out and I want it more consistent before i start looking at tasting menus and things like that.
"I originally started off with more funky things, like mini snacks; black pudding, scotch eggs, beer braised ox tail with chips and curds, pigs head fritters - but it didn't go down a hundred percent well so we've had to look at it again. It was the sort of stuff i did at the Gherkin at the bar and it went really well."
Matt didn't open the restaurant side of the business until January this year as there were only four chefs in the kitchen and they couldn't keep up.
He said: "We make all the bread, whip all the butter - everything is done in house so it's full on for a little kitchen, we hammer it. The guys are pushing but the project as a whole has a lot of potential."
Now in charge of his own place, Matt says the pressure is a lot different to what he was used to
before, he said: "You need to make sure the business is working because you don't want to lay people off, there are a lot more worries. At The Gherkin everything was financial so you were always looking at gross profits, how much money you were making, where could you save money. Here you are looking at what you can do to make money!"
The team is made up of chefs who came with Matt from the Gherkin, including his senior sous, Kwesi Boller and pastry chef, Chris Hurter, and Matt says he couldn't have done it without Kwesi, he said: "He's my right hand man, without him in the beginning we would of gone down. My pastry chef is really talented too. The core of us have done everything form scratch."
He added: "I also have an apprentice, I like to have them because I think you learn a lot more than just being at college all the time.
"Colleges just don't have the funding, it's not that they are bad. Unfortunately they need to move with the times because a lot of the things they are teaching just aren't used anymore."
Matt is just 19 miles from his mentor Paul Welburn, who opened The Leconfield in Petworth, West Sussex around the same time. The pair spent six months working together at The Gherkin and they still bounce ideas off each other. 
"If I've got any issues, I'll always speak with Paul," said Matt. "It's always good when you've got that person, especially someone of his caliber, it's very beneficial."
There are a number of plans in place for The Grantley Arms but first on Matt's list is to keep the pub as a pub, for the locals to still come in and have a pint, but he also wants to achieve a good ranking. He said: "I'd like to get inside the Top 50 Gastro pubs, that would be great! We are also looking at rooms, but we just want to get through the first year, keep it consistent and hopefully come out with a bit of a profit!"
