Jamie Oliver, the British celebrity chef, will open the first North American location of his restaurant chain ‘Jamie’s Italian’ in Toronto.
It’s a partnership with the King Street Food Company, owners of Toronto’s Buca and Jacobs & Co. Steakhouse. The plan is to open Jamie Oliver’s place in the upscale Yorkdale Shopping Centre next spring.
Oliver began in Britain on the BBC with his televised show, The Naked Chef, promoting healthy and sustainable food. He later became familiar to North American audiences with shows like Jamie at Home on the Food Network.
The first location of ‘Jamie’s Italian’ opened in 2008. The chain expanded to 35 restaurants across the United Kingdom and eight internationally. The menu includes pizzas and pastas and Oliver’s unique take on Italian cuisine, such as lamb lollipops.
The partnership with the company behind Buca may have started when Jamie Oliver dined there and tweeted a description of the experience in 2011, as his “favorite meal of the year.”
Jamie Oliver arrived in many Canadian kitchens last year through a partnership with Sobey’s, a Canadian grocer, offering a line of higher quality food.
Here’s hoping Oliver’s restaurant partnership works out better than the Gordon Ramsay foray in Montreal. The other celebrity chef took over a landmark roast chicken restaurant, and the partnership began well, but eventually deteriorated and the place has since shut down.
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