Season 2 • Episode 5

00:00:00

Edward Loftus

I think the key is like, you don't want to bring something back and just make it exactly the same, but you also want people who, and there was a lot of people, know, I think there was a million people a year coming through Jamie's to tell you when it existed before in the UK and they'll all have their memories, right? So we were conscious. wanted to retain some of that kind of core DNA as well.

00:00:19

Conor Sheridan

Welcome back to What's Cooking. I'm Conor Sheridan, CEO and founder of Nory. This week we're talking about something that very few people in the hospitality industry ever get to attempt: a genuine second act. In 2019, the collapse of Jamie Oliver's UK restaurant business made headlines for all the wrong reasons. Over 1,000 jobs lost, creditors owed roughly £83 million, and a beloved brand.

That had served millions of people across the UK, simply gone. And yet here we are in 2026, and Jamie's Italian is back. Open in Leicester Square, fresh pasta made on the premises every day, menus handwritten by Jamie himself, reportedly due to seven hours of calligraphy, and suppliers back to back the brand again. But this isn't just a comeback story. It's a story about what happens when you build a global business intelligently.

while the rest of the market watches you from the outside. Because while UK casual dining was in free fall, the Jamie Oliver Group never stopped growing. Today they operate over 80 locations across 24 countries with seven distinct brand formats, including Food2Go, Fast Casual, Casual Dining, Polished Dining, and Experiential. They've entered Germany, Greece, Montenegro, Oman, India, and many more.

And they have a plan to reach 200 sites over the next couple of years. The man orchestrating all of this is today's guest. Ed Loftus is the global director of Jamie Oliver Restaurants, a role that puts him at the intersection of brand, operations, franchise strategy, and international growth. He started his career as a chef and worked in some of the most demanding kitchens in the UK and New Zealand, alongside names like Gordon Ramsay.

Angela Hartnett and Chris Galvin. And he spent the last several years building a genuinely global restaurant business around one of the most recognizable culinary brands in the world in Jamie Oliver. Right now, the partnership with Brava Hospitality Group is arguably the most watched deal in the UK casual dining. Can Jamie's Italian actually work this time? Can a brand that carries the baggage of a very public collapse

00:02:43

Conor Sheridan

Rebuild trust with landlords, suppliers, customers and staff? And can it do so in a market that is arguably more challenging than twenty nineteen? Ed is the person who has the answer to all of these questions and sees the operations every single day. So let's see how.

00:03:07

Conor Sheridan

Ed, welcome to What's Cooking. Great to have you on the show.

00:03:10

Edward Loftus

Great to be here, Conor. Thanks for having me on today.

00:03:12

Conor Sheridan

Really excited for this episode. to give a bit of a background on you and on the business to the listeners, your global director of Jamie Oliver Restaurants, eighty plus locations, twenty-four location twenty-four countries and seven brands, a bit of an operational behemoth. Excited to dig into what it's like to run that business today. But before we get into that, maybe you could give us a bit of a an introduction into how you went from working in the kitchens all the way to be leading such a a large global business.

00:03:40

Edward Loftus

Yeah, absolutely. mean, I'm a life in hospitality. So I left school at 16. And as you say, I started life in the kitchens and, you know, spent probably 10, 15 years working away in kitchens and really a whole variety of things from hotels to Michelin star restaurants, bakeries. was a pastry chef for a while, lived in New Zealand and then slowly progressed into sort of multi-site operational roles, more commercial roles.

And as of today, running the J.Miliver restaurant group. So it's been, I don't think there's a huge amount of chefs out there that are in these sorts of leadership roles, but that's been my journey. It's been a really interesting one. think actually a lot of the time in kitchens and restaurants has really benefited me in terms of how I see restaurants, restaurant groups, and what matters as well.

00:04:35

Conor Sheridan

Yeah, one hundred percent from the ground upright. It feels like you've seen every aspect of the business. During that that journey from like creative culinary aspect all the way to what's effectively leading a a really large international organization, dealing with the executive pressures of that, what was that transition like? What areas do you think stood you in good stead from your frontline experience? And what areas did you feel like you needed to maybe stretch and and develop over time?

00:05:01

Edward Loftus

In my view on hospitality is it's a bit of a team sport really. It's a group of people coming together to achieve a common goal. And I think that applies as much in terms of the four walls of a restaurant as it does from a head office leadership support function. So I think there's a lot of similarities around sort of having to focus on the team, getting the team motivated to deliver an outcome. So I think there's definitely that crossover.

And I'm the cook at home. My wife doesn't cook. So I spend a lot of time slaving over the stove at home and enjoy it very much. But I think for me, it was just the, the, the curiosity, the interest of how restaurants and all of the component parts come together to deliver the outcome that kind of got me interested. you know, the more that as I became a head chef and exec chef, I was kind of just curious about how everything else worked and just

opportunities presented themselves. I think one of the biggest things for me as well was sort of, you the big differences in a restaurant, in a kitchen, you're very much problem solving in the moment and you sort of succeed and fail together. Whereas the environment that I'm in now is, there's a lot more long-term planning, a lot more strategic work, which I guess is one of the biggest challenges. It's still problem solving, but it's something that was different and required me to sort of adapt to. it's people skills, right?

It's still stakeholder management. It's making sure that everybody understands you. You communicate clear. All of those simple things that you have to be able to do in a restaurant environment still apply in any role.

00:06:42

Conor Sheridan

Yeah, a hundred percent. the scale of the business today is really significant. As you mentioned, twenty-four countries, eighty locations, seven brats. you've been at the business for a number of years. You were there in the the initial period as it scaled through the UK and then ultimately in twenty nineteen the business shut some of its UK restaurants and

I suppose if we reverse back to that period before we get to the scale and the success of today, it's an interesting period to be part of the business, right? You got to see that phenomenal scale and then obviously shutting the the UK business. during w that period, how did you what signals w were there, if any, to say that this was potentially under pressure as a business?

00:07:32

Edward Loftus

I think firstly, it was interesting for me professionally. think I learned a lot, learned a huge amount about things I never thought I'd be learning about. I think it's being able to operate and to make decisions in a crisis is a really tough thing to do. And I think that's something, COVID came shortly after and actually COVID felt relatively straightforward compared to what we'd been through.

But you know, I think as with most things, there's no one single thing you can point at. I think there was a whole series of pressures and decisions that had built up over time. think the reality is the business at the time closed some of the most successful and busiest restaurants in London and elsewhere. So I don't think the issue was necessarily customer demand at site level. I think the business had sort of run out of flexibility and capital.

to be able to react to the environment that it was in. Costs were kind of rising aggressively in some areas. The market was shifting. I think that the business was quite complex at the time. A whole combination of factors led to that moment in time. And I think for me, one of the big things is a good brand doesn't necessarily make a good business. And I don't think Jamie's ever not had a good brand. think the restaurant business.

went into administration for various reasons, but it wasn't because of his brand. just think there was other issues, management decisions, two big sides, being, yeah, and not having the ability to be able to then pivot and the capital required to do so being a privately owned business. So that's kind of a view, I guess.

00:09:19

Conor Sheridan

Super interesting. it's obviously a higher pressure period, right? Of any business to go into administration. You stayed with the business and helped steer it into the success it's seeing today. What signals did you see or what did you see in the business to give you the conviction to go, Okay, let's weather this and and move on to the next phase of of the business? Was it that brand that you touched on, the customer demand or retained?

00:09:43

Edward Loftus

The sort of awareness of Jamie, he's, you know, I don't know, at the time, I can't recall kind of the stats, but like today he's been writing for 25 years, right? He's sold well over 50 million books, the biggest cookbook author in the world, TV across, you know, hundreds of countries, 120 countries or something like that, books published in 36 languages. Clearly, like there's a huge opportunity with that. um...

That gave me a huge amount of confidence. And I like a challenge, definitely like a challenge. I like working hard and I kind of relished the opportunity to be given the sort of responsibility of seeing what we could do with the business. I think, yeah, it was the brand, it was Jamie himself, it was the belief from Jamie in...

me that I could make a difference as well. had quite a few conversations and he was very convincing. yeah, and here we are today. I think the decision definitely from my point of view has paid off. I'm very proud of all of the work that we've achieved over the last sort of six, seven years. And it's a completely different business today.

00:10:59

Conor Sheridan

Yeah, incredible. incredible story to get from there to here. What did you change, maybe operationally, over that six or seven years? Or what learnings did you take from from that era previous that you've you've had to transition away from or double down on over these last few years?

