Diner’s Diary | Jamie Oliver’s Italian restaurants in Hong Kong to focus more on local tastes and better food quality
Restaurants’ Hong Kong owners will now propose menu items they think the local market will like, with Oliver and his people in the UK testing them out before giving their seal of approval
William Lyon lets out an exaggerated guffaw when asked about recent rumours that Jamie’s Italian was closing its Hong Kong restaurants because business is poor.
“If I look at the churn in this building [Midtown Soundwill Plaza II in Causeway Bay], we’re the only Western restaurant that has managed to remain in this building in the same incarnation as it was in the beginning,” he says. (Penthouse is also still there, but its previous co-owner, chef Harlan Goldstein, is no longer involved after his local partnership dissolved in 2015.)
“We have a great landlord here and I like Causeway Bay,” Lyon adds.
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Lyon is the CEO of Big Cat Group, which runs Hong Kong’s two Jamie’s Italian restaurants – in Midtown Soundwill Plaza II and in Harbour City in Tsim Sha Tsui – and a Jamie’s Deli also in Harbour City.
He admits the “market has been tough in the last few years”, but adds: “Business is good here and we like being here.”
