Hotfoots it to Mayfair - Mayfair Times

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business
“I’m getting to know the regular customers, the ones who visit Duke Street,” Da Silva
says. “Some of our regular customers from my previous management position at Sicilian
Avenue have come down and seen me as well, which is nice.”
Da Silva has stayed so long with Spaghetti House because of the way the company
works. “Through the years, they let you grow yourself, becoming a chef, becoming a
manager, becoming assistants,” he says. “With the Lavarinis, they are part of the team,
and we feel that we are part of the family.”
Luigi says that the company is planning to add another one or two restaurants in the
next two years and remain in the West End of London. “We haven’t been interested in
expanding outside,” he explains.
And, of course, they want to keep Spaghetti House as a private family business. “It is
our way of life, it’s what we do, and we also think that that’s been a way of preserving
the quality and the consistency over the years,” he says. “It’s also been a way of
remaining close to our staff and customers, which we think are very important focuses
when running restaurants.”
BUSINESS: Erik Brown
erik.brown@pubbiz.com
The Spaghetti House Siege
SPAGHETTI HOUSE hit the headlines in September 1975,
when three gunmen forced their way into the Knightsbridge
restaurant where managers had gathered to collect the week’s
takings – then about £13,000.
“It was effectively a robbery that went wrong, and they
held nine of our managers as hostages down in a small
storeroom in the basement in the restaurant for five days,”
says managing director Luigi Lavarini.
A tenth staff member had escaped unseen and raised the
alarm. Police cordoned off the area and were able to use a
fibre-optic miniature camera to spy on the gunmen.
“They managed to bore a very small hole, about the size of
a pinhead, into the storeroom,” Luigi says. “From this optical
lens they were able to have a view and relay that back to a
television screen, so they could see everything that was going
“We retain very good
staff, who have
remained with us very
often over the years, so
customers are used to
meeting people who
they know in our
restaurants”
Luigi Lavarini,
Spaghetti House
on inside there and they could hear everything.”
The press assisted by demoralising the gunmen with radio
coverage about how their demands – safe release and an
aircraft to fly them abroad – would never be met.
Luigi says he was in Italy at the time: “It came up on the
news in Italy. It was on the radio news every night, it was in
foreign newspapers. It was definitely in the headlines for five
days. It was a big thing.”
The gunmen finally surrendered and all of the managers
were unharmed. “It was an unfortunate occurrence that, in a
way, I think might have given Spaghetti House a lot of
exposure,” says Luigi.
The managers who were held hostage have now all retired
– but the entrance of the Knightsbridge restaurant has framed
newspaper clippings to remind people what happened there.