity I thought I would go down and have a look. And I really liked it," he said.

Not only was Jude wowed by the resort itself and its views over Carnon Valley, but the location itself appealed being only ten minutes from Truro in one direction and a similar time from Falmouth in the other.

"I just thought, 'It's a bit of a challenge and I'm up for it'," said Jude. "I thought it would be quite nice to branch out and do something new."

The style of the 50-seat restaurant will be pitched somewhere between his existing two, with smaller plates at lunchtime focussing on Cornish produce such as seafood from the River Fal while the evening becomes a "finer dining" experience, which he describes as the quality food of fine dining in a relaxed atmosphere.

Accompanying the restaurant will be a Kuki shop, selling wines featured on the menu, and he plans to provide barbecue packs to guests containing seafood with accompanying sauces that they can take away to cook.

The name is a nod to his half Maori, half Chinese Malay roots and while Kota means 'oysters' and Kai means 'food', Kuki is 'chef' or 'cook'.

Work is now underway to transform the restaurant with a new design ready to open on March 26.