The EU's Office of Brands and Design, part of its Office for Intellectual Property, has accepted Italy's complaint about the restaurant's name and canceled its brand number. As a result, the chain of eateries will have to change their name.
La Mafia has 38 franchised restaurants across Spain, and is planning to open three more in the Canary Islands and Andalucia. The full name of the restaurant is "La Mafia se sienta a la mesa" (The Mafia sits at the table) and its themed restaurants are fitted with Mafia-inspired decor and pictures.
The movement to get the restaurant to change its name began in Italy in 2014, when a Sicilian MP complained to the Italian Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
Italy's former ambassador to Spain Pietro Sebastiani contacted the Spanish authorities complaining that "the combination with the word 'Mafia' manipulates the extremely positive image of Italian cuisine."
"Imagine what would happen in Spain if someone in Italy opened a restaurant dedicated to the (Basque) terrorist group Eta," Attilio Bolzoni, a writer on organized crime, wrote in La Repubblica.
Italy took its complaint to the EU after it was rejected by the Spanish government. The Spanish authorities had sided with "La Mafia," maintaining that the word "Mafia" had become so widely used across the world that it did not necessarily relate to the Italian crime syndicate, Italy's The Local reported.
