Rossopomodoro hits Wandsworth, eyes 30 London restaurants
The group, which last night opened its sixth London restaurant in Wandsworth and has another UK site in Birmingham,is now actively looking for more premises in the centre of the capital and has just a secured a unit in Swiss Cottage, which will open in January 2014.
“At the moment we’re relatively unknown in the UK, but people are going to start to notice us,” The group’s PR and marketing manager Dominic Brown told BigHospitality.
“We want to primarily establish ourselves in London because that’s where the competition is. That will be the best way to then move into other markets - if we’re a force in London then we’ll create a strong brand identity.”
Gourmet pizza trend
Rossopomodoro (Italian for Red Tomato) has over 100 restaurants in Italy following its creation in 1999 by three rugby-playing friends from Naples.
The group’s first UK launch came in the form of a site in Covent Garden in 2006 and it now has outlets in Hoxton, Notting Hill, Camden, Fulhamand Wandsworth – the latter of which is a 160-cover restaurant that launched last night.
With a number of mobile pizza vendors recently taking permanent premises in Londonand larger Italian chains continuing to expand, Brown insisted that Rossopomodoro will be able to stand out from the crowd of Italian restaurants, given its authentic ethos and true Italian heritage.
“The idea is that eating in Rossopomodoro is like eating in Naples,” he said. “We bring in all of our own ingredients from Naples, including our tomatoes, olive oil, dough and buffalo mozzarella - which we fly in three times a week.
“There are some competitors out there that are using English mozzarella. It’s a lovely idea but it doesn’t behave the same way in the oven. So many businesses offer ‘pizza, pasta, salad’, but we’re not Prezzo, we’re not Pizza Express.
“We’re all over Italy, we are a big group and we are going to get bigger here in the UK - but the ethos that we have will remain strong.”
Authentic authenticity
Handley Amos, the managing director of Rossopomodoro UK, added: “Our ingredients are important to us and it’s something that really sets us apart. We are not going down the locally-sourced ingredients route, because frankly if you want to make the best Italian food out there you need to use Italian ingredients.
“We want our Italian food to come from Italy and to be made by Italians. This is an Italian restaurant group with genuine Italian heritage; we started in Italy and we’re an Italian company. A lot of people talk about authenticity these days, but we live it.”
The latest UK restaurant in Wandsworth is the first to include Rossopmodoro’s new ‘Rosso’ aperitivo bar concept, which features a small bruschetta menu along with a range of Italian drinks such as spritz, made with aperol. Rosso bars will be rolled out across the group’s entire estate over the next few months.
The Swiss Cottage restaurant will open in January 2014, as another new-build within the new development at the O2 Centre.
