Back in 1999, Ida (the current head chef and owner of Ida’s Kitchen Ldn), with her family background in owning/running restaurants in Naples, Italy - started her own catering company Ida's Kitchen.

She converted her home kitchen into a workable space, enabling her to operate her business from home - helping her to raise her first born child.

Ida had a lot of success running her business from home for many years, catering for some of the most renowned corporate offices in London - mostly on her own I should add, with only a few part time workers to help her along the way.

However, in 2020, Covid-19 took us all by storm - along with her business, which for the first time in 20 years, came to a complete halt.

During this uncertain time, Ida and her first born son Jamal, had many talks about the future of the business. Jamal, being a recent Marketing Graduate, a business minded individual, he had lots of ideas about how they could not only recover from this, but more importantly where he believed he could take the business. With Ida being an absolute phenomena in the kitchen and Jamal being able to take care of the rest, they decided it was fate to give this partnership a shot.

Jamal began working on a new website, new branding, putting new systems in place, the lot. They then soon began looking for a commercial space, moving the business out of their home for the first time.

Towards the end of 2021, as the lockdown restriction were lifted, they found their first commercial space, close to home in NW London.

Within less than a year, they had outgrown this space and began looking for a larger space. In the meantime, Jamal’s younger brother Jalees, also began helping out part time in the kitchen. Ida had always dreamt of converting a railway arch into a dream kitchen space. Lo and behold, they found one and better yet, in East London. With East London’s food scene being by far one of the greatest in London, this was a dream find.

They found a beautiful arch in Bethnal Green and signed their lease in August 2022. With the arch being a bare shell, no running hot water, just an empty unit - they had to build their dream kitchen from the ground up.

The business from that point just continued to grow. With Jamal pushing on the marketing, branding and clientele front - Ida flourishing in her new dream space, they were truly a dream team and business was booming as a result.

In August 22, moving from strength to strength, Jalees joined the team full time. A truly passionate and aspiring chef, Ida’s prodigy! We were now stronger than ever with Jalees on board.

This brings us to Oct 23, when the brothers decided to embark on a new business together. They wanted to create a new venture, still owned and ran by Ida’s kitchen, but something a little different - Focaccia Mia was born.

Jalees began brainstorming the menu, recipes, prepping lists and sourcing ingredients. Jamal began working on a new website, branding, social media and marketing. They launched the business on the 10th October.

There’s no other way to say this… It just absolutely took off. Only a few weeks in, they were selling out almost every weekend, with queues of people waiting outside - it was truly overwhelming, a really special experience. Getting to meet so many of the locals, forming relationships with other cool local businesses, just a really awesome time!

Focaccia Mia has since been growing from strength to strength - we can’t wait to see what the future has in-store for us!