The husband and wife team cook up a winter storm with lamb shoulder, dauphinoise and brown sugar meringues – just don’t ask them who’s doing the cleaning up
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hen I first started seeing Mattie, there was a constant dinner party at his mum’s house,” recalls pastry chef Ravneet Gill. “There were loads of people there all the time, being fed with massive bowls of home-cooked food and a big block of parmesan.” There was an open-door policy, with pastas and roast meats on heavy rotation, confirms her now-husband and fellow chef, Taiano. And it’s this sentiment that has carried through to the couple’s restaurant, Gina, which opened in Chingford, east London, earlier this year, a process they documented in their newsletter, Club Gina.
Named after Taiano’s late mother, it is very much a neighbourhood joint, Gill points out, with the food – from pithiviers and vol au vents to Gina’s pasta with tomato sauce, half a roast chicken with little gems and aioli to share on Sundays, and slabs of “Ravi’s” chocolate cake – an extension of how the couple like to eat.
“We’ve never not had people around,” says Gill, who grew up in an Indian family nearby. His is half Italian, half Jewish. “Our cultures are both very much about food and being around the table,” she says. “At home, it depended on the time of day but there was always something to eat: samosas and pakoras in the afternoon, and full-blown curries and rotis in the evening.”
