In April, ritzy food delivery service Providoor, which launched during lockdown to give people a fix of their favourite restaurants, went into liquidation.

At the time, its founder, celebrity chef Shane Delia said it was a “very sad day” but that he was “proud of Providoor and what it has achieved” including serving more than one million meals.

In the wake of its collapse, it emerged that the business had racked up debts of more than $6.3 million, including $4.4 million in gift vouchers held by foodies and corporate clients that could not be honoured.

But a long-time customer, Sydney-based Sam Benjamin – owner of Rolling Stone Australia and Brag Media – has now bought the business.

On Monday, Providoor announced it was relaunching in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane with a new team and big chefs and food personalities attaching their names to the brand.

Those people include Matt Preston, Silvia Colloca, Anna Polyviou, Luke Nguyen, Gary Mehigan, Manu Feildel, Justin Narayan, George Calombaris.

“We have assembled a highly experienced team from all over the world – operations and culinary – all committed to the bold aspirations of the business with an innovative chapter to drive the full Providoor purpose and potential,” Mr Benjamin said.

Providoor styled itself as a saviour of the restaurant industry during the many Covid-19 lockdowns as it allowed customers to order deliveries straight from their favourite kitchens.

With the relaunch, it has now been broken up into two different sections – Providoor Local and Providoor Frozen.

The chef-prepared meals are available to order direct online or through Uber Eats.

In Sydney, if a customer orders at noon, it will be ready for next day delivery, while orders in Melbourne and Brisbane will be delivered twice a week with a three-day lead time.

Providoor now has kitchens located throughout Sydney in Homebush, Five Dock, Neutral Bay and Moore Park with further kitchens to open elsewhere in the NSW capital as well as in Melbourne and Brisbane in the “near future”, according to the company.

A number of other food delivery services have been unable to survive the economic turmoil wrought in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Deliveroo’s Australian branch went into administration and exited the Australian market a year ago, citing the food delivery industry as being too competitive a market for them to turn a profit.

Another Australian operator, a Victorian food delivery company that styled itself as a rival to UberEats and Deliveroo called Delivr, went bust in 2022, which at its peak had 200 delivery drivers.

In March this year, a gourmet food start-up called CoLab, which offered ready-to-cook meals from more than 150 restaurants, appointed administrators.

Delivery grocery store Milkrun, which promised to get groceries to customers within 10 minutes, also folded but was later bought out by Woolworths.