Jamie Oliver restaurants goes into administration

SPG

SPG

Soldato
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Pizza = cheesy bread, worst food ever. No idea why its so popular.

Italian food is all about cooking it home with nice fresh stuff. Never go to a Italian restutant when out, i can cook it better at home tbh.

Unless of course i am in Italy then its pumpkin ravioli every day :)
 
Soldato
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Pizza = cheesy bread, worst food ever. No idea why its so popular.

Italian food is all about cooking it home with nice fresh stuff. Never go to a Italian restutant when out, i can cook it better at home tbh.

Unless of course i am in Italy then its pumpkin ravioli every day :)

You’ve clearly never had good pizza.
 

TS7

TS7

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Visited the one in Greenwich. The recipe of: smaller portions in comparison to likewise competitors (Zizzi, Prezzo etc.), quality on par with likewise competitors yet prices about 30% dearer than likewise competitors was not a particularly good one. After people got over the 'Ooh it's Jamie's restaurant!' phase, you're not going to be a repeat customer and pay over the odds to competitors most of which are on tastecard offering 2 for 1 deals.
 
Soldato
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Only ate there once and found the service terrible and the food overpriced. Tried to present itself as higher end than it actually was which people will quickly see through. To be fair that was only one visit to one place so may not be reflective of the chain as a whole but it was bad enough to stop me giving it a second chance. As others have said, its a crowded market, if you have one bad experience you will go elsewhere.
 
Caporegime
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Couldn't have happened to a nicer person, he was an incredibly obnoxious sugar tax advocate, meat eater who claimed to care about animal rights and took a massive £5m+ payout when putting 1,000's out of jobs, a thoroughly despicable individual. Also had the audacity to play the brexit card when the reality is his restaurants were just ****.
 
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Hardly surprising, Italian food is dull at best of times with out adding pretentious pricing

Ive been to Italy many times and the food is fantastic, Italian restaurants in the UK not so great. I cant ever recall ever having a bad meal in Italy, the same could not be said of France. Had some pretty lousy meals in France considering how much they like to say how great their food is.
 
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How is he able to just write off debt, does he not have to cough up out of his own savings?

https://www.theguardian.com/food/20...se-80m-owed-by-jamie-olivers-restaurant-chain

Firstly I need to stress I'm guessing.

But, likely just setup as a limited company, limited company you are not generally personally liable for the debts as it's a separate legal entity to a person.

There are if course exceptions, some debts etc will ask for personal guarantees etc.

But investors will have seen the celebrity status and figured they couldn't loose, I don't necessarily feel that sorry for them either.

Shame people are losing jobs of course, and as for the guy himself, I always thought he was a bit of a ****.
 
Associate
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5 Mar 2017
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Cambridge
Worked in the Cambridge's one. Despite the input of outsiders who are happy to tell porkies, the ingredients was too notch. 99% from the best sources in Italy. Nothing frozen, like Zizzi's pre-cooked vacuum packed mushrooms or frozen pizza doughs. Bella Italia is a joke. Worked there, risotto and lasagna, from freezer to microwave. All sauces frozen in packets, already in portions. Ask for one extra meatball. Can't have. The issue, as I could see, over 6 years ago, when I left, was due to people in charge without a clue how a restaurant should run.
The same happened to CAU. The food, if prepared as it was supposed to, would be great, but the approach on recruiting McDonald's level chefs, Pub level managers, and turning the places into a fast food business was a deal breaker.
Running a business which cooks all from scratch, and uses expensive ingredients, if not done properly, the customer won't be able to tell the difference between that or the nasty frozen lasagna from Bella Italia.
The service, supposed to be more attentive, but again, minimum wage monkeys running and trying to rush people out of their tables as kick as possible, only targeting the tips.
For example, anyone in Cambridge or visiting Cambridge, check out Aromi. Not a restaurant. But the guy does well. Very well. All fresh, good service, and keeping things simple.
Problem with Jamie as a person was the fact that he was adopted as a hero here. Not sure why. Just twisting his body over a salad when sprinkling salt won't make some awful combination taste better. But on thing he did well was to turn every bean on toast eater believe they're good enthusiasts just for watching him on telly.
 
Man of Honour
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Couldn't have happened to a nicer person, he was an incredibly obnoxious sugar tax advocate, meat eater who claimed to care about animal rights and took a massive £5m+ payout when putting 1,000's out of jobs, a thoroughly despicable individual. Also had the audacity to play the brexit card when the reality is his restaurants were just ****.
Was that festering for so many months you suddenly had to necro the thread to let it out?
 
Soldato
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Woburn Sand Dunes
Associate
Joined
17 Dec 2002
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803
Location
sunderland
I'm not pro or anti Jamie Oliver. But just for balance.
The work he put into the school meals was incredible.
In the face of so much antipathy from government parents kids, he really knew he was on a hiding to nothing yet he still put himself out there.
I'm sure there's probably more failures than successes following his work on school meals, but fir the places he did manage to improve, it was worth it.
The way he puts it across does get on my wick being a northerner, but respect him fir what he tried, turn an absolute shambles of a system into something better
 
Soldato
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Worked in the Cambridge's one. Despite the input of outsiders who are happy to tell porkies, the ingredients was too notch. 99% from the best sources in Italy.
that's interesting ... if they had advertised that, I'd have been more likely to visit, but, as you say, if the meals weren't superior, it was wasted ... I'll look up aromi.

I think you need to be careful when branding with a high associativity with a person, that can go wrong, if they're marmite like him, or dyson.
struggles to think of other examples. ...
 
Soldato
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How is he able to just write off debt, does he not have to cough up out of his own savings?

https://www.theguardian.com/food/20...se-80m-owed-by-jamie-olivers-restaurant-chain

Unfortunately that's the way businesses work in the UK, the owner can keep the business a separate entity so that they're not liable for any debts should the business collapse.

You can almost guarantee that if UK law changed to hold business owners personally liable for any debts, that a lot more would be done in these scenarios. Rather than a cut and let loose scenario.
 
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