MITSHEL IBRAHIM’S FUL MEDAMES
Growing up in Milan, Mitshel Ibrahim did everything he could to avoid helping in his parents’ restaurant. ‘They almost used it as a punishment if I was getting bad grades,’ he laughs.
The Ibrahims opened Il Piccolo Paradiso in the 1990s, less than a decade after arriving in Italy from Egypt, but nothing about the hard grind of restaurant life appealed to young Mitshel: ‘Dad would open seven days a week and work all imaginable hours.’ Mitshel was adamant he would never cook professionally.
But, as he puts it, ‘Guess what?’ Fast-forward 25 years and Mitshel, now 34 and co-owner of Hackney’s Ombra restaurant, is one of London’s hottest chefs. ‘Subconsciously,’ he says, a love of
