Tom Artiss, Dika Vicente-Artiss and Max Porta at Portis Pizza

AN alumnus from Islington’s “Startup School for Seniors” has turned his entrepreneurial dream into reality with a new pizzeria tucked on a side street off Essex Road.

In November, the Tribune spoke to academic and lifelong foodie Tom Artiss, 56, who had enrolled in an online business mentoring programme commissioned by Islington Council in the hope of learning the ropes to launch his own restaurant.

Now, six months later, it’s all up and running, a labour of love co-created by Mr Artiss and his wife, Dika Vicente-Artiss, and their housemate, Italian pastry chef Max Porta.

“It’s a lovely adventure,” said Mr Artiss, whose new takeaway pizzeria Portis, in Rheidol Terrace, opened last month and sells chunky Roman-style pizza by the slice.

Before deciding to start the business he was working as head chef at the Almeida Theatre on Upper Street, where he realised that he wanted to make cheffing his full time job.

“It was love at first cook,” he said, adding that the start up school “did an amazing job of making people feel that it was possible” to start a business. “It gave me a group of people who are all in the same boat, a lot of them more my age than what you would normally think of as seniors. Having that community was a big help I had never done anything like this before so it was an immersion into a different world.

“I came to it mentally prepared for a lot of curveballs, so when you’re ready for that it doesn’t make it such a shock. It’s not rocket science – if you have a good common sense head on your shoulders and you’re willing to work really hard you can solve the problems that come up.”