I hadn’t put two and two together when I put Dalla into Google Maps. I arrived on a Lime bike, parked up, and then realised, ah, this is where Peg was. Repurposing a restaurant with a strong identity is a tricky thing to do. It’s not just a physical reinvention that’s required, but also the reinvention of imagination. Unlike Bambi though, which makes me long for Bright, I didn’t feel the ghost of Peg at Dalla.
In fact, it immediately felt unfamiliar and entirely its own. I entered the airy, uncluttered space as the ceiling fan softly rippled the white linen tablecloths like calm waves, admiring the walnut-lined glass cabinet displaying green figs and jars of artichokes next to a retro honey-brown oak telephone on one side of the room, and an olde-worlde wooden bar on the other.
A bucolic sensibility patterns the room and you forget you’re in the heart of Hackney. Our waiter unveiled the menu like a curator revealing a collection of art, confidently narrating the regional origins of each dish. Dalla evidently cares about provenance, but place isn’t just geographical. It’s also defined by genre and the sentiments that genres invoke. To me, Dalla is neo-trattoria. It’s not a neo-osteria because there’s panache and finesse behind its hearty rusticity, and it’s neo- because despite the way it makes you feel, the voluptuous amber lights hanging like inverted teardrops from the ceiling are inescapably modern.
Likewise, with Mitchell Damota’s generous yet elegant, refined cooking, the respect for tradition is abundant, but it’s quietly contemporary. Dishes are more like the subtle plot twists of a Park Chan-Wook film than the topsy-turvy, rollercoaster ride of a Christopher Nolan. It’s trans-regional, and yet there’s a thread – an identity – that ties it all together.
We had some mozzarella di buffala, figs, and Cantabrian anchovies; perhaps not the most inventive dish, but a combination of flavours that felt novel. It was one of many clever antipasti, with one dish essential to order. ‘Most of our French customers say the beef tartare is the best one they’ve ever had’, our waiter told us. After tasting it, I believed him entirely. The lean sirloin is folded through whipped lardo dell’Apuane, with toppings that change seasonally. Here, an earthy and gently umami autumn truffle. The lardo – sourced from pigs that roam a mountain range in Emilia-Romagna – added a sublime silkiness that didn’t detract from the pure, clean flavours of the beef. Now I know you may be fed up with seeing beef tartar everywhere, but a meal at Dalla isn’t the day to be. And if you’re flexitarian, this is a dish to be flexible for.
The next move is pasta, and I’m still thinking about the curzul allo scalango we didn’t order – a thick spaghetti with a sauce of guanciale, shallots, and tomato. Having said that, the caramalle di zucca al ragu was magnificent. The nostalgic sweet-wrapper pasta was filled with serenely sweet and silky pumpkin and blanketed in the most supple of ragu alla’ bolognese. It was lush, creamy, and delicately bovine – a perfect textural contrast to the al dente chew of the pasta’s edges. Adding our own parmigiano from a little pot provided another hit of nostalgia.
For secondi, there was a fillet of cod with porcini mushrooms which I felt a touch of greedy envy over when it arrived at the table next to us, but the cotoletta di maiale alla bolognese was so brilliantly indulgent that it was quickly forgotten. A juicy pork escalope mantled by a velvety parmigiano crema and finished with a crisp layer of prosciutto crudo. I felt transported to the north of Italy, but in my glass alongside was a Nino Barraco RSM – a blend of Sicilian white and red grapes – with a crimson glow and vivacious energy that took me to the Mediterranean coast, salt on my skin.
The dessert menu is quite originally dolci e frutta – sweets and fruit. On it was green fig and honey gelato and a ricotta romagnola mousse with saba, but sometimes all you need is the spongy comfort of tiramisu. I somewhat regret not trying to elongate the lunch with a prior course of gorgonzola piccante, but light glistened over the table as my dessert arrived as if to say, ‘This will be the best tiramisu you’ll ever have.’ Its luscious fresh cream, boozy soak on the lady’s fingers, and complex bitter edges are still vivid in my mind. It all is, really.
That’s the kind of restaurant Dalla is, graciously tweaking tradition and doctrine just the right amount to create highly memorable dishes. It does this not by mimicking a restaurant in Bologna (a clear culinary influence), but rather because it transcends regionalism to emit an energy that is respectfully nowhere. Perhaps I’m indulging in fantasy here, but what it captures is a feeling. One akin to driving through somewhere in the Italian countryside, alongside rolling hills and rows of vines, a dramatic vista of mountains in the distance, with an anticipation of the joyous pleasures to come. In its deceptive simplicity, Dalla is the city’s Italian answer to 40 Maltby Street and it’s sophisticated in the way St John’s minimalism is. But mostly, it wants to transport you and it knows exactly how to.
