Harden's says
The team behind La Felicitá and Pink Mamma in Paris are opening two restaurants in London in 2019 - Gloria is the first, a 'vintage style' Italian trattoria with 160 covers and a passion for authentic sourcing.
Harden's survey result
Summary
“Great for a fun dinner out with friends or family, thanks to the lovely cocktails and amazing decor!” – Big Mamma Group’s happening Shoreditch Italian is a happy, overblown pastiche of retro Amalfi-coast style. Results are “inconsistent in quality, but some dishes are mind blowing” (if only in terms of their heart-attack-threatening creaminess). Top Menu Tip – yummo pizza.
Summary
“It’s such a lot of fun” (whether you eat “upstairs – think explosion in a china/flower shop; or downstairs – sexy booths”) at the Big Mamma Group’s “kitsch-but-in-a-great-way” Italian, which imports the brio of an imagined Amalfi coast, circa 1972, to this Shoreditch corner site. “You need to love a party” though – the filling cod-Italian cuisine is “not bad” but “doesn’t match the buzz or the queues”.
Summary
“A total hoot, especially if it’s your birthday” – lunch at this glammed-up 70s-style Italian on two floors in Shoreditch is “like nipping to Sicily for the afternoon”. The Big Mamma Group’s tone is most definitely tongue-in-cheek rather than po-faced authenticity, with the Insta-friendly decor – “beautiful dining room adorned with flowers” – and cheesy menu items (‘pasta alla lamb-orghini’, anyone?). Still, the food can be creamily “delicious – with the standout dishes of truffle pasta & lemon meringue pie”.
Summary
“If Wes Anderson did Italian restaurants, they might be something like this”; and this “very 2019” Shoreditch yearling – whose glam, pastiche decor apes a thriving 1960s ristorante – feels “like popping to the Amalfi Coast for lunch without the air travel!”. Definitely, it’s not one for food purists, who can condemn what they see as “overhyped, Instagram-led, bog-standard, fake cooking”. Don’t take it too seriously, though, and it’s superb “fun”, service is “prompt and smooth-running”, and the calorie-laden scoff – with echoes of 1970s Britalian – is “generously portioned” and “surprisingly good”.
For 33 years we've been curating reviews of the UK's most notable restaurant. In a typical year, diners submit over 50,000 reviews to create the most authoritative restaurant guide in the UK. Each year, the guide is re-written from scratch based on this survey (although for the 2021 edition, reviews are little changed from 2020 as no survey could run for that year).
Have you eaten at Gloria?
54-56 Great Eastern Street, London, EC2A 3QR
Restaurant details
Prices
 Drinks |
|
|---|---|
| Wine per bottle | £27.00 |
| Filter Coffee | £3.00 |
 Extras |
|
|---|---|
| Service | 13.50% |
54-56 Great Eastern Street, London, EC2A 3QR
Opening hours
| Monday | 12 pm‑3:30 pm, 5:15 pm‑10:45 pm |
| Tuesday | 12 pm‑3:30 pm, 5:15 pm‑10:45 pm |
| Wednesday | 12 pm‑3:30 pm, 5:15 pm‑10:45 pm |
| Thursday | 12 pm‑4:15 pm, 5:15 pm‑11 pm |
| Friday | 12 pm‑4:15 pm, 5:15 pm‑11 pm |
| Saturday | 12 pm‑4:15 pm, 5:15 pm‑11 pm |
| Sunday | 11 am‑4:15 pm, 5:15 pm‑10:30 pm |
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