Jamie’s Italian – the Naked Chef’s ‘diffusion’ chain – is to open a branch in Canary Wharf next year, reports caterersearch.com.

It looks set to be the seventh outlet of the chain, mainly backed by Jamie Oliver’s own money, whose prototype Oxford branch opened earlier this year.

This first branch was quite a critical ‘hit’, but the big, and still unanswered, question is whether quality can be maintained as the number of branches grows. An association of chains – on indeed ‘spin-off’ restaurants generally – with big-name celebrity chefs has in the past rarely proved to be any particular indication of quality.