Ponti’s, the Italian coffee shop operator, has moved into the casual dining sector with the launch of its first Ponti’s Italian Kitchen.
The company has transformed an existing Duke Street outlet near London’s Bond Street, reopening it last week as a 46-cover restaurant under the new brand.
The new concept, which is currently still being trialled, consists of a full service restaurant serving modern Italian cooking for an average spend per head of £10 to £12.
The group has created a new menu catering for all day parts, including appetisers, sharing platters, lunchtime sandwiches and breakfast, as well as offering a wide range of wines by the glass, carafe and bottle.
It plans to convert one of its other West End sites to the new Ponti’s Italian Kitchen brand by the end of the year, after perfecting the concept.
Stefano Ispani, the recently appointed chief executive whose father founded the business 45 years ago, told M&C Report: “This new site is still a test-bed, it is a smaller version which allows us to play with the concept.
“The ideal site will be bigger, with food cooked on the same floor in a theatre-style kitchen.”
The South-East-based chain currently has 25 outlets after closing its London Wall and Victoria sites, which Ispani said no longer fitted into the operations future model. Six outlets are based in shopping centres and eight in airport locations.
The group’s current stores are split into those that have a counter service and those that are full service. Ispani said that the plan is to create two distinct offerings and that the company is currently working on the second brand that will involve modernising the counter service sites.
Ispani explained that as the company was privately and family-owned there was no rush to rollout the concept and that the focus was on refining the model.
