Tiella, E2

Early summers and second chances

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I was a little sceptical when Tiella opened to rapturous acclaim earlier this year. I’d eaten chef Dara Klein’s cooking before, a homely spin on a broad Italian menu, when Tiella started life as a residency at The Compton Arms, now home to The Rake. Good but not great, I thought, a meal that didn’t quite live up to its obvious potential. That’s why I wasn’t overly rushed to make it to Klein’s first permanent home, which opened on Columbia Road this January. It turns out I’ve been missing out — Tiella’s second iteration is a substantial improvement, and a total triumph.

In fairness, Tiella got a helping hand from the weather this time around: my booking landed squarely in the midst of London’s last heat wave. Perching at one of the restaurant’s compact outdoor tables, late evening sun still warm on our faces, and a cold cocktail in hand, you could almost squint and believe you were in one of the grubbier stretches of the Riviera. The cocktails were good too; a firm negroni for me, and a grapefruit margarita for Vivian, a light pink, Mediterranean spin on the taco bar staple that worked far better than it should’ve. They lead a sprawling drinks menu, with wines — mostly Italian, all European — starting from a slightly steep £44 a bottle, though there’s a good range of options by the glass or carafe.

Tiella’s cooking doesn’t fit neatly into one of the capital-a Authentic regional cuisines that new London openings seem duty bound to adhere to, instead happily skipping around the peninsula a little. On the day we visit, amatriciana is there to represent the four great Roman pastas, while chicken milanese stands in for the north. Panelle — small fritters made from chickpea flour — hail from Sicily, as does some of the olive oil. Then there’s Calabrian chilli, ricotta from Romagna, lentils from Umbria, and cake from Capri.

It’s a refreshingly relaxed approach, but don’t take that to mean that Tiella’s menu is dime-a-dozen stuff. Nothing here is outlandish, but few of the dishes sit in the default lexicon of the British Italian restaurant. The panelle are a great example, square pucks of chickpea with a crisp edge and impeccably smooth filling, accompanied by a boisterous olive tapenade designed for smearing, dunking, and all around slurping. Ours arrive at the same time as anchovies in saor, the lesser-spotted sibling of classic Venetian bar snack sarde in saor. Marinated anchovy fillets swim in a pool of bright olive oil along with pickled sultanas, pine nut, and onions, sweet and sour and bitter all muddling together into a glorious whole. Go to Palermo and you can’t move without someone offering you panelle, head to Venice and you’ll find anchovies or sardines in saor in every bar across the city — and yet Tiella might be the first time I’ve seen either in London, making versions that would happily earn their keep back home.

Not everything is as uncommon, of course. It’s become pretty de rigueur to deliver some version of pasta e fagioli, though Tiella’s is one of the good ones. Braised borlotti beans are mostly left whole, keeping them an uncanny size match for the cavatelli that bob alongside them in the herby broth, deeply savoury and satisfying. Asparagus is paired with speck in a lighter spring pasta topped with a crunch of breadcrumbs, while hunks of chef-favourite monkfish sit atop a similarly seasonal pile of courgettes and basil, cooked down about as far as they’ll go. There’s bruschetta too, a little pricey at £7 per slice, but heaped with meaty Sorrento tomatoes and slowly pooling stracciatella. It’s a shame the actual bread arrived blackened to the point of burnt, the only real misfire to come out of the kitchen all night.

We cap the night with a puddle of panna cotta, a heaving scoop of cream that leaves me relieved to have someone to share it with, even as we fight to get our fair share. Prosecco-soaked strawberries lap its edges, another sign of summer looming as the late evening light finally begins to fade.

London doesn’t really need more Italian restaurants, but it might need more like Tiella. Charming (and speedy) service plays its part: when a neighbouring table spilled a near-full martini, their waiter was quick to offer a replacement on the house, but just as quick to offer a gentle chiding as it was served: “Don’t do that again.” I’m glad I gave Tiella a second chance, just as it did my martini-spilling neighbour, and the restaurant has certainly made good on it.

At The Compton Arms, Tiella was pure potential. Three years later, this is one hell of a payoff.