00:11:16

Edward Loftus

So at the time, the franchise business was sort of an offshoot of a core domestic business. And really the strategy sort of post May 2019 was quite simple. I was effectively employee number one. So as with any team, you need a team. So it was about people and putting together a really good group of people to take on the challenge of becoming sort of the best.

global chef led franchise business in the world. That's kind of what we tried to do and what we're trying to do is be the franchise chef led business. And putting franchise first was a big pivot. It was definitely more of a owned and operated model before. And rather than having that sort of domestic estate as the center of gravity, every day the sort of mission was to wake up and think about how can we become the best possible franchise or...

where we have the best possible systems, simplified operations and like something scalable. And that was the core focus. Whereas before it was all about the domestic market. And that's quite a change in terms of mindset. And that's, that's what we set about doing. And we also did a whole series of innovation as well at the time, the sort of brand focus was on Jamie's Italian and we developed some, some new concepts and we've continued to develop new concepts.

to support partners of different growth opportunities, to capitalize on different channels, different settings, and also ensuring that each of the formats concepts within the portfolio has a very distinct role to play. Whereas I think before when we were growing, we were trying to solve maybe a few challenges with one concept, whereas clearly, if you're very disciplined, you can perform and scale.

sort of more quickly, more effectively. that was a key part. Innovation, know, changing. And I think when you're in a crisis, pre-May 2019, when the business was in a very challenging period, think innovation becomes tough because decision-making is difficult. I think when you're up against it, kind of paralysis can take over and sort of that overthinking, am I making the right decision or am I not making the right decision? I think almost

00:13:43

Edward Loftus

post 2019, there was a bit of a freedom of, okay, well, what are going to do? And let's make some decisions. Let's innovate. Let's get it done. So that was really the focus. It was just franchise first, the global business and putting out the forefront of everything we were doing.

00:14:01

Conor Sheridan

Nice. I agree talking about when we we f first started speaking that if you think we're in the scale of a business, a lot of the people watching the show, be from the industry in the UK, some from the US, Ireland, would they be aware that there's eighty locations in twenty four countries of Jay in the Jamie's business today? maybe not, right? Because that international strategy was happening just after parallel to to maybe a consolidation in the UK.

you've had phenomenal growth across those markets and as you mentioned, you were quite focused on what formats you thought were going to work, go franchise first, choose markets like the Balkans, India, et cetera. I mean you're thinking around that franchising strategy. how do you think around scaling Jamie's individual profile and and the brand globally? Like, did you need to think about the business differently when you're looking at markets around taking a celebrity chef?

concept effectively to new markets and how did you pick those markets, for example?

00:15:04

Edward Loftus

One of the sort of things that we face with our business is that it's not just a restaurant group. There's a person behind it and that brings significant opportunity. Jamie has got a huge global profile and the media side of the business, you know, it's super active every year and pushing Jamie top of mind and he's always campaigning and there's always presence. So that's a huge opportunity, but it's also...

how that comes to life in each market and how the different audiences that come to the restaurant, what their expectation is of a J.Milva restaurant is something that is different by market. What they expect is different. How people eat, when people eat, and all of those things are nuanced. I think prior to 2019, we were very much more of a one size fits all for the international space.

And really what we've lent into massively over the last six, seven years. And we're still perfecting it. We're not, we're not, we're not there a hundred percent. think that's going to be a forever challenge, but how do you localize whilst keeping the brand's DNA kind of intact in there is, something that, um, we, we, we, we've really worked hard on and that localization bits really, really important, really feeling like you connect with a local market in a lot of the countries we're in.

You know, we have a really good, healthy blend of tourism and also local and local diners come to our restaurants. And that's really important for us. It's really important that we connect with local people, but that doesn't just happen. You have to kind of work hard around the interiors. You have to work hard on the menu or the sourcing on, on making you feel relevant and part of the local FMB scene. so that's, that's something that, that we're always focusing on.

One of the biggest ways that we do that is just spending a huge amount of time in market. And I think that also franchising is particularly in the casual dining space, mid-market. It's a big lesson and it's a big, kind of exposes a lot of things in the business. think a lot of hospitality business acts and sort of do things in an intuitive way. And franchising really kind of makes you stop and...

00:17:24

Edward Loftus

try and unpack those things, those instincts and put them into a sort of systemized or structured way of being able to relay that information to a partner, right? How do you do something? How do you do, what are the steps of service? It's not just a feeling. You actually have to be able to give people the tools to be able to do that. That's a challenge when you're scaling a brand globally for sure is doing that in an understandable way whilst respecting cultures as well.

So if we go back to basics, its simplicity becomes really, really important. Complexity is very hard to scale. So the simpler things are, the easier they are to scale.

00:18:05

Conor Sheridan

Yeah, I can imagine if you think around from Greece to Oman to Montenegro to India, from Food to Go to Expertial Dining, if you're doing franchise first model, as you mentioned, systems to systemization to maintain quality and control, plus also localize the nuances of each of those cultures. Sounds quite complex to manage. You think around the different say d system models or SOPs or sequence of service and

are you able to centralize some of the the brand ethos to be able to evolve it to each format or is like each one a net new undertaking that you have to start from scratch effectively?

