A NEW noodle bar is taking over a former bakery in a Southampton shopping centre.

Neds Noodle Bar will open in the former Warrens premises in the Marlands Shopping Centre in early April creating ten jobs.

The store will offer dine-in, take-out or delivery, featuring Neds Noodle Boxes crammed with noodles, filling, sauce and veggies, a variety of starters including gyoza and sizzling calamari strips as well as noodle soups, rice, salads, kids boxes and desserts.

The first Neds Noodle Bar store was opened in 2000 by restaurateur James Breslaw and Roberto Marroni, who fell in love with Oriental cuisine and flavours while backpacking together through Asia.

They decided to open the first Noodles in a Box concept as soon as they returned to London in Spring 2000.

Since then further bars have opened in Shoreditch, Basildon and Oxford.

The chain was nominated for the ‘best noodles in the UK’ at the UK Golden Chopsticks Awards 2019.

Franchise partner Elnety Fernandez said: “Since Chinese and Japanese food became popular in America in the 1960s, the world has been hungry for noodles.

"Southampton has been crying out for a healthy noodle place for a while and early interest in Neds Noodle Bar bodes well."