Tiella Trattoria

It’s not the first time an up-and-coming chef has set up shop in an east London pub, but the spirit with which Dara Klein has transformed what was once the Globe into the successor to her family’s trattoria suggests this one is here for the long haul. From the bespoke disco ball stained glass window to the vintage Italian crockery and family portraits on the wall, it feels suffused with life and character – not somewhere that resembled a building site a matter of days before. 

There was a definitive everyone-welcome atmosphere on our early Sunday lunch visit, with babies and children among the landscape of the packed-out (slightly awkwardly-shaped) dining room. From the open kitchen, led by a cheery and unfazed Klein, came a series of dishes full of confidence and good instinct. A salad of delica pumpkin, radicchio agrodolce and a unifying taleggio dressing was an early hit full of depth and tang. A humble bowl of pasta e fagioli was anything but: silken with olive oil and bolstered with rosemary. From the secondi a saline dish of braised squid with olives and fragrant mint was triumphantly tender – you could cut it with a spoon. 

The only minor niggle, which is forgivable in the early days of any restaurant launch, was the enthusiastic pacing of service. Even at the high table of two in the window – mercifully comfortable in cushioned old bar chairs – the food deserves to be lingered over. But if time is short or you haven’t booked ahead, the dedicated bar is an open-armed call for walk-ins to dip into the stuzzichini, enjoy a Guinness on draught, a Cynar spritz or an easy drinking carafe of Tuscan red.