Reuters/Ruben Sprich
British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver’s Australian restaurant group has been put into voluntary administration. The Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group (Australia) Pty Ltd collapsed Monday, just a few months after almost half of his UK restaurants were announced to close down.
The Jamie’s Italian restaurants in Sydney, Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide and Parramatta have been sold to restaurant group Hallmark in a last minute deal. The sixth restaurant didn’t come off as lucky and has closed on Monday.
Oliver bought the restaurants from Keystone Group in November 2016 after the company was placed in receivership by its lenders. Now, he has placed the fate of those restaurants, minus the closed one, to Hallmark Group, known for operating Irish pub Finn McCool’s.
“Australia has and continues to be one of our best performing international markets and, after a short period of in-house management, we are pleased to be partnering with Hallmark,” a Jamie Oliver Restaurant Group Australia spokesperson said in a statement. “The team brings a huge amount of experience and passion for our brand,…