A TAPAS restaurant will be the first new name at Southampton’s emerging £40m Arts Complex.

With construction work on the Guildhall Square site well under way, the £1m Tapas Barcelona has been announced as the first name to be part of the site.

The new restaurant will create up to 50 new jobs and is set to open this summer alongside flats being built on the former Tyrrell and Green site.

The £21m arts complex facilities, which include two auditoria, galleries and state-of-the-art film and media facilities, is set to open next April.

There will be seven ground floor restaurant units alongside 38 apartments at the site, and developer Grosvenor has announced Delicious Dining will run the 5,000sq ft Tapas Barcelona eatery.

Delicious Dining already runs several of Southampton’s bestknown restaurants and nightspots, including Banana Wharf in Ocean Village and the Grand Cafe in Terminus Terrace.

Tapas Barcelona will employ 40 to 50 staff, and feature a range of Spanish, South American and Latin American-inspired dishes.

Delicious Dining’s chief executive, Steve Hughes, pictured, said: “The restaurant, which will occupy the ground floor, will offer small plates from Spain and Latin America and very much reflect the cultural vision of the development.

“As a local business we are thrilled to have agreed terms and look forward to the fitting out phase starting in May 2015 with the official opening in the summer.”

City council leader Simon Letts said: “The announcement of this first retail letting at the Arts Complex is very positive news. 

"With the building taking such shape and creating the final piece of the jigsaw within our Cultural Quarter, we can now really visualise what an exciting facility this VIP project will become.”