A new Jamaican restaurant in Ipswich has announced its planned opening date this month.

The Jamaica Street restaurant and bar, in the town’s Upper Orwell Street, is due to open on April 26 - and has already had a lot of advance bookings.

Owner Fabio Dimuccio said: “There has been such big support around the area. We are already mainly booked up for the first two weeks.”

Work has been carried out to renovate the building, which was formerly the Baipo Thai restaurant. Jamaica means “land of wood and water,” and Fabio said they had borne this in mind, using wood as a theme in the decor of the restaurant’s exterior.

The full menu is still under wraps, but he has previously said that dishes will include jerk chicken, made with real jerk pans like those used in Jamaica, curried goat, and ackee and saltfish, which is Jamaica’s national dish.

Fabio stressed all the food will be traditional and prepared from scratch. “It will be like family cooking. Sometimes Jamaican food gets commercialised, but this will be like home cooking.”

He said there was nothing similar on the restaurant scene in the area, and the new restaurant would contribute to Suffolk’s food culture.