Award-winning Derbyshire chef looking to open second restaurant in his home town - and this time it’s a pizzeria

Leo Hill, aged 26, is the youthful mastermind behind Arthur’s in Campbell Street, Belper, and now has plans to open up a pizzeria named Scuffle in a former micropub in Bridge Street.

He has submitted plans to Amber Valley Borough Council to convert the former Pump it Up micropub, opposite The Lion, into a pizzeria with a core theme of British produce.

A decision will be made by the council in the next few months and Mr Hill hopes to have the new venture open by late spring or early summer.

Mr Hill said his focus was to “make the best pizza you’ve ever had”.

He says the new venture would be far from “artsy fartsy” and get back to the basics of food that makes people happy, and what he himself would want to eat.

The second restaurant would see Mr Hill getting back to his roots, having started on the pizza section in The White Hart in Duffield in 2014 for his first kitchen job.

He said: ”It is going to be very British produce, like British charcuterie and cheeses, similar to Arthur’s, we had a Welsh rarebit pizza there which has been popular.

“To start with we would mostly be dine-in but we would have some collection slots too and would look to build from there.

“I am buzzing about it all, I am excited to expand in my home town, I’m born and raised here and don’t want to open anywhere else unless there is no choice.

“During lockdown I got back to the food I really enjoy eating and that’s what I want to offer at Scuffle.

“It will be different to all of the other pizza places in Belper so I don’t feel like we would be competing, we wouldn’t be treading on anyone else’s toes.

“If we hadn’t been able to open Arthur’s in Belper I don’t think I would have stayed, but we all pull together in this town and we made it happen, we make things happen.

“I remember in 2008 in the recession, we all pulled together through that, and we have pulled through lockdowns. I’m Belper born and bred and that’s where I want to stick around.”

Mr Hill’s first restaurant, Arthur’s, opened in 2018 and offers a ten-course tasting menu at £70 a head, where you can bring your own booze.

The venue and his team have won the newcomer of the year award at the Derbyshire Life Food and Drink Awards in 2019, were finalists in the East Midlands restaurant of the year category at The Food Awards England 2022, and were runners-up in the Observer Food Monthly Awards 2022.

He says Arthur’s aims to provide a “chilled-out vibe” and that he hopes to replicate at Scuffle.

An early look at Scuffle’s menu shows pizzas would range from £10 to £15.

It would include a pizza containing Derbyshire honey, wild boar pancetta, sausages from Jerry Howarth’s in Belper, sherry roast onions, mushroom duxelles and white sauce.

Another option would include oak-smoked chilli, rosemary, red onion, pineapple compote, muscovado glazed smoked ham hock, mozzarella and red sauce.