00:18:45

Edward Loftus

We used to start from scratch each time, but we sort of developed a system that, a sort of core system that sits across everything that we do. And then we kind of categorize the formats that we do and we adapt the systems just based on category. So we've, we've become sort of much better at that and we're definitely embracing technology. Technology is our friend in terms of LMS and sentiment and

communication to our partners and how we handle SOPs and, you know, we don't send PDFs to anybody. Everything's digitalized. Everything is in an intranet for partners and just doing all of those basic things where information is really accessible, really understandable and the most engaging that it can be for people to understand has been a big, big focus. We've invested a lot in technology and how we do that. And I think that's paid dividend to our partners to be able to.

Yeah. Like you say, when you're in, you know, three, three continents across the world, you know, how do you do that? We're on ships in the middle of an ocean. have a huge workforce where English isn't even a second or third language. So, you know, that's, that those are challenges we're always analyzing internally. How do we connect with people?

00:20:04

Conor Sheridan

I mean you think around the obviously the benefits of the franchise first model is scale, right? You get to go to these prime partners in in in local markets and and grow the business quickly, more quickly typically than than a company owned model, but it can come with its own challenges as a business model. Has there been anything that you've had to change about the way you work or the business works to adapt to working in a franchise first model versus the company owned model? Outside of systems maybe?

00:20:33

Edward Loftus

I think the number one thing with franchising is definitely partner selection. I think partner selection is just critical. And that's not an easy process the first time you do it, the second, third time. But we've got 16 global partners. think it's a marriage is the way I describe it. You're gonna go through ups and downs and that partnership has got to be rock solid and really strong.

and it's got to be flexible as well. There's going to be good times. There's going to be bad times. And that's, that's the way the world is. And you get micro macro factors that impact our sector and every sector and how you navigate those together is really, really important. And I think, you know, we had huge support from our partner group during the administration in 2019. and then we, you know, we returned that support during, during COVID and some of the

the other challenges that have happened around the world. I think like partner selection is key. Clearly owned restaurants, you have far more control, but the benefit of franchising is you do get that scale, you get local expertise and you get capital to be able to grow your brand. So they're the benefits. And then it's about making sure that the individual partners are super, super clear about what it is that you do and you have to get to know them.

I always say like, you want to go out for lunch with someone like we, we, we don't want to be in a partnership with somebody that we don't want to sit down and actually have a good time with. So it's as much about the human connection as it is about doing a commercial deal and agreeing that you're to open X amount of restaurants over a period of time. You know, it's a relationship. So that's super, super important.

00:22:19

Conor Sheridan

If we move into UK franchising, so this year in March, you had the return of Jamie's Italian to Leicester Square. phenomenal coverage from the opening, really exciting to see like a big launch like that and like iconic location. You partnered with JB, James Brown and Bravo Hospitality to to bring that to the UK, maybe or bring up Jamie's Italian back to the UK market. Maybe talk to us a bit about how that deal came about or that partnership and

How can we decide to work with Bravo Hospitality t to do that?

00:22:53

Edward Loftus

Yeah, I think firstly, there wasn't, it wasn't in the immediate strategy. Clearly there's a benefit to having a more presence in your own domestic market for sure. But we certainly hadn't prioritized going back into the UK. and yeah, we, got talking to JB, we were, you know, there was an introduction. got talking to him. It was going back to that point around. It's sort of, you know, about the fit.

and the relationship. There was just a really good synergy between the way JB saw restaurants, what was important to him, his focus on people, the transformation work he'd done with Preso. And it felt like a really good fit. So although we weren't looking for a partner at that time, I think, you know, everything that JB was talking about, everything that he was doing and kind of doing.

specifically with Prezo was really impressive. I think we decided, you know, one thing led to another and we decided it was right. it's also not just the Bravo Hospitality Group, right? They're backed by Kane International, headed up by Jonathan Goldstein, who, you know, has many interests in hospitality as well. So I think it was a combination of the operational expertise and the team that JB had put together, plus the Kane International kind of...

piece as well and then asked with the brand like all of those three things coming together just felt felt like it could be a really solid partnership

00:24:25

Conor Sheridan

Yeah, it's really exciting, really exciting opportunity and great operators. We've had Mark McCulloch who was helping out the initial rebrand and launch on on the show for for last season. That actual repositioning and rebrand has done extremely well for the business. I know initially the plan was potentially to repurpose some of the Prezzo Italian sites into Jamie's Italian sites. Now potentially will be Net News sites if the if they can keep this going.

