This winter, celebrated chef Dara Klein will open Tiella Trattoria & Bar – a deeply personal new restaurant where she’ll bring her cooking to east London’s Columbia Road. The new project is Tiella’s first permanent home, following an almost two-year residency at the Compton Arms, which became known for heartfelt regional Italian cooking.
For Klein, Columbia Road felt like the obvious choice. “Tiella is an extension of my home, and east London is where my community and heart is,” she tells Broadsheet. “I cooked on Columbia Road as a commis chef at Brawn, so it’s thrilling to be opening Tiella back on one of my favourite roads in London. It’s vibrant, buzzy and fun – a neighbourhood where I know Tiella will fit right in.”
This iteration of the concept is a collaboration between Klein and Ry Jessup, co-founder of Homeslice and The Plimsoll, who joins as co-owner and general manager. The pair, both from New Zealand, are childhood family friends, reunited through London’s hospitality scene.
Set inside a restored Victorian corner building once home to Asian-fusion restaurant Anther, the trattoria will centre around a large open bar, nodding to the site’s former life as a pub and encouraging guests to drop in for a glass of wine or a plate or two.
The restaurant is a tribute to Maria Pia’s, Klein’s family trattoria in Wellington, New Zealand, where she grew up watching her parents cook “real, slow, trattoria food”.
“From every dish on the menu to the style of our bar and décor, Maria Pia’s is embedded in every decision I make,” she says. “It’s the original framework for how I see restaurants – the heart of the trattoria imprinted in how I understand hospitality. It’s a huge honour to be carrying on my parents’ legacy.”
While she’s keeping specifics under wraps until the kitchen is complete, menus will draw on both Italian and British producers and evolve with the seasons. Above all, diners can expect rustic, regional dishes rooted in Italian tradition and shaped by Klein’s many years cooking in London restaurants.
Tiella Trattoria & Bar opens early 2026 at 109 Columbia Road, E2 7RL.
