When Jamie’s Italian launched its first restaurant almost two decades ago, it was genuinely disruptive. The Oxford opening felt like a mini-revolution, knocking the legacy Italian chains it was designed to compete with – ASK Italian, Zizzi, Prezzo and Pizza Express – for six.
I remember queueing in the rain for Jamie’s Italian Brighton, which opened a year or so later. Once inside, I was struck by the scale of the place and how much was being made on site – there were even staff making pasta by hand in the window.
The food wasn’t perfect, but it was prepared with care and enthusiasm by people who wanted to be there. I was impressed and so was almost everyone else. For years, Jamie’s Italian was the darling of the sector.
Fronted by one of the country’s most famous chefs, it felt far less generic than its competitors, talking loudly about provenance, employing young (often Italian) staff and investing in a strong, characterful design that was the antithesis of the cookie-cutter approach favoured by most operators at the time. Oliver’s wider values around sustainability, training and food education were also woven into the brand story.
We all know what came next. Jamie’s Italian expanded rapidly to a peak of 36 UK sites, but the wheels began to come off in the mid-2010s. A few years later, the brand had disappeared from the high street, costing around 1,000 people their jobs and causing serious reputational damage to its creator.
So, it came as a surprise when Jamie’s Italian announced it was returning, following a strategic partnership between Oliver and Brava Hospitality Group, the parent company of Prezzo. Set to open this spring on Leicester Square, the restaurant will blend old and new, with Jamie’s Italian classics such as Gennaro’s bolognese and those unwieldy cured meat planks sitting alongside new dishes. The design is being ‘revitalised’, drawing on the international Jamie’s Italian estate, which still numbers around 70 restaurants across 23 countries.
Things will be very different this time around. Jamie’s Italian isn’t going to move the needle like it did in 2008. Casual dining has evolved and, particularly in London, a number of high-quality, pasta-focused operators have emerged at a similar price point.
Oliver, of course, is no stranger to comebacks. In 2023 he launched Jamie Oliver Catherine Street, his first UK restaurant since the collapse of Jamie’s Italian. While it continues to trade, the reception was mixed and reinforced the fact that Oliver inevitably has a target on his back. Some reviews were far from kind, with one critic memorably likening it to “a musical with a star who just can’t sing”.
Given Jamie’s Italian’s considerable baggage, the knives are likely to be even sharper. The appeal for Brava is obvious – Oliver’s personal brand remains strong, and the average consumer has a much shorter memory that the restaurant trade. Why Oliver himself is rolling the dice again is less clear. It’s not like he needs the money; his international restaurants and media work continues to be extremely lucrative. He may have less skin in the game this time, but another failure would be deeply embarrassing.
And it might well not work. The choice of Leicester Square is a worry. Sure, it’s busy, but it is also ugly and non-aspirational, more closely associated with QSR and the lower end of casual dining. It also has a habit of punishing celebrity-chef hubris, as Marco Pierre White discovered when his sprawling Mr White’s restaurant lasted less than two years.
While one couldn’t accuse either Oliver or Brava of being bullish in their comms around the launch, further expansion appears to be the ambition, with Jamie Oliver Restaurants global director Ed Loftus saying: “It’s definitely not a one site situation”. Brava has an easy route to growth too, with the option to convert existing Prezzo sites to Oliver’s brand as well as secure new real estate.
The reboot will no doubt try to learn from past mistakes. Alongside weak site selection, operational complexity was one of the original brand’s biggest downfalls, with extensive from-scratch cooking leading to inconsistent food quality.
Reading between the lines, the new Jamie’s Italian will be more stripped back. But if it ends up operating like every other Italian chain, that’s a problem too. Fundamentally, it won’t be the disruptive force it once was – which again raises the question: why bother? There’s a reason failed restaurant brands are rarely resurrected and given the wider challenges facing the sector that reason could well come to bear here.