For better and for worse, the Covid-19 pandemic has pushed us all out of our comfort zones, forcing us to comport ourselves in manners to which we’re not accustomed, catapulting us beyond limits we didn’t know we had. In the early days, few had the wisdom to foresee that a pandemic was afoot — in fact, the “easy” thing to do at the outset was “wait.” Most business owners lacked the foresight to recognize that the pandemic wasn't just a temporary hiccup that would run its course before returning to normal in a few weeks. Mitshel Ibrahim, though, did not lack such foresight — he seized on the situation and began forging a “new normal” before the term became embedded into our daily vocabulary.
The restaurant-turned-pastificio-and-alimentari Ombra in London, photo: Ombra Bar London
When the government ordered all of London’s nonessential businesses to close, the Milan-born chef didn’t just rise to the challenge, so to speak — he confronted it head-on, shifting gears at Ombra, his restaurant in London’s Hackney quarter, a pivot that rendered the restaurant anything but nonessential.
“We all had been keeping an eye on the Italian situation in February and March, and I knew it was just a matter of time before it reached England too,” explains Ibrahim. “Obviously with us being an Italian restaurant it was kind of a natural and spontaneous switch. Basically, we just started packaging whatever we were producing in our kitchen for people to take home or have delivered.”
Agnolotti and tagliatelle from Ombra's pastifcio. Photo: Ombra Bar & Restaurant
It was important to him not only that the business maintained a profit, but that his staff kept working too, so Ibrahim didn’t just rely on delivering menu items. On March 18, 2020, he expanded Ombra’s repertoire, converting the restaurant into a pastificio by preparing fresh pasta and jarred sauces such as black cabbage pesto and broccoli rabe with anchovies, which customers could cook at home. Ombra was also an alimentari, selling the salami and meats cured in an in-house larder. The business eventually evolved into a wholesale operation, and today Ombra's pasta is found on several menus around town, including the Laughing Heart and Weino Bib, two spots popular with natural wine lovers.
And it didn’t end there, Ibrahim launched a series of initiatives that kept Ombra restaurant front of mind among Londoners, who could pop in any time to grab a simple no-frills mortadella sandwich on focaccia to go or pre-made cocktails for an after-work aperitivo at home. He sold wine by the bottle and even grocery items, like blood oranges, Italian coffee, and farm-fresh organic eggs. For “Lasagna Sundays,” the Ombra team prepared oven-ready trays of lasagna for customers to heat up at home. The Ombra team even completed deliveries "Italian-style” in a three-wheel Piaggio Ape 50 van. When Londoners could start going out again, Ibrahim composed picnic boxes that he delivered directly to the parks. They're back on offer for 2021.
Items from the 2021 Ombra picnic box. Photo: Ombra Bar & Restaurant
Ibrahim’s initiatives were so successful that he believes the pandemic was the best thing to have ever happened to the restaurant, attracting a new clientele. “Obviously the virus and the pandemic is a terrible thing, but a lot of good things have come out of it. All of these people have been showing a lot of interest in what we’re doing, how we adapted, and how we stayed one step ahead. We’re open now and these past few weeks have been the busiest they’ve ever been. People who learned about us during the pandemic are visiting the restaurant for the first time,” he says.
With an ever-growing customer base, Ibrahim has no plans to rein it in or slow down. Ombra’s 10th anniversary falls on June 28, 2021, and to mark the milestone, the chef and his team will launch a crowd-funding page to start raising money for a second location. The details will appear on the restaurant's Instagram feed in the coming days.
Ibrahim has the hospitality industry in his blood. His parents, Egyptian immigrants, owned an Egyptian restaurant in his hometown of Milan. While Ibrahim hasn’t worked at Ombra for the entire decade, he was part of the opening team. He left for university and honed his talent at top London restaurants including the Michelin-starred Clove Club, which currently ranks 26 on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. About four years ago, Ibrahim's career came full circle. Ombra's head chef was leaving and the owner offered him the job.
Mitshel Ibrahim and his Pioggio. Photo: Ombra Bar & Restaurant
Inspired by Venice, Ombra means “shadow” or “shade” in Italian, and the restaurant refers specifically to the Venetian aperitivo tradition characterized as cicheti (small bites) paired with an ombra, or shadow, of wine at the bacari or wine bars.
The relentless hustling of Ibrahim and his team forced Ombra to adapt not only to satisfy Londoners' needs as they unfolded during the pandemic but also to keep them on their toes. One could say that the restaurant couldn’t be less befitting of its name — the shade couldn’t mask Ombra if it tried. Conversely, though, it is. Ombra morphed and shape-shifted similarly to how shade adjusts to the sunlight and provided Londoners with a temporary reprieve from the devastation of the pandemic. The shade offers a beacon of comfort on those days when the heat becomes unbearable, and, in a sense, Ombra did the same for its clientele. Here’s to its next 10 years.