An Italian restaurant chain with a vast celebrity client list has launched legal action against another Manchester eatery over a battle regarding their name.
Cibo Hale and Cibo Wilmslow, which are among haunts frequented by Premier League footballers, influencers, and musicians, have turned to the High Court - after accusing another restaurant chain in Manchester of using its name without consent.
Bosses at Cibo in Manchester vehemently deny the allegations and defended their use of the name, claiming they first opened before the branches in Wilmslow and Hale.
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Sir Alex Ferguson, Cristiano Ronaldo, Mohammed Salah, and boxers Tyson and Tommy Fury, are all regulars at Cibo, which means 'food' in Italian, and where bottles of wine can fetch up to £350.
The restaurant owners are suing two restaurants in Manchester, called Cibo Liverpool Road, and Cibo Great Northern, along with four company directors, in a row over the name.
But bosses at the Manchester restaurants have hit back over the legal action, claiming there are dozens of other restaurants trading with the name across the country, as they defended the success of their brand.
In a highly unusual move, the Wilmslow and Hale Cibo restaurants, which opened in 2016 and 2018, list 17 of their regular celebrity clients in legal documents, seen by the M.E.N. These high profile diners include musician Will.i.am, Ryan Giggs, Patrice Evra, social influencer Molly-Mae Hague, and former Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
The two restaurants and bars, where main courses cost between £18 and £45, have also been used for shooting episodes of The Real Housewives of Cheshire, and last year’s draft accounts show that Cibo Wilmslow had a revenue of £1.75m and Cibo Hale an annual revenue of £2.449m, a High Court claim says.
But they claim the restaurants in Manchester, and four directors have passed off their business as being connected to the original Cibo by using the same name. They all also allege the interior of the restaurants have been changed to look similar, and confuses customers.
They are also suing company directors Mohamed Elgouhari, Ahmed Fathalla, Ramy Abdelhamid, and Andrea Battaglini, and say Liverpool Road Leisure, which runs Cibo Manchester and Cibo Liverpool Road, applied to trademark the name Cibo Manchester in November 2020, just 22 days after Cibo’s solicitors wrote demanding undertakings that they immediately stop using the name.
The claimants argue that the alleged infringes of their brand have received far lower rated reviews, which negatively impacts on Cibo Wilmslow and Hale's own reputation and goodwill, and offer discounts of up to 54 per cent - while Cibo does not offer discounts, the claim says.
They claim the discount schemes, offered by the Cibo branches in Manchester, have confused members of the public, and say its reputation is highly likely to be damaged as a result of the discount schemes, as Cibo Wilmslow and Hale offers high-quality Italian cuisine and a stylish dining experience, and do not offer discount deals.
The owners of Wilmslow and Hale Cibo allege customers of the Manchester restaurants have turned up at their Wilmslow and Hale restaurants, believing they have booked tables there rather than in Manchester, and have received complaints from customers of the Manchester eateries.
The claimants give examples where they allege some Manchester Cibo customers have become upset when they tried to present vouchers for meals, including Groupon and Meerkat Meals, which are not accepted by the company running Cibo Wilmslow or Hale. In addition they claim to have been invoiced for food destined for a Manchester restaurant, it is alleged.
The Liverpool Road restaurant has a similar décor to the original two Cibo restaurants, with tree twigs entangled in fairy lights, with brown-yellow chairs, wood effect walls, and white ceilings.
Cibo says it has suffered loss and damage by being wrongly associated with the Manchester Cibo which is taking wrongful advantage of its goodwill and reputation, and is demanding damages for passing off, injunctions requiring the defendants to transfer any Cibo domain name and trade mark, and an order requiring them to supply information relating to the infringing activities.
Bosses at Cibo in Manchester told the M.E.N they plan to fight the legal action, and defended their use of the name, claiming they first opened before the branches in Wilmslow and Hale.
Their Operations Manager said: "We originally opened back in 2013 which can be found everywhere in Google well before Hale and Wilmslow. We opened that in Didsbury. It closed it and moved it to Manchester and Liverpool Road.
"The one in Didsbury was called Cibo. It moved to Liverpool Rd as Per Tutti and then changed back to Cibo in 2018. It means food in Italian. If you google in the UK it's a very common name.
"The owners seem to have got a bee in the bonnet about their name. I'm not sure where it's come from. There are hundreds in the whole of the UK.
"We also have a list of celebrity clients that have come to the restaurant, we just don't like to boast about it. We have Love Island stars and City and United players but we don't want to drag them into it. It's not what it's about."
A representative of Cibo Manchester disputed that customers get the two restaurant chains confused, and said that their staff are "honest" if they are ever questioned about a connection to restaurants named Cibo in Wilmslow or Hale.
"Hospitality should be looking out for hospitality," they said. "This has come out of nowhere and it's bizarre. I've worked for the company a long time and I don't see that confusion happening very often.
"People sometimes ask but we are always honest about it. They are in Cheshire and we are in Manchester. We'd have no problem with them opening in Manchester.
"We 100 per cent will fight it. We have a good team of solicitors. We should be helping each other. The amount of restaurants that have closed recently is scary but fortunately we are doing well and will keep going because that's the type of people we are."
The M.E.N has made repeated attempts to contact Cibo Wilmslow and Cibo Hale for further comment.
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