Italy takes another slice of London. On 29 April, it will open its doors in the British capital Eataly, the ambassador of Italian food in the world with its “luxury local market”. The landing in England had been expected for at least two years: London was the great absentee in the world map of the food empire of Farinetti family. Now the gap is being filled with an ambitious venue next to the station Liverpool Street, in the City of London. As well as the challenge that awaits, in a metropolis where competition abounds and everyone is wondering about its future, with tourism gone and Londoners working from home.
A Guinness Eataly
The numbers of the new Eataly London are remarkable: beyond 4 thousand square meters distributed over two floors that will house 5 thousand products, many Italians, with arecord wine cellar of 2 thousand wines, the largest Italian wine house in London. The “supermarket” part, which has a take-away food area and an ecological area for zero-waste food, will also be completed by three restaurants, headed by the “fine dining” of Terra, a high-end restaurant that will open in the summer. There will also be the cooking school (opening scheduled for 20 May) that made Eataly’s fortune in New York.The timing of the inauguration is Swiss watch: the number one Nicola Farinetti inaugurates Eataly in London as London is reopening after the pandemic and the UK enjoys success as the first country in Europe in vaccines. There are still restrictions: restaurants can only host outdoors and for now Eataly will seat customers on a terrace (weather permitting), waiting to welcome customers indoors from mid-May.
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The landing of Eataly is an act of trust towards the city and a slap in the face of the Brexi, which some propaganda describes as an apocalypse for the country. Despite the exit from the EU, and the catastrophic alarms, the Italian delicacies in the United Kingdom have never been lacking. The real issue of Brexit is not the availability of products, but rather their price: since the beginning of the year, all imported foodstuffs have increased and for Eataly, which is already not cheap in Italy, there will be an unknown factor in London. prices, necessarily more expensive for the same product. But Farinetti’s “Alti Cibi” will also offer local products to circumvent the Import problem: all fresh cheeses, for example, will be Italian as a recipe, but made with English milk supplied by small farms.
If he can replicate the American numbers of Eataly Flatiron, the place open to Madison Square Park in the heart of Manhattan, which with its $ 80 million in revenue annually he is the group’s “top scorer”, London will be a resounding success for the Eataly formula that has lost a bit of luster since the time of the promise, never kept, of the listing. And then Covid arrived: in 2020, due to the pandemic, revenues seem to have lost 30% compared to 530 million of 2019 which had already closed in loss of almost 4 million. London is therefore the great opportunity to relaunch the food boutique, but there are various obstacles in the way.
The bet on the City
Eataly will open in Broadgate, inside the majestic building that often hosts events of Italian Stock Exchange, after taking 300 people. In the world before, it was one of the busiest areas in London, between tourists and commuters. The neighboring Liverpool Street railway station was the landing place of the 26 million travelers that every year landed atStansted airport. In addition, the nearby neighborhood of Shoreditch it is the heart of London’s start-ups and fintech world, populated by computer nerds and young entrepreneurs. An ideal range of customers, but for a year, however, the area has been deserted: empty offices and a desolate railway station (so much so that all the shops inside the airport are closed). Eataly is in a strategic position according to the parameters in the world before. But in today’s and tomorrow’s it is an unknown: much of Eataly London’s success will not depend on the products, notoriously of the highest quality, but on how many travelers will return to the station and how many commuters to the office.