Zilli creates ‘pay what you like’ menu for quake aid

Chef Aldo Zilli is allowing diners in his Soho restaurant to pay as much as they want for their food to raise money for victims of last month's Italian earthquake.

He is promising to donate half the profits from the month-long promotion at Signor Zilli in Dean Street to families of the 297 people who died when the city of L'Aquila was hit by a 6.3-magnitude quake.

The 53-year-old chef learned to cook in the Abruzzo region, of which L'Aquila is the capital. Today he said he wanted his experiment to remind Londoners that people were still suffering. He will travel to Italy next week to find out about rebuilding projects he can fund.

"It's such a beautiful area and it has been totally destroyed so I wanted to try and do something," he said. "I've got a lot of very wealthy customers so I'm really hopeful it will work well."

Mr Zilli hopes people will pay close to normal price. The earthquake hit L'Aquila at 3.32am on 6 April. More than 34,000 people lost their homes and are living in camps and hotels.