Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver comes to India

British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver is set to launch his famous Italian restaurant chain in Delhi, the first in the country with plans to expand to cities across India.

The high-street Jamie's Italian, which has over 30 restaurants across the world and Jamie's Pizzeria, two sustainable eating restaurant brands would open this autumn, promoters said today.

"I can't tell you how excited I am to be bringing Jamie's Italian and Jamie's Pizzeria to India. Delhi is a vibrant, colourful, buzzing city with an already incredible food scene, so to be opening two restaurants there is a huge honour," Oliver said in a statement.

Both the Jamie brands are promoted by a joint venture between International Market Management a London investment and management company and Carnation Hospitality, a Delhi based business. The promoters also control a range of other well-known brands in India including Wendy's and Barista.

"We chose Delhi because we found a great launch site and feel that we can offer something new to the market, this is to say highly accessible, affordable restaurants serving great quality Italian food sourced with the greatest care," Jasper Reid, an entrepreneur and the founder of International Market Management Ltd (IMM) told PTI.

Jamie's Italian is a 120-130 seat restaurant serving a full Italian menu "priced at a very affordable level."

"We'll serve fresh pasta made in the restaurant, grills, healthy salads, cold cut planks, innovative sides and starters, pizzas and of course desserts. The restaurant design is modern, beautiful, comfortable and in keeping with Jamie's restaurants around the world in London, Hong Kong, Sao Paolo, Moscow etc," Reid said.

Jamie's Pizzeria is a 50-60 seat restaurant that serves innovative and delicious thin crust pizzas, salads, sides and desserts.

"It's a fun and easy-going place offering customers the highest quality but at amazing value. The plan is for customers to get a yummy pizza and a drink for around Rs 400 to Rs 450. We feel there may be a gap in the market for this quality and this price," Reid said.

The menu for the restaurants will remain true to that of "bold, big flavoured and full of familiar tastes" served everywhere else in the world. The chef has 63 restaurants in 11 countries.

"But we haven't developed anything specific for India... Just chosen Jamie's dishes which tend to work all round the world.

"Of course we've increased the vegetarian range and focused on crowd-pleasing dishes like cold-cut veg and non veg planks, risotto, prawn linguine, tagliatelle Bolognese, fresh baked bread, a lamb burger, grilled pork chops, superfood salad, ice cream, tiramisu, brownies and much much more," Reid said.

Photographs: jamieoliver.com; Inset: Jamie Oliver