With the rebound and the reposition. So it's an it's interesting to see how this will progress from here. one thing that you've been deliberate about is saying this is a completely new iteration of the brand. So a new guest experience, tighter menu, real focus on fresh daily prepped products. Maybe talk to us a bit about what's different in this iteration for guests and patrons who go to Jamie's Italian.

00:25:18

Edward Loftus

Yeah, I think, you know, when we were working on what this was going to look like, I knew there some key things we want to, wanted to retain. And there was some things that we definitely wanted to evolve. So one of the key things we wanted to retain was the culture, the, the focus on food and quality, which I think existed before. And, you know, the, culture within the Jamie's Honey business previously was super, super strong. So that was something we wanted to retain. then every other customer touch point was.

kind of gone through on with a fine tooth comb. So the interior design, feels completely different. It's a much lighter, fresher space before I think the interior design was very much more focused on industrial elements and yeah, lots of timber, industrial, and now it's much softer. There's a lot more vibrancy of color in the interiors and it feels completely different. And I think

It's more of an environment that people want to be in today within the F and B sector. So responding to that, the menu is much smaller. It's about 30 % smaller than it was before. We sort of double down on fresh pasta. We've always made fresh pasta in our restaurants every day around the globe. Every single restaurant makes fresh pasta. We don't buy pasta into any of our restaurants. We have machines and we have a specific way that we do that.

so we, we retain that, but we wanted to just to double down on the focus of fresh pasta. are the best fresh pasta option within the mid market. And that's kind of our focus with the Jamie's Italian, coming back to the UK. and, de-clutter the menu. We were doing burgers before we were, I think the menu became a bit homogenized and, really trying to be a bit more single-minded about it. So the menu had a complete overhaul. There are some.

dishes that existed before that were very iconic that have returned. But a lot of that has changed. The brand identity itself had refreshed anyway. We refreshed the brand identity back in 2023 for the whole international estate. And we have carried that through to the relaunch in the UK. So the logo, the font, everything like that. Jamie's hand written the menu as well. He's created his own.

00:27:36

Edward Loftus

sort of Jamie Oliver, far need to calligraphy lessons and went on a bit of a journey and a bit of a rabbit hole to get that right. And the operating model as well, the operating model, we don't have remote kitchens within the space. The kitchen's got significantly smaller and just more efficient. So it is both from a customer point of view, but also in terms of how it comes together back a house, it is very, very different. But.

I think the key is like, you don't want to bring something back and just make it exactly the same, but you also want people who, and there was a lot of people, know, I think there was a million people a year coming through to Amos Italia when it existed before in the UK. And they'll all have their memories, right? So we were conscious. We wanted to retain some of that kind of core DNA as well. So I think the, the sort of the verdict on that is customer sentiment and

Yeah, that's the real metric we look at in terms of are people happy? Do people enjoy their experience? And so far it's, yeah, it's, it's completely outperforming whatever you thought it would be from a customer sentiment point of view.

00:28:48

Conor Sheridan

You had a high conviction and a high opinion on the design of the space. So it's effectively, as you mentioned, take what worked really well for those eight million customers, what they loved about the brand, put it in a new format. So it's multi zoned in the new venue and it ranges from say moody or bar settings open kitchens to a different atmosphere on each level. Like how much of that was

driven by that sentiment analysis that you mentioned and how much of that is like opinion or good feel for the business to say this is the experience that we think consumers want in a restaurant setting.

00:29:23

Edward Loftus

I think it's, the sector's moved so much in the last seven years. If you look at the quality of what's out there, what the independents are doing and what people want, I think people are going out a little bit less and people have less money to spend on going out because inflation has happened, mortgages have gone up, all of the well-documented things. So I think they're just being...

a lot more discerning about where they're spending their money and they want to be in environments that kind of interesting and exciting. yeah, we have tried to make very distinct zones. We've got our basement, is kind of a much moodier, more atmospheric kind of works well as a PDR. It's a great evening setting as well. And our ground floor is kind of different heights of dining, shoulder to shoulder is where we

put most of our walk-in trade, which we get a significant proportion of. And then upstairs is a bit more space, a bit more generous. And then that's where a lot of the bookings go. know, creating different zones, different feelings, depending on, you know, if you're a diner that wants to sit in a hustle and bustle, we have that spot for you. If you want to sit at the kitchen, we've got dining at the kitchen as well. And that was really important for me, rather than walking into sort of a one-dimensional space, is walking into somewhere that...

you know, is interesting and exciting. And, yeah, depending on the sort of the moment, the sort of the, the meal time moment, whether it's like a date night where you want to have a slightly comfier seat and a booth and sit upstairs, or if you're just coming in to grab something quickly before the theater and you want to just perch, then you can. So yeah, creating interesting spaces, I think is super important within in hospitality. You're seeing it, you know, there's lots of people doing great jobs out there and that was one of our core focuses.

