"Wherever we work, we're always looking for partners who share our passion, which is to provide our guests with inspiring venues and food prepared by dedicated chefs using top-quality ingredients. And at the Zsidai Group, they understand perfectly what we believe in and what we value.
Why did we choose them in the first place?
The two companies are naturally linked. It's a really natural fit - as we say in the UK." (Jamie Oliver)
If there are parallel biographies that can be written and filmed in an exciting way, that rhyme with each other and point in the same direction at certain junctions, even from a distance of 1,700 km, then Jamie and Roy's is certainly one of them.
The parallels in their lives can be traced from the age of 6 or 7, as both their parents owned a restaurant where they spent a lot of time from childhood and where they were virtually 'infected' with gastronomy. Then, jumping back in time, there was a period when they were both fathers of four, although Jamie went ahead in that - something Roy would not want to follow his "gastronomic soulmate".
Working together also started naturally.
A location made Roy think of opening an Italian restaurant and, as before, he set off to explore the world. Roy is never the one to go on a tasting trip unprepared, he browsed the internet for the best Italian restaurants in London and elsewhere - which is how he came across Jamie's Italian, of which there were already a couple of dozen in the UK.
He saw on the website that they were looking for franchise partners and simply wrote to them.
Jamie not only responded immediately, but very quickly arranged a meeting in London with Roy, where a future partnership was agreed almost immediately.
The partnership was there, the franchise contract was there, the location was the big question...
(Continued in next post)