In 2017 we set a very strong pace, spending almost the whole year with Jamie's. While working on the Vienna and Southern Spain openings, we were also working on another project in parallel, the opening of Jamie's Pizzeria in the Gozsdu courtyard.
This was the first European pizzeria for Jamie's and while it is true that they had a couple of restaurants in India, they were different in concept, design and offerings.
The biggest challenge and difficulty was that Jamie's did not have a ready recipe for this, or perhaps even a half-finished one, as they wanted to innovate and give a new direction to the whole pizza line. Since the location was already available to us, we had to execute the construction and opening in December 2017.
Having worked together for over two years by then, we knew it wasn't going to be easy. Jamie's had a large central team working on all the developments and new openings, and now we also had to develop recipes, branding, central restaurant visuals and mood boards. Given Jamie's limited availability, this would have taken extra time - so we came together to develop the whole direction of Jamie's Pizzeria. It was an honour, all colleagues gave their full commitment and together we finalised the pizza recipe that is now used by all Jamie's Pizzerias around the world.
On 12 December 2017, the pizzeria opened with a very atmospheric opening party and although we had to rebrand and reopen as Jamie Oliver's Diner in 2021 after the closures due to the pandemic, it will always remain dear to our hearts and we always look upon passing a Jamie's Pizzeria in the big world as our very own 'child'.