00:31:17

Conor Sheridan

Yeah, really well executed. not an easy thing to do. You look at the brand and the spaces and the experiences you're creating. You're also doing that outside of the venue. So you look at partnerships you've built with John Lewis, Cookery School. Maybe talk to us a bit about how you think around building the brand, but also building the the experiences you can offer and how much of that is going to be a fundamental part of the business going forward.

00:31:44

Edward Loftus

I think the Cookery School has been a really interesting project. We've sort of been, we had been incubating a Cookery School at our head office up in Islington. We got us like a small one, one classroom venue. it's an interesting format that we've developed. It's not a Cookery School that you go and spend three days at and there's clipboards and loads of stainless steel. It's much more, the core of what we do is a two hour course where we

invite people in, they get to cook one of 50 different lessons that we offer and that's all, they're all different cuisine based. And they get to sit and enjoy that meal at the end of the experience, have a glass of wine, glass of prosecco, whatever they want. And then they go on. So it's the, the, the, the, the time window is really important, making sure that it's fits into that sort of meal time moment. It's an experience that costs about the same as going out for a dinner and a glass of wine.

but it's different and it's also a space which I think Jamie's got huge authority in. He, he loves one of his passions. And I think everyone can see it is, has been making food accessible and teaching people to cook his whole life through 15, through the Ministry of, food programs where he has these regional cookery schools that teach people in the community, some fundamental skills that change their lives, and give them the kind of knowledge to be able to cook themselves. So he's done all of that for our

and the cookery school concept we've developed has a lot of that feeling in there, but we just dialed up the experience, right? It's not stainless steel, it's a nice setting. It's fun. And we've introduced some sort of other aspects to it. So we work with some third parties that provide kind of socializing for young professionals who don't have enough time, perhaps to organize an event. So we do these nights every other Wednesday.

random strangers come together in the cookery school, they cook, they meet each other, they sit down, they enjoy a drink. So it's leaning into that experiential space more. And we are looking at scaling that format or perhaps doing a hybrid version of a restaurant and a school as well. That's something we're working quite closely on at the moment.

00:34:00

Conor Sheridan

Speaking of Jamie, obviously anyone listening to this knows who Jamie Oliver is. He's one of the most recognizable brands in the world and one of the most, if not the most, in hospitality. What's it like to be working with a principal in the business who's so well revered and and so well known? It be must be yeah, be it's it's a unique experience relative to other folks he's spoken to. So maybe you could talk to us a bit about how do you manage the relationship operationally? What does it look like?

to have to to work with a principal like that.

00:34:34

Edward Loftus

Yeah, it's certainly interesting. is Jamie's, Jamie's roof's not too similar in his, in his world to perhaps mine. Like, although he's ended up being the personality that he is, the public personality that he is, but he grew up in his mum and dad's pub. He had a very sort of humble upbringing. He was a chef. He learned his trade on the floor. So he has a real...

connection to hospitality, but also a real understanding of what it takes to bring all of the component parts together, which I think is a real pleasure. It's not working for somebody that finds the notion of hospitality abstract. Like, you know, some people think, okay, it's just a plate of food that you have in a restaurant, right? Whereas he has lived it and breathed it and he has that experience. So think that's a real benefit for me is having somebody there that really gets it.

But it's, and it's a pleasure really. He's a creative force. He's a super people focused person. So he spends a lot of time with a team. He's probably the hardest working person in the whole organization. He lives in the office. He's always working. He's relentless in his appetite to do new things and to take on new projects. And he's kind of got this approach to just, you know, be unashamedly accessible in what he does.

like his cookbook writing revolutionized cookbooks. It was all about taking away some of the mystery, some of the complexity that historically was in most cookbooks. And he tried to make food accessible. And we try and bring that same level of accessibility to all of our restaurants. All of our restaurants are focused on families. We want to see everybody in our restaurant. We want to be everyone's place.

Yeah. So I think, to answer your question, it is unusual for sure. I think that it's, but it's also super inspiring as well. It's, it's, yeah, it's a really inspiring place to be.

