Jamie Oliver has been accused of leaving a ‘sour taste in the mouth’ after announcing he is to relaunch his Jamie’s Italian restaurant chain six years after its £83million collapse.
Two businessmen spoke out after being left out of pocket by the high-profile liquidation, which saw 25 UK restaurants close and the loss of 1,000 jobs.
Oliver, 50, announced the relaunch earlier this month, saying ‘it’s the perfect time’ to give consumers ‘surprise and delight’.
But Lee Wilmot, whose Bedford-based company Rational Technical Services worked for the chain, servicing ovens and other kitchen equipment, failed to share the joy.
He said: ‘When I see him on adverts, I switch the channel over. It leaves a sour taste in the mouth because I believe business has to be done as ethically as possible. I got a cheque for £175 on a £5,000-£6,000 debt.
‘Small businesses do tend to suffer more, and everyone suffers when companies go into administration. But it is the smaller companies that find it harder to accept the debt write-off.’
Relaunch: Jamie Oliver’s Jamie’s Italian was first launched in 2008 and expanded to 40 outlets before contracting from 2017 in the face of harsh market conditions
Jamie’s Italian was first launched in 2008 and expanded to 40 outlets before contracting from 2017 in the face of increasingly harsh market conditions.
Two years later, Oliver called in the administrators, telling staff that he blamed ‘the well-publicised struggles of the casual dining sector, along with soaring business rates’.
In 2022 liquidators confirmed unsecured creditors received 2.47p in the pound, with £520,000 paid on unsecured claims of £21million.
Secured creditors, including HSBC, were owed £39.4million, and Oliver’s own company, which was owed £18million, also recovered only a fraction of the total debts.
The Government’s Redundancy Payments Service had to step in to pay off staff, who received nothing from the liquidation.
The relaunch, backed by the Brava Hospitality Group, will start with a restaurant in Leicester Square, London before being rolled out across the country.
Kenneth Naidu-Johnson, who runs Unique Cleaning Systems, based in Bicester, was left thousands of pounds out of pocket.
He said: ‘My wife likes watching his TV programmes. I can’t even go in the room. No one had any idea that he was just going to liquidate.
And me being naive – I had only had the business for five years at that point – I completely trusted Jamie.’
However, another creditor, Liberty Wines – which was owed £123,000 – said Oliver and his company ‘acted professionally’ during the collapse and that it was treated fairly.
A spokesman for Jamie Oliver was contacted for comment.
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