Location, location, location
All eyes on Kilburn Lane
Friends and family thought we were mad.
Kilburn Lane? Really? Are you sure?
Admittedly, it’s not the most prepossessing of streets. An unlovely arterial road connecting Queens Park and Kensal Rise, there is no passing trade, while our only neighbours are Hope Hall, a Gospel Hall Assembly (congregation: seven) and Yogi Convenience Store. But, we thought the empty shop was beautiful, a corner building with eight ceiling-height plate glass windows, and the fact that it was one of the original Queens Park Estate commercial premises meant that it still retained most of its Victorian Gothic features.
In spite of having lived since 1996 in the area of cottages known locally as “The Avenues”, we were entirely unfamiliar with the Kilburn Lane end of the estate. All of us tread our own desire paths through cities, marking out with our steps the unique compass points where our lives take place. In the almost twenty years that we lived in the Avenues, our family’s routes had veered almost exclusively between the Harrow Road, (school, church and the library), and the Ha’penny Steps iron bridge which led over the Grand Union canal to the Lisboa bakery on Golborne Road, and on towards Portobello Market. Kilburn Lane was less than a quarter of a mile as the crow flies from our house, but as far as we were concerned, it could have been an entirely different part of London.
If we had been a little more savvy, we would have known how important location would be to the future of our business. Think about it. A street buzzing with restaurants is seen as a gastronomic hub, while, conversely, places lacking anywhere half decent to eat are known as food deserts. The mere act of serving meals “wakes up” an area. Unlike retail which can be filled with shelves of dusty, unsold stock, hospitality creates a lively microcosm around it of customers, staff and suppliers which is perpetually in motion. No matter how badly your restaurant or cafe may be doing, unless you are serving freeze-dried ready-meals, ingredients need to be ordered and delivered almost daily.
Two other restaurants had tried their luck before us on that site. The first was a pizzeria whose owners got cold feet before they’d even begun trading, while the second was a purple kebab shop that lasted less than a year. I have written before about the almost mystical attachment I had to that corner building, and the heavy price we paid for my obsession. (For those unfamiliar with my previous posts, we ended up having to buy the shop, which had originally been up for rent, and were subsequently crippled by rising mortgage payments during the recession, not helped by the ZERO footfall on Kilburn Lane.)
Ultimately, I’d like to think it all worked out. Eighteen years later, Ida is still there, and very much a landmark in our neighbourhood. We have both regulars and out of town customers who assure us that they like the fact that Ida isn’t situated on a chi-chi high street. And while being out on a limb on Kilburn Lane meant that everything - and I mean, everything - was uphill for us, on the bright side, we are not in direct competition with any other food businesses.
One entirely unforeseen, yet welcome, consequence of our restaurant’s less-than stellar location, has been is its appeal to film makers. I’m not exaggerating when I say that Ida came into the world fully formed. Long before we got the keys, or even settled on a name, I saw our restaurant, a bright little pearl on the corner of Kilburn Lane. Everything, down to the linen half curtains, the wood panelling, the jumble of paintings on the walls existed in my mind, ready to be sourced. But what I hadn’t expected was how easily that vision would be seen by others.
One of the first times Ida was used as a location was around 2010, for a little indie short which revolved around a young boy’s memories of the first moon landings. In spite of the tiny budget, the producers somehow managed to set up a dolly track on Fifth Avenue, so that an astronaut in full space suit could glide surreally past the restaurant windows.
Another shoot involved the Eurovision hopeful, Mae Miller, lustily singing “So Annoying” accompanied by an acoustic guitar.
Chiwetel Ejiofor once smouldered in a safari suit for a “Mr Porter” photoshoot, while Miranda Hart’s “Chummy” in Call the Midwife was superimposed on a stock photo of Ida, complete with a little gaggle of midwives in their distinctive capes standing on the doorstep.
One of our most interesting shoots was for the homeware brand, LSA. Everything about LSA’s story resonated with us at Ida, while seeing Ida’s pasta on their beautiful colbat blue plates made us look at our food with new eyes.
Another fun collaboration was with the clothing brand, Rixo. For one night Ida was transformed into a Rixo fever-dream, filled with flowers and candles and women in silk tea dresses
Finally, the biggest shoot we ever did was for the insurance company, Aviva. Ida was closed for a week, while the production (whose budget was rumoured to be north of £1000,000) also took over the flat above the restaurant, as well as the local sports centre, community centre, and what looked like half of the surrounding streets. I only have Fiammetta and Livio’s word for how it went, however, as Avi and I decided to bugger off to Greece for a little five-day holiday on the island of Aegina.
Love your writing Simonetta. Can’t wait to hear you at the Queen’s Park Book Festival.
Love this! We lived on Beethoven for a long time and loved having you as our local. So glad you are still going ❤️