‘The food at Gina’s is made by people who really mean it’

Photographs by Sophia Evans

Yes, a chocolate cake is about as familiar and unashamedly crowd-pleasing as it gets. Yes, the profound excellence of this particular one wasn’t exactly a surprise, considering Gill is a Junior Bake Off judge, alumnus of the pastry section at St John and author of an acclaimed cookbook called Sugar, I Love You. But I begin with this conclusive, ostensibly simple dish because it is emblematic of the broader project of Gina.

In one sense, this revivalist chophouse is the height of modernity: the subject of a forthcoming TV series, it has already been described in painstaking detail in a “radically transparent” companion newsletter. But in another, it is about as old-school as it gets: a family-run, bring-the-kids bistro reminding a community of the brilliant things that can happen when roast chickens, slurpable plates of tomato pasta and slabs of chocolate cake are cooked by people who really mean it.

Right away, Chingford struck me as a place of familiar contrasting extremes. Close to central London (only 27 minutes on the train from Liverpool Street), but chronically Essex in spirit, its bearing on a sweltering Friday afternoon put me in mind of the suburban Kentish border towns that were the backdrop to my childhood. Vape-tugging men with Algarvian golf tans tied one on outside a high street bar; faded trattorias, fashion emporiums and garden centres squatted within grand mock Tudor premises; a low-slung black Ferrari parked outside a takeaway called OG Babs, as couples in Gucci pool sliders moseyed along.

Gina, with its open ecru frontage, cursive sign and smart pyjama-striped awning, stuck out. And soon, Gill was greeting me with a look that shifted, as she registered why I was there, from happy recognition to mild horror.

I should acknowledge that I have come to know the couple a little, as one of 205,000 Instagram followers who have long had an insight into the minutiae of Gill’s life (and, by extension, that of Taiano and their 18-month-old son), and also through having bonded with them both a few weeks back when we were guests at the same event. “Will you come to the restaurant and tell us what you honestly think?” Gill had asked. I don’t think she’d counted on me doing so in a professional capacity, where there was the live, dangling prospect of what would happen if, well, it was rubbish.

Thankfully, I didn’t need to contemplate the awkwardness of that outcome for long. Monkfish cheek salad brought heady, dry-aged hunks of seafood, boulderous crunchy croutons and fat lobes of bacon in an enjoyably indecorous tumble of sharply dressed oak leaf lettuce. Beetroot was even better: a kaleidoscopic toppled henge of sweet, slow-cooked veg, vivid beet liquor and fried garlic slices set in a narcotic span of sticky pistachio nut butter. Even thick slices of Landrace flour sourdough – eight loaves of which are baked here every day – had the kind of urgent tang and deep, flavoursome chew to elicit a sigh.

Gill (who is of Indian heritage and grew up nearby) and Taiano (a Finchley boy of Italian and East End Jewish stock) met while working in kitchens. Looking around at Gina, taking in everything from the servers’ natty lavender chore jackets and the modern art on raw plaster walls to the R&B slow jams blasting in the toilets, you get the sense of their lovingly combative personalities in every detail. But it was through the push and pull of the other dishes we tried – a voluminous, bravura giant roast tomato vol au vent, perfect triple-cooked chips, a wantonly succulent, Flinstonian slab of whey-fed Farmer Tom pork, moated in shimmering apricot jus – that a theme cohered. To eat here is to eavesdrop on immensely talented, self-critical chefs, practising their particular love language.

There are still some wrinkles to iron out. Dish sizing is a touch random (a sensational salmon and cream cheese crêpe felt more like a snack than a starter), and a macchiato, as hinted by Gill’s mordant wince when I ordered it, was a fairly disastrous muddy swirl. And unless you go for the enticing set-lunch deal – two courses for £24, three for £28 – Gill and Taiano’s aversion to skimping on quality will probably occasion a bill that can merrily skip towards £100 a head.

That name, by the way, comes from Taiano’s late mother: a cigarillo-puffing bon viveur who laid on extravagant, generous feasts and practised a non-judgmental, open-door policy in her art-filled home. I thought of this tribute as Taiaino prowled the semi-open kitchen, Gill chatted to a pair of glamorous regulars and stray plumes of bone-marrow butter scented the air. Mums jiggled snoozing newborns in baby carriers, a tattooed solo diner scarfed courgettes, and a twinkly South Asian aunty propped her walking stick beside the table, all soundtracked by the ring and scrape of cutlery and thick gales of happy laughter.

The future for this restaurant, like all restaurants, is unknown. But it’s safe to say that the real Gina would be unutterably proud of what these two determined true believers have put into their corner of the world.

Gina 92 Station Road, London E4 7BA (ginarestaurant.co.uk). Starters from £10, mains from £16, desserts from £9, wine from £34