Posting on their Instagram account, owners and brothers Michael and Alex de Martiis announced they had changed the name of the restaurant to Sud Pasta, hinting that the decision was made to avoid a legal dispute.
“Same us, same mission, same pasta kitchen. From today our new name will be Sud Pasta,” they say.
“We’re aware that we can’t stop any speculation, however, all we’ll say is that our home is in the kitchen, not the boardroom.
“We love our new name. We love what it stands for. We love our ‘A Southern Italian Pasta Kitchen’”
The restaurant goes on to explain that ‘sud’ means south in Italian.
Disputes over names
The name change is understood to be the result of a long-running dispute between the Manchester restaurant and Glasgow-based Sugo Pasta, as reported by the Scotsman back in 2019.
Writing in an Instagram in December 2019, Sugo Pasta Kitchen described the confusion customers were experiencing between the two restaurants.
“Beautiful people, epic city. Way too many of you peeps are landing on our website, looking at our menu, buying our vouchers and mistaking us for Sugo Pasta Glasgow - unfortunately for you folk it isn’t us!,” it wrote.
“We launched in Manchester back in 2015 so if you’re ever south of the border in our city come and check us out.
"The crazy thing here is your boys Sugo Pasta Glasgow (the guys behind Paesano Pizza Glasgow) are trying to sue us for using our own name, crazy world we live in eh."
The naming dispute is one of a number to have occurred in the restaurant sector in recent months, including with another pasta business. Last year Phil Howard changed the name of his pasta restaurant from OTTO to NOTTO following a challenge from a London restaurant and Taco player Taqueria Sonora was recently threatened with legal action by Worldwide Taqueria, the business name of Taqueria, which operates two London ‘taquerias’.
Another recent high-profile case was with Adam Handling Restaurant Group (AHRG), which forced London business Frog Bakery to change its name after it was deemed to be a breach of its trademark.
