A new restaurant has opened for business in the heart of the Hamilton?s financial and international business neighbourhood.

It is the realisation of a seven-year dream for co-owners Mark Turner and Ross Webber to run their own eatery. The pair have formed a ?partnership? trio by linking up with head chef Ben Jewett ? all three men are former rugby players ? to open the Mad Hatters Restaurant next to the Mariners club in Richmond Road.

The restaurant was formerly the Surf n? Turf until Mr. Turner and Mr. Webber finally succeeded in winning the lease to operate the restaurant after a number of previous attempts to take-over the business. Having undergone a renovation, which included the opening of a skylight that had been blocked out for 10 years and bringing in all-new kitchen equipment, the intimate restaurant has re-opened its doors for lunches and dinners and there are plans to expand its current seating capacity from around 35 to include outdoor alfresco areas in the summer months.

Mr. Webber, who is a marketing executive with Conyers Dill and Pearman, can see plenty of positives in running a restaurant in the middle of the city?s financial district.

?It?s a small venue and we will expand our ability to cater to customers in the Spring with a terrace area that will give the opportunity for alfresco eating that, unusually for Bermuda, is not slap-bang on a road,? he said.

?Word is spreading about the restaurant. We opened about two weeks ago and have a contemporary international fayre menu with some Thai and Asian influence. If you look at where we are and how businesses have been built around you have that strip down Par-La-Ville Road that is a mass of business offices, and then there is Bank of Bermuda and Butterfield Bank and AIG nearby. We are the only real restaurant in that proximity.?

Mr. Webber and Mr. Turner drew up a business plan to run a restaurant more than five years ago and have been waiting for the right time and the right place to put their dream into operation. The opportunity to take over the former Surf n? Turf fitted the bill.

Mr. Turner has a substantial background in hotels and hospitality, while head chef Mr. Jewett was previously at the Fairmont Southampton?s Newport Room, Waterlot Restaurant and then head chef at Lobster Pot and Flanagan?s on Front Street.

The new restaurant has its own website at www.madhatters.free.com and operates a policy of not adding the usual 15 percent gratuity automatically to bills, thereby allowing customers to use their discretion when tipping.