UK restaurants help raise money for Italian Red Cross after earthquake

The Carluccio’s group, Jamie’s Italian, and Oakman Inns are among those to set up fundraising campaigns for the Italian Red Cross in the wake of the 6.2 magnitude disaster, which has so far killed 250 people in and around the affected towns of Amatrice, Arquata, Accumoli and Pescara del Tronto – around 100km north of Rome.    

Three Britons have now been confirmed as among the dead.

Carluccio’s, which has 100 sites across the UK and which was founded by Italian Antonio Carluccio, is to donate 10p for every cup of coffee sold from now until the end of August, across both takeaway and drink-in coffee.

Chef and broadcaster Jamie Oliver announced on Facebook that he is to personally join his 700 chefs across the 46-site Jamie’s Italian group to cook the traditional dish Pasta Amatriciana, which is named after one of the worst-hit towns of Amatrice. Each dish sold will send £2 to the cause, for the next few months.

The 17-strong Oakman Inns pub and restaurant company is also joining the effort, with all sales of pasta and pizza dishes from Tuesday 30 August to Thursday 1 September given in support.

All donations from all three groups will go to the Italian Red Cross.

Photo: Pizza chefs at Oakman Inns​

Antonio Carluccio, founder of Carluccio’s, says: “I am Italian, our suppliers are Italian and many of our staff are Italian. Every donation can make a difference to the earthquake victims and rescuers.”

Writing on Facebook, Oliver said: “We’re putting [Pasta Amatriciana] on the specials tonight…this is going to go exactly to the area, to the firefighters that are digging, tents for people that haven’t got a home; food, clothing, for the injured, old, pregnant. This is going to go on for months. I think we can raise thousands of pounds. This is something for our Italian neighbours, and trying to do something that we know that we can, which is cook.”

Peter Borg-Neal, chief executive of Oakman Inns, said: “Much of our menu is inspired by Italy and their traditional cuisine ‒ and we therefore have a huge number of colleagues who are Italian. We have decided that we want to do something really meaningful to help the victims of this disaster.

“If we sold our normal amount of dishes we would be sending a cheque for around £20,000 to Italy. I am hoping we will have to write a much bigger cheque.”

The British Red Cross is also collecting money in its Italy Earthquake Appeal here​.