5-star quality, 3-star prices: Why Positano Risto’s co-founder opened a new Bangsar eatery

If you visit Ibu Ruby’s in Bangsar, a new Indo-Malay restaurant, you’ll find signs claiming that the restaurant has been established since 1979. 

In reality, the restaurant was launched just some weeks ago, but the story behind the eatery does indeed begin all the way back in the late 70s, when Haji Mohd Imran first moved to Jakarta. 

Hailing from Germany, he was just 10 years old at the time when they settled in a house next to a mosque. Each day, the Azhan (call to prayer) resonated through their home, and though his father was Hindu and his mother Christian, Imran’s heart was drawn to the call. 

That year, his parents hired Ibu Ruby, an Indo-Malay chef from Yogyakarta who was raised on traditional recipes passed down from her grandmother. 

“She used to spend a lot of time with me in the kitchen, she introduced me to halal food,” Imran reminisced. 

With that introduction to the religion, Imran later reverted to Islam in 1994. Then in 2012, he had a life-changing experience during his Hajj pilgrimage in Arafat. 

“I just broke down and cried for half an hour before the morning prayers. The ustad came to me and told me to ask for forgiveness and go out to the desert and make wishes. I actually made 54 wishes, and all of them came true,” he said. “So then, I decided, I got to give something back to the Muslim world.” 

He gravitated toward F&B, as many Muslims such as Imran himself have a hard time accessing great halal food when they travel. 

With that, the journey to opening Ibu Ruby’s truly began. 

The man behind Positano 

But before Ibu Ruby’s, there was Imran’s other F&B brand, Positano Risto, a well-known halal Italian restaurant.

Originally from Singapore, the business expanded to Malaysia back in 2018, opening up its restaurant in Publika. 

While many today will recognise Imran from Positano and the F&B world, he actually has lived a very robust life prior to entering this realm. 

His background is in finance, having gotten his degree from University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. He went on to join the insurance industry, becoming the head of marketing for a few Southeast Asian countries. 

At 26, he did his MBA, then joined a software company and started an internet business in London. Later on, he joined INSEAD Business School in Singapore as the head of external relations. Then, he became a private banker before entering the real estate industry. He sat on the board of Kenanga Investors as well and dabbled in management education. 

With all his past lives, it seems like Imran has gained quite a lot of experience in the real world and in business. However, venturing into F&B in 2017, he faced some learning curves still. 

“One of the things that I realised is different is that when you sell a product, typically the way people receive a product is relatively the same. But in F&B, you can serve the same dish to 10 people, and you’ll get 10 different feedback,” he said. 

So, how do you keep everyone happy? For Imran, it involves offering a broad menu so people can pick and choose according to their preferences and spice tolerance. 

It’s also a highly competitive industry. The barriers to entry are not that high, Imran said, and there’s not a lot of protection with your “IP”. 

Finding, retaining, and motivating talent is a daunting task too. Everyone’s trying to poach talent, Imran shared. 

“But as you manage your suppliers, your guests, and your staff, you should do okay,” he said. 

Running Positano for seven years now, Imran was able to leverage a lot of his experience with Ibu Ruby’s. For one, it was opened in less than two months, from the renovation to the hiring to the menu development. 

However, it was clear that Ibu Ruby’s doesn’t exist as a sub-brand or spinoff to Positano, but rather, its very own entity. 

Yet another Indo-Malay restaurant?

The story for Positano is based around Imran’s religious experience and visit to Positano in Italy after his Hajj. Meanwhile, Ibu Ruby’s is all about his childhood experiences in Indonesia, as well as his love for Malaysian culture and cuisine. 

“I’m taking different parts of my life and trying to create different experiences around those. And I have other stories to share,” he said. 

The idea for Ibu Ruby’s has been brewing for a long time, and it was thanks to the success of Positano that he decided to open the restaurant. He found an investor, who was a former classmate, who financially supported the Indo-Malay eatery. 

The spot uses all halal ingredients with Muslim owners and chefs, but it’s not yet certified by JAKIM as restaurants must be functioning for some months before applying. 

While the story is nice, what exactly sets theirs apart from all the other restaurants out there?

Every dish is made from scratch with fresh, wholesome ingredients—no commercial pastes or MSG—at an accessible value. 

Another key highlight is food quality. “We have someone who used to work at a Michelin restaurant as our head chef here,” Imran revealed. 

Having gotten a taste myself, I must say that the quality is rather good. The signature drinks were indulgent yet refreshing, and the chicken had a strong rempah flavour.

While RM18 isn’t necessarily “cheap,” it’s definitely an affordable price, once you factor in the location, environment, and of course, the taste. There’s a refinement to the food that is hard to come by in more casual restaurants. 

“That combination of five stars at three stars prices is what I’m trying to bring here,” he said. 

To keep prices low, it comes down to having a smaller profit margin.

“We want to deliver value to the guests,” he said. “At the end of the day, we’re hoping with this strategy, we will fill up, and then we can afford to do this.” 

A scalable future 

Ibu Ruby’s is located strategically, Imran pointed out, because of the fact that there isn’t really any other high-quality Indo-Malay restaurant in the area. Yet, there’s a lot of local fare, pointing towards the fact that the market does enjoy that kind of food. 

“It fills a gap in Bangsar,” he said. “And I think in greater KL, in terms of our natural ingredients and quality at these prices, there’s also a gap. Like, who does that?”

With that in mind, it seems like Ibu Ruby’s is positioned quite well as a scalable entity. 

Asking Imran about this, he shared that his vision is indeed to grow the brand into a chain throughout KL and beyond. 

“I see this as a chain, eventually in malls all over Malaysia. And maybe we take it overseas as well,” he shared. “But, we take it one step at a time.”

The first step now is to establish Ibu Ruby’s as a success story, serving valuable and delicious foods with good service in Bangsar.