Be still our beating hearts – the Naked Chef, aka Jamie Oliver – is arriving in Hong Kong this summer! If you didn’t catch our breaking news Facebook post, then read on to find out about this exciting new venture for Jamie. After his first plans to open here fell through six years ago, the wait is finally over and it’s time to break open the limoncello!
In fact, the opening of Jamie’s Italian in Causeway Bay made the news as a video of Oliver introducing his “Italian submarine” in Cantonese went viral. While he might have shown the world his skills lie firmly in the business of food, his botched attempt at speaking the local dialect has only won him more fans. Can this man do any wrong?
The restaurant will serve freshly cooked, classic pasta dishes and traditional Italian desserts, all with a Jamie twist — the perfect way to add a touch of Italian style to an afternoon of shopping. And remember to bring some friends as Oliver’s menu is designed to be shared!
After a few visits to his Covent Garden location in London, any doubts you might have about an Englishman cooking Italian food should be cast aside. Oliver’s trusted mentor is Gennaro Contaldo, a chef hailing from the Amalfi Coast, so this British lad knows something about La Dolce Vita. Since 2008, when Jamie’s Italian first opened its doors in Oxford, Oliver has opened 35 UK restaurants and nine international sites including Dubai, Russia, Singapore and Australia.
While priding himself on using fresh, locally sourced and sustainable ingredients in all his recipes, this isn’t used as an excuse to ramp up the $$s. The word is that prices are to be matched against the average spend in London, meaning affordable, mouth-watering food.
Not satisfied with being a multimillionaire chef and restaurateur, Oliver secured his status as a modern day polymath in 2005 by bringing his passion for healthy food to the nation’s youth. His widely celebrated campaign to improve the quality of school dinners in Britain resulted in certain foods being banned from the menu – sadly, children of the UK are no longer queuing up for the infamous turkey twizzler, so popular in my own school days.
Assuming he hasn’t been hoarding the twizzlers to include in his own recipes – to any fans of bolognese, carbonara and risotto out there, there’s a new chef in town.
www.jamieoliver.com/italian/hongkong/home