ASK Italian Restaurants Limited , trading as ASK or ASK Italian , is a British casual dining restaurant chain that serves Italian cuisine in 65 locations in the United Kingdom.
8-541: The chain, founded by brothers Adam and Samuel Kaye in 1993, and floated on AIM in 1995, was the subject of a public-to-private deal in 2004, after which it was merged with Pizza Express to form Gondola Holdings, later part of the Gondola Group . It was acquired along with Zizzi for £250 million by Bridgepoint Capital in February 2015. It was later bought in 2020 by TowerBrook Capital Partners . The name
16-430: A digital charity box, and donations from a range of dishes. In November 2015, the chain was one of seven restaurants surveyed that failed to meet a basic level of sustainability in its seafood. In November 2019, Azzurri Restaurants admitted in court that a dish described as "lobster and king prawns" contained only 35% lobster, and had white fish and other ingredients mixed in and formed to appear as lobster meat. The dish
24-485: A week after Sam finished at catering college. They bought the lease on a former Tootsies restaurant in Belsize Park , London, and converted it into a pizza pasta restaurant, inspired by Pizza Express . By 2002, they had 140 restaurants, 4,500 staff and turnover of £95 million. In 2004, Adam and Sam Kaye sold their ASK Italian and Zizzi restaurants to Gondola Group , earning them almost £30 million. In 2006,
32-613: Is a British businessman and restaurateur, and the co-founder with his brother Samuel of the ASK Italian casual dining chain. He is an executive director with Everyman Cinemas . Adam Kaye was born in September 1968, the son of businessman and restaurateur Phillip Kaye . He studied catering at a college in Westminster , London. The family name was originally Kropifko. In 1993, Adam and Sam Kaye opened their first restaurant,
40-468: Is made up of the founders' initials, though it is often misunderstood as an acronym for "Authentic Sicilian Kitchen". The chain rebranded itself from "ASK" to "ASK Italian" in 2010. In 2010, Theo Randall started working with ASK Italian restaurants as their "expert friend", developing menus and coming up with new dishes. In June 2015, he became an investor in the Azzurri Group, which owns and runs
48-487: The brothers launched the dim sum chain DimT. Kaye was the founder of the pan-Asian Tasty chain. He has been an executive director of Everyman Media Group since 2015. He is on the board of directors for restaurant chains Ground Round , Tasty, Prezzo , Relish, Villandry Foodstore and several property groups. Since 2002, Kaye has lived in a modern six-bedroom house on the edge of Hampstead Heath . In November 2015, Kaye
56-399: The restaurant chain. ASK Italian partnered with Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity in 2008 to donate £1 for every kids' menu sold during the campaign, and by asking customers to add a £1 donation onto their bill. This raised £73,000 in four weeks. The chain went on to raise a further £200,000 for the charity in the following two years, including through celebrity cookbook sales,
64-557: Was sold between 2014 and March 2019. On 20 March 2020, all restaurants in the United Kingdom were closed indefinitely due to new rules regarding the national lockdown initiated by the government to reduce the spread of COVID-19 . On 17 July 2020, Azzurri Group, owner of the Zizzi and ASK Italian chains, announced the closure of 75 restaurants with the loss of up to 1,200 jobs. Adam Kaye Adam Kaye (born September 1968)
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