Topic summary

ASK Italian

ASK Italian

ASK Italian Restaurants Limited, trading asASK or ASK Italian, is a British casual dining restaurant chain that serves Italian cuisine based in London, England.

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 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.