How to create a restaurant that conveys an unpretentious but quality driven sensibility on a shoe string budget, when the money is your own.

Ombra is a Venetian style bar/restaurant in Hackney. It is the alternative meeting room at fourth_space. Directors Paolo and Steve along with chef Andrea conceived the idea, set up and opened Ombra in 2011. Since then it has established itself as a highly popular location that specialises in fresh homemade simple Italian food and drinks. At the head of Vyner Street it is often a buzz of local designers, artists and architects which form part of an eclectic mix of regulars. In 2013 Ombra was awarded the Premio Stelle della Fenice bel Mondo - a special cultural award from the highly esteemed La Fenice Theatre Foundation for initiative and success in promoting Venetian cultural excellence. 

It is important, in our view, that a project dealing in the public realm should promote activity and engagement. Having fully restructured and refurbished a former windowless art gallery space and opened Ombra, the difficulty of connecting bar/restaurant with the street and the customer was pursued. A once disused public bin store car park area directly in front of the restaurant was re-landscaped. The resulting ‘sun-deck’ space now prominently marks the junction of Vyner Street and Cambridge Heath Road, and over the years has been used to engage with temporary art projects that are designed to connect with the public environment and help enhance and bring a sense of place in a difficult corner site on a busy main road..

You can watch a short film about Ombra here.