Popular Manchester restaurant Cibo will now be called Italiana Fifty Five after a rebrand following a battle which was heading all the way to the High Court. The small Italian chain, which has restaurants at the Great Northern Warehouse and another on Liverpool Road, was being sued by another restaurant group also using the name Cibo, which means food in Italian.
The other Cibo, which has restaurants Cibo Hale and Cibo Wilmslow, claimed that the chain now called Italiana Fifty Five were using the name without consent, while the bosses of the Cibo restaurants in Manchester claimed their sites opened long before the Hale and Wilmslow restaurants.
Owners of the Hale and Wilmslow restaurants meanwhile cited their celebrity clientele in court filings, naming the likes of Will.i.am, Alex Ferguson, Ryan Giggs, Patrice Evra, Tyson Fury and Molly-Mae Hague, and former Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer as customers.
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It also claimed that the Manchester Cibo restaurants offered discount deals, while they did not, alleging that such offers damaged their reputation. Claiming it’s ‘a classy space with a big city feel’ on its website, Cibo Hale and Wilmslow’s pasta and salads start at £15 with main courses reaching £36, while its most expensive wine comes in at £395.
The Italiana Fifty Five restaurants offer a two course lunch menu at £14, with dishes like sea bass and lobster ravioli, while its a la carte menu features its theatrical tagliatelle reggiano, which sees penne pasta flambeed at the table with cream, parmesan, cognac and truffle oil, for £17.95.
Owners of the former Manchester Cibo sites have now decided to rebrand their restaurants rather than pursue the legal fight with the owners of Cibo Hale and Cibo Wilmslow.
In a statement, Italiana Fifty Five owners said: “While we have cherished the Cibo name and the brand we’ve built, we don’t consider the name to be of utmost importance. Our staff and customers are our focus and delivering exceptional service and quality food is what we need to get back to concentrating on. To avoid wasting any more time, we have made the decision to rebrand.”
The Cibo Hale and Cibo Wilmslow restaurants opened in 2016 and 2018, while the-first Manchester Cibo restaurant opened in Didsbury 2013, before closing, re-opening on Liverpool Road at Per Tutti, before changing its name back to Cibo in 2018.
