Reliance in advance talks to bring Armani’s luxury café to India

Reliance Retail is now negotiating to lease space for the Armani/Caffè as part of the deal with the planned Phoenix Mall of Asia in Bengaluru. According to one of the sources, the mall has designated roughly 1,000 square feet in the retail centre for the exclusive café there. The Phoenix Mills Ltd.-owned mega mall, featuring several upscale luxury companies, is scheduled to debut in 2024.
According to one of the insiders, Reliance Retail would also likely open an Armani/Caffè in the Jio World Centre’s upscale shopping centre. Jio World Centre, a massive mixed-use development owned by Reliance Industries Ltd. and located in Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex, will house a global standard convention centre. One of the two will be a high-end shopping complex with shops from ultra-luxury companies like Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co., and Jimmy Choo, among others. IndiaRetailing sent Reliance Retail an email requesting a comment on the situation, but they did not reply. Indiaretailing has also contacted Armani for remarks, which will be posted as soon as the firm does.
Even though the Mumbai-based company Reliance Labels offers almost 100 high-end Indian and international brands, such as Salvatore Ferragamo, Tiffany & Co., Jimmy Choo, and Burberry, Armani/Caffè is its first experience with an upscale restaurant. Through three brands—Emporio Armani, Armani Exchange, and EA7—Reliance Brands already collaborates with Emporio Armani to market the Italian luxury company’s clothing and lifestyle items in India.
According to one of the people stated above, they have expanded the collaboration to include restaurants.

Emporio Armani runs cafés, bars, and fine dining restaurants under numerous sub-brands in various nations and operates Emporio Armani Ristorante and Emporio Armani Caffè. After partnering with the sandwich and coffee brand Pret A Manger in London, Reliance Retail has launched Armani/Caffè as its second restaurant endeavour.
Reliance Brands, the high-end retail division of Reliance Retail, and Pret A Manger struck a long-term contract in July. The newest city to have Armani’s restaurant footprint after Paris, Milan, New York, Tokyo, Munich, and Dubai, among other major global cities, will be Bengaluru or Mumbai after Armani opens its upscale café there.
According to sources, Reliance Retail has grand plans to capitalise on India’s expanding food and beverage market and may bring in many foreign brands in the coming years.

Reliance Brands, the UK-based coffee company for whom Reliance Brands controls the master franchisee rights in India, has appointed Chandramohan Ramadasan to lead the operations of Pret A Manger, according to a September article from IndiaRetailing. Ramadasan joins Reliance Brands after working for Pizza Hut and KFC in India at Ola Foods as a senior director of operations. Recently, there has been a lot of activity in the café industry as a result of Starbucks’ aggressive expansion and Tim Hortons’ entry into the market from Canada. The Armani/Caffè, on the other hand, is a high-end eatery and charges more for its goods. The restaurant’s menu, for instance, lists prices for items like a club sandwich in its Milan location at 26 euros (about Rs 2,200) and a Caesar salad at 24 euros (around Rs 2,000).