Jamie Oliver’s Restaurant Group Was Nearly Saved By German Investors

German Investors nearly saved Jamie Oliver’s restaurant group

• A German “turnaround specialist” — Aurelius Group — came close to buying Jamie Oliver’s restaurant company. The Times reports that as close to the day before the group entered administration, the investment company, based in Munich, was set to “acquire a majority stake in a deal that would have given the business up to £10 million of new funding.” Although that cash injection would have prevented the company’s collapse in the short term, a decision was made based on the fact that it would merely have been “delaying the inevitable.”

Administrators from financial services company KPMG ordered the closure of 22 of the 25 U.K. restaurants, including 20 Jamie’s Italians — the casual restaurant chain Oliver founded with his Italian mentor, Gennaro Contaldo 11 years ago — on Monday. 1,000 jobs were lost, with a further 300 thought to be insecure. [The Times]

And in Milkshake news...

• Specifically, first, in milkshake news: Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage was unable to get off his battle bus in Kent because of a number of protesters armed with milkshakes. [The Sun]
• gal-dem suggests which flavours Tory MPs would be, if they were milkshakes. [gal-dem]
• Remember the petition asking McDonald’s to return to plastic straws, because paper ones are not strong enough for milkshakes? Well bad news for the petitioner because the government will be banning plastic straws and drink stirrers in England from April 2020. [Big Hospitality]

And in other news...

• Providores — the seminal London restaurant, which many credit to advancing the causes of Antipodean brunch culture — on Marylebone High Street will close at the end of July. It opened in 2001 and also influenced the London restaurant trends of flat whites, small plates, no reservations, vegetable-influenced fusion cooking, and New Zealand wines.
• A ‘modern Iranian’ restaurant, Nutshell, with aims to “convey Iranian food as a cuisine beyond the beloved kabab”, will open on St Martin’s Lane this July.
• Join us for the June Eater Talks at Ace Hotel, Shoreditch on Wednesday 12 June to hear P Franco’s Phil Bracey, Ducksoup’s Clare Lattin, and Diogenes the Dog’s Sunny Hodge discuss how (natural) wine has changed the London restaurant industry.
• Good tweets, a thread: