The Italian-born chef Dara Klein, best known for her residency at the Compton Arms in Islington, is to open her debut restaurant early next year.
Klein’s Teilla concept is to become Tiella Trattoria and Bar and comes in collaboration with her childhood friend and fellow chef Ry Jessup.
Jessup worked at Caravan before going on to co-found Homeslice pizza and the Plimsoll, home to one of London’s best burgers.
Jessup will lead the front of house team, while Klein will be in the kitchen, cooking rustic, regional food inspired by her time in Italy and London.
There’s no menu yet — it will change regularly — but past hits at Tiella at the Compton Arms include mussels with datterini tomatoes and wild garlic, asparagus tagliatelle, pasta e fagioli, and chicken milanese with fennel, celery and apple.
Klein was born to a Jewish-American father and a Pugliese mother and she spent her early years between Emilia-Romagna and Salento before her family emigrated to New Zealand.
It was there that she met Jessup and their restaurant is to be a homage to Maria Pia’s, the family trattoria in Wellington where Klein was raised.
The chef said it was a place that fostered her parents’ dedication to “real, slow, trattoria cooking” — the kind that celebrates seasonality and regionality.
And after her time cooking at the likes of Trullo, Brawn and Rubedo, she is finally opening her own venue: “Trattorie are accessible, unpretentious and no frills, originating in Italy when families opened up their homes — transforming front rooms into dining rooms,” said Klein.
“Tiella is about honest food and honest hospitality. We hope for it to become a trattoria for everyone — a place that feels like home, but with the generosity and rhythm of a restaurant. It’s about the merging of home and work, family and service. It’s messy, loving, and full of life — that’s the beauty of it.”
Tiella Trattoria & Bar will open early in 2026 at 109 Columbia Road, E2 7R, @tiella_trattoria
