Bistro launch adds flavour to development centre project.

THE latest phase in the creation of a new business centre in the heart of Abergele was launched last night with the opening of a new eaterie.

Incontro is a bistro and coffee house in Hesketh House - a former pub that has been converted at a cost so far of about pounds 600,000 into a business development centre.

Earlier phases of the project involved the creation of meeting, training and conference rooms for companies, public bodies and training and enterprise agencies.

Last year a community-based ICT and internet training centre called Itaca was opened and now the new Incontro bistro aims to provide a food and drink service to complement existing facilities.

Geoffrey Barclay, of Conlan International, the company behind the Hesketh House development, said the bistro was part of a project to create and encourage a pan-European inter-regional exchange of business ideas, products and training.

"The emphasis on products with a defined regional origin is in a way indicative of the attempt to bring together organisations from across Europe in a process of internationalisation," he said.

"Just as a classy Italian wine complements a mature North Wales cheddar, so we can bring together businesses and individuals from various European regions to forge new relationships."

A third phase to the development of the Abergele centre will see the conversion of the top floor of the building to provide business incubator units.

CAPTION(S):

Geoff Barclay, Linda Tavernor and Livia Pietromarchi at the new bistro Picture by: JEFF PITT