Jamie Oliver to relaunch Italian restaurant chain in UK six years after collapse

[ad_1] Jamie Oliver is to revive his Jamie’s Italian restaurant chain within the UK, greater than six years after the movie star chef’s model collapsed.

Jamie’s Italian is poised to be relaunched within the spring, beginning with a restaurant in London’s Leicester Sq..

Oliver’s return to the UK restaurant scene is being backed by Brava Hospitality Group – the personal equity-backed group that runs the Prezzo chain – which intends to relaunch the model throughout the UK.

“As a chef, having the prospect to return to the excessive road is extremely necessary to me,” he mentioned. “I'll drive the menus, ensure the sourcing is correct, the workers coaching, and guarantee the feel and appear of the restaurant is dropped at life in the suitable manner.”

Jamie’s Italian was first launched along with his mentor, the chef Gennaro Contaldo, in Oxford in 2008. The model was expanded to about 40 websites at its peak, earlier than a sequence of restructuring programmes began to scale back the variety of places from 2017.

Two years later the now 50-year-old was compelled to name within the directors after a gross sales course of that sought to herald new funding into the enterprise proved unsuccessful.

In an electronic mail to workers on the time, Oliver blamed “the well-publicised struggles of the informal eating sector and decline of the UK excessive road, together with hovering enterprise charges”.

Oliver’s return comes at a time when the hospitality trade faces a number of challenges together with hovering meals inflation, growing wage prices and lacklustre commerce as customers rein in spending on non-essentials amid greater family payments.

“In idea it’s not the simplest time to return however conversely, I believe it’s the right time,” Oliver mentioned. “I imagine the mid-market wants pleasure, shock and delight and that’s precisely what I'm planning on delivering.”

The failure of Jamie’s Italian in 2019 resulted in 1,000 job losses.

After the collapse of the UK enterprise, the Jamie’s Italian model continued to function abroad and it has greater than 30 eating places in 25 nations. General, Oliver nonetheless has about 70 eating places world wide run by franchise companions.

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Ed Loftus, the worldwide director of Jamie Oliver Eating places, mentioned the partnership with Brava “marks an thrilling subsequent chapter” for the group within the UK.

“Our precedence is making the primary location distinctive,” he mentioned. “The general public will finally decide how shortly and the way far we develop.”

Monetary filings launched in October confirmed that Oliver and his spouse, Jools, paid themselves £2.5m in dividends for the second 12 months in a row, as pre-tax earnings at their core media and restaurant empire slumped.

Pre-tax earnings at Jamie Oliver Holdings (JOH) fell by £1m to £2.4m final 12 months. This was regardless of a 6% rise in gross sales to £28.6m, helped by a rise in restaurant earnings after the November 2023 opening of his first straight run restaurant for the reason that collapse of his UK empire.

JOH consists of Oliver’s media pursuits resembling TV manufacturing, books, endorsements, his cookery college and his restaurant, in addition to franchise earnings from the abroad shops, charges for selling the grocery store Tesco, and royalties from merchandise bearing his identify.