It's been a bit of love affair watching the highs and lows of Claudio Pulze's relationship with A-Z restaurants, but I hear the relationship is finally over. Restaurateur Claudio Pulze has finally severed links withe the group he founded.
Sources close to the company tell me that Claudio has sold his 50% shares in the company to its third unnamed partner...... The seven-strong restaurant line-up includes the Michelin-starred Aubergine and Zafferano, L’Oranger, two Memories of Chinas, Alloro and Spiga Soho.
Pulze only recently bought back into the A-Z restaurant business that he founded in 1993 with Franco Zanellato and ex-stockbroker Giuliano Lotto.
They all parted company in 1998 some what acrimoniously after a Pulze and Lotto power struggle for the business. But the story had another twist when A-Z went into administration in 2004.
Claudio then teamed up with Simon Binder of Café Med and then Marlon Abela of MARC, but was outbid by his former A-Z partner, Franco Zanellato. At the 11th hour, he teamed up with Zanellato and an unnamed third party to buy the company for £7m.
So now the story has come full circle again. Pulze has sold his stake and will presumably concentrate on his other restaurants, such as Deya, Via Condotti, Fiore and of course the pub he has recently bought on Baker Street , and his most recent purchase W'Sens in London's St James.