00:36:44

Conor Sheridan

No, sounds it. I grew up with the cookbooks in my kitchen, right? And I still have them. So I think it's amazing to see how the business and the brands evolved. If we speak about your your role in the business, you're leading it, right? You're running the business, you're PNL accountable, leading operations, sitting on the wider operating board. Huge amount of responsibility and huge amount of complexity in your role. I think for people listening, what does a week look like in

in Ed's life to be able to manage a business like that. What are you looking at? Who are you speaking to? What's the operating cadence look like?

00:37:20

Edward Loftus

I'd say most weeks and there's no two weeks that are the same. What I like to try and focus most of my time on is spending as much time in the restaurants as possible, feeling connected to them, whether that's here in the UK or abroad. And that's super important to me. Whenever I go away, the team kind of brace themselves because I come back and I've got like a long list of things where I'm like, look, these are things we need to look at, new initiatives, new ideas, opportunities for us to improve on.

I love spending time in restaurants. love spending time with the teams. I'll try and make a lot of my time available to not only spend with my sort of leadership team, but also just to go and have a cup of tea or a cup of coffee with one of the GMs or the restaurant managers or the head chef or whoever it might be. Cause I think that that connection, like I said at the beginning, I really truly believe that what we do is all about the people. there is a direct correlation between happy teams, happy people.

motivated people and success. And that's something that I really put a huge amount of time into. Yeah. And then we started with tastings, you know, I'm always tasting food, which is one of the, the, the perks of the job, guess, spending a lot of time with the development chefs. We have a dedicated development team here in our head office. They're always cooking, um, lots of site visits, uh, parnicols and

Yeah, internal and external stakeholder management really. So it's a diverse job. know, one day I can be, Jamie likes to go down rabbit holes on things as well. you know, one day we can be talking about a chair and how important is this chair and getting it exactly right. And, you know, do we want to change this thing? But, know, all the details and then, you know, strategy works completely different. So it's good for me. I'm somebody that likes variety. I like to feel.

challenged and I like, yeah, I like the fact that No Week's the same. It's that's kind of probably why I'm still here after 15 years because it's so diverse and dynamic.

00:39:24

Conor Sheridan

You've set a an incredibly ambitious growth target of two hundred sites over the next couple of years. When you're looking at the business internally, what do you think you need to get right or what do you need to execute on to make that a reality?

00:39:40

Edward Loftus

I think we're well on the way. think we need to always put the guests first. And, you know, just it's so important when looking at and listening to what guests are thinking and feeling. We need to continue to evolve. You can't be complacent. Like I'm a huge fan of evolution and being better. And that is something that I'm relentless about with the team is how can we improve?

And I think if we do those things and we, you know, we have a great pipeline this year, we'll open probably about 15 locations. The pipeline is looking great for next year. I think we're well on our way to doing it. But the world, you know, the world, the world froze, you go up all the time. And there's some things in our control that we'll do our best to manage and to, execute well. And there's things outside of our control as well, but that is the target. And I think it's.

realistic, it's ambitious, but if we stay disciplined and we focus on the right things, it's definitely achievable for sure.

00:40:43

Conor Sheridan

The next stage of this is going to be the quick turn. We're going to move on to. So but this is rapid fire questions. Answers have range between fifteen seconds to fifteen minutes. So find your way anywhere. Anywhere in that kind of scale will be all good. first question. Celebrity chef brand versus independent brand, which is harder to scale?

00:41:05

Edward Loftus

Scaling a celebrity brand brings emotional challenges. I think I touched on it before. Everyone's expectation is different, which is something that I've learned. My Jamie is not your Jamie, and what it means to you is very different to what it means to me. So that's a challenge. I think the independents have completely different challenges. think commercially, it's got to be much harder. There's opportunities.

definitely when you haven't got a celebrity link to your brand to just do things completely differently. But they're both hard, they're both very different.

00:41:40

Conor Sheridan

So what's one thing that the UK hospitality sector does worse than any other market you o operate in internationally? And maybe to end on a positive, does better if you have if you have a flip side?

00:41:53

Edward Loftus

If I look at all of the markets we operate in and I compare them to the UK, I would definitely say it is commercially harder now more than ever to make a P &L work with the business rates and the VAT pressures that the UK hospitality has. Like that is just, if you compare it to markets like Germany, you single digit VAT, whereas what, it's 20 % here, it's tough.

So I think those pressures here are the biggest challenge and you're seeing relief across most of Europe. And I really hope the government supports the sector with that because it's a really important part of the cultural identity of the UK. I think the F &B scene here kind of on the positive end of the spectrum is great. It's diverse. I travel the world. I always look forward to coming back to the UK, to London, seeing what's going on. There's some of the most innovative operators.

concepts coming out of London and that's always exciting and it's great that we wave the flag on some of the best innovation in the world. think it's phenomenal.

