It’s been a busy month for Leonardo DiCaprio. The 50-year-old Titanic star, who’s been dominating headlines pretty much since his first breakout role as one half of the star-crossed lovers in Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of Romeo & Juliet in 1996, attended his first ever Met Gala with his girlfriend Vittoria Ceretti, 26, who he’s been dating since 2023, at the start of May. Meanwhile in a professional capacity, he headed to the Cannes Film Festival last week to present his This Boys Life and Killers of the Flower Moon co-star Robert De Niro with the honorary Palme d’Or lifetime achievement award. No biggy. 

But all of this is so far, so Leo – we expect him to thrive in both the romantic and red carpet realm. What may cause you to cock your head and question “I’m sorry, what?” is the news that Leonardo’s vegan burger chain (yes, you read that right) announced that its closing down its remaining UK stores last month after suffering huge losses throughout its six years in business in Britain. Is your head in orbit? Ours too. So, here’s how the (soy) beef began: 

Believe it or not, this disaster started with the 40-year-old Formula One driver Sir Lewis Hamilton, who announced he was going vegan in 2017 due to animal cruelty and global warming. “As the human race, what we’re doing to the world, the pollution, coming from the amount of cows that are being produced is incredible,” he told the BBC in September that year. “They say it’s more than what we produce with our flights and our cars, which is kind of crazy to think. The cruelty is horrible and I don’t necessarily want to support that and I want to live a healthier life,” the principled sportsman said. 

Sir Lewis then put his money where his mouth is and opened the vegan food outlet, Neat Burger, in 2019 alongside the hospitality organisation The Cream Group and Italian entrepreneur Tommaso Chiabra, who was an early investor in the plant based protein product brand, Beyond Meat – three guesses for whose patties are used in Hamilton’s restaurants. Anyway, the Formula One driver had a fair few successful years flogging faux hot dogs, burgers and tater tots and by October 2021 it was reported that the company had completed a new funding round valuing it at $70m (£51m). Hardly small change. 

NeatBurger already had five UK locations, but announced it planned to open a further 30 sites in London areas including Canary Wharf, Stratford, Bishopsgate, Ealing, Chelsea, Paddington, Waterloo, Covent Garden, London Bridge, Clapham, Hammersmith and Shoreditch – all within a year, with additional regional expansion planned for 2022, which is where it started to sound like perhaps they had bitten off more than they could chew. Cue the DiCaprio who, months later, was announced as a “strategic investor” in the company during another round of fundraising focussed predominantly on gaining US funding. 

“The fact Leonardo has embraced our mission and come on board is astonishing – it shows how much we can do to bring change to the world,” Tommaso Chiabra told The Standard at the time. Meanwhile Leo, who has donated to conservation projects throughout his career and made his mark as an environmentalist with his documentary Before the Flood in 2016, added in statement: “Disrupting our food system with sustainable alternatives is one of the key ways we can make a real difference in reducing global emissions.” Sites were also planned in New York, Italy and the Middle East.

Despite its ambitious expansion plans, Neat Burger reported almost £7.9m worth of losses before the end of 2022 – up from £3.2m the year before. Half of its London locations, Liverpool Street, Canary Wharf, Oxford Street and Westfield Stratford were forced to close by 2023. Meanwhile, its New York restaurant, which was operational for under a year, closed its doors last summer.

As the closures rolled out, Neat Burger reportedly told employees they had been caused by rising rent prices, the cost of living crisis, and the impact of remote working on the London lunch trade, This Is Money reported at the time. The business also admitted it had attempted to grow too quickly in its early stages and planned to focus on the three sites where sales were still improving year on year. “Sometimes it’s necessary to take a step back to take a bigger leap forward,” they told staff who faced redundancies should closures continue. 

Cut to 2025, and Leo and Lewis’ vegan burger dreams are well and truly fried when it comes to the UK as Neat Burger announced in April that its two remaining British stores are scheduled to close, with a potential 150 jobs losses on the cards, per The Sun.

“We have no further comment at this time, other than to confirm that the business has taken the difficult decision to close its UK restaurants,” a spokesperson told the publication when asked whether the eateries were in fact closing their doors. But Neat Burger almost certainly won’t be DiCaprio’s last off-piste investment. The film star has also put money into Telmont Champagne House in Damery, France, the Colorado-based frozen seafood business Love the Wild, and London vegan trainer brand, LØCI in recent years.

So, we can only assume he’ll take this soy burger blow in his vegan leather-clad stride. You can’t win them all.