High-profile pastry chef, writer and Junior Bake Off judge Ravneet Gill and her fellow-chef husband Mattie Taiano have this week opened their first restaurant, a ‘chophouse’ called Gina in Chingford, on north London’s Essex outskirts.
The restaurant – for many years a family-run Italian local, next door to the station – is named in memory of Mattie’s late mother and features a blackboard menu with daily cuts of meat and fish plus old favourite dishes like parma ham with melon or strawberry jelly with custard.
Rav trained as a pastry chef at St John and made her name with the launch of an online pastry school during lockdown. Three cookbooks and a regular TV slot followed. Mattie’s CV includes stints at some of London’s best kitchens, including Frank’s Cafe, the Camberwell Arms, Som Saa and Zuma. The couple met while working together at Llewellyn’s in Herne Hill.
They chose to open Gina in the outer suburbs partly because central London is “oversaturated” with restaurants, Rav said – and they have deliberately set out to please the local crowd.
“I think Mattie and I spent so long cooking with ego and trying to prove ourselves. Now I want to create a place where people are like, ‘Fuck, I’m really craving the chocolate cake at Gina.’”