00:43:02

Conor Sheridan

What's the one operational metric that most multi unit operators ignore what they shouldn't?

00:43:09

Edward Loftus

I don't know if it's a metric, but I do think that people, your people are the most important thing. Like that is my view, you know, and longevity and success. Like I said before, successful restaurants, happy teams. There's a direct correlation between the two and that's super important. Yes. Guest frequency is important. Yes.

looking at your margins and the labor was always going to be important, right? But your people and their wellbeing, their motivation, yeah, them turning up every day and working together as a unit and delivering is kind of number one for me. And if you get that right, then a lot of the other kind of, you know, business as usual metrics fall into line.

00:44:02

Conor Sheridan

And finally, you've seen and we are seeing stories of well known mid market casual dining brands facing some pressures and coming back to market under say new stewardship or ownership. What advice or would you give those brands or what mistakes do you typically see casual dining brands make when they're coming back to market after a turbulent period or an ad administration?

00:44:26

Edward Loftus

My view on this would be don't try and recreate the past and be bold as well. Like the journey we've been on, we've made some bold decisions, we made some big decisions, but if something's failed, you know, yes, there's a million and one reasons why something fails and, but you kind of really got to be prepared to be very honest with yourself about what do we need to change? So yeah, be bold, be innovative.

Don't recreate the past. That's not what people want now. The key is what was great, what were those great attributes, and then how should they show up in today's market? And that's what we've tried to focus on with Jamie's Italian.

00:45:10

Conor Sheridan

Great advice. great way to finish as well. Well, look, Ed, thanks so much for joining the show. Really appreciate you making time for us and excited to see how the UK operator operation expands from here and excited to see the business grow to that two hundred site target. So thanks again for joining us.

00:45:27

Edward Loftus

Thank you, Conor. Thank you.

00:45:29

Conor Sheridan

What a banger of an episode. A few things really stood out to me in that conversation with Ed. First, the quality of the reset. The 2019 collapse could have been terminal, but the Jamie Oliver group used the years in between to do something that most UK operators never do. Step back, build globally, and prove the model works in diverse markets, and then only then come back to the UK when the product, the partnership and the timing actually make sense.

That kind of discipline, resisting the pressure to prove yourself at home while quietly building credibility abroad is rare. And it's why the Leicester Square opening landed differently than a typical relaunch. Second, the franchise model as a strategic tool, running eighty plus restaurants across twenty-four countries with a lean central team, it's only possible if your franchise model is genuinely robust.

The way Ed talked about brand consistency, franchise partner selection, and the tension between scale and quality control tells you everything you need to know about how seriously they take it. Third, the comeback architecture. The Brava partnership is clever precisely because it's not just a licensing deal. It's bringing together brand equity, operational capability, and long-term capital in a structure where each party brings what the other lacks.

Jamie Oliver Group brings the name, the menu philosophy, and the global proof of concept. Bravo brings the operational infrastructure, existing relationships with landlords, and the financial backing of Kane International. Neither could have done this alone, and that's a template worth studying. Fourth, the role of the chef founder in a scale business. Jamie Oliver isn't just a name above the door. He handwrote the menus. He's developing the dishes.

He's making the sourcing decisions. That level of founder involvement creates real differentiation, but also real operational complexity. The way Ed manages that dynamic by channeling Jamie's energy into product and brand while holding the commercial and operational frame himself is a leadership challenge that most people in hospitality will never face at that scale. And fifth, the optimism arguments. Ed has made the case that right now, in a genuinely tough operating environment,

00:47:52

Conor Sheridan

It's actually the right time to invest. That in times of challenge, there's always a need for something optimistic. I don't think that's naive. I think it's a calculated bet. When everyone else is contracting, the brands that invest in people, experience, quality, and differentiation are the ones that earn customer loyalty that compounds over time. So if you're running a multi side operation or thinking about franchising, or trying to understand how to rebuild trust after a setback, the takeaways are clear.

The quality of the reset matters more than the speed of the comeback. Franchising only works if your model is genuinely rigorous around brand standards. Partnership structures should be built around complementary capability and not just capital. And in a challenging market, a clear point of view on experience and quality is still the best competitive advantage that you have. So thanks for listening. And if you found this useful, please share this with someone who needs to hear it. And if you've got any thoughts on brand comebacks, franchising strategy,

For the future of casual dining, send them my way. See ya next time.

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