Polentina

The open kitchen here runs on two induction stoves and a bain-marie, in the staff canteen of a Bow garment factory, and two working London chefs have named it unprompted in separate interviews nine months apart.

Why go

Sophia Massarella is a Canadian photographer who started cooking her Italian family's polenta, pasta and salads during lockdown and then took a few tables in the canteen of ApparelTasker, a sustainable fashion factory off Empson Street. The Good Food Guide, which carries her as a Local Gem, describes the room as "a cosy corner sealed off by glass so guests can observe the production line" (Good Food Guide). The menu changes daily and pulls from both sides of her family, the Italian one for stuffed and layered things and offal, the Austrian one for soups, dumplings and crepes in broth. At weekend dinners she has been joined by Ollie Bass, formerly of Quo Vadis and Sessions Arts Club, because the evening service runs a longer menu. Lunch lands at 1pm and the factory staff eat then too.

Order this / avoid

• Order: pomodori col riso if it is on the board, a Sorrento tomato hollowed and stuffed with herby carnaroli rice and baked until the skin yields without collapsing. Fresh spaghetti with aglio, olio, peperoncino and bottarga. Ricotta di pecora under long-stewed bobby beans. Finish with the Puglian lemon ice cream.
• Avoid: treating the 1pm sitting as yours. The workforce eats then and you fit around them. Setting off without checking the route, since it is down an industrial track past the bins. Monday and Tuesday.

What locals & experts say

• James Lowe, of Lyle's and Flor, naming it in his own London guide: "And Pollentina, which is in the outskirts of East London. It's a two-person operation, a small dining room built in the corner of a textile factory." ref
• Eleni Thoma, chef at Joyau, nine months later and in a different publication: "The food is also beautiful, uncompromising super regional Italian cooking that isn't afraid to showcase lesser known cuts and ingredients." She describes it as functionally a workers' canteen that feeds the garment factory before it opens to the public. ref
• Grace Dent, The Guardian: "Anyone with enough investment can serve gold-leafed slop in Mayfair, but it requires genuine guts and passion to take on a few tables in Bow that look out on a load of sewing machines." On the kitchen: "the open kitchen currently operates with only two induction stoves and a bain-marie in a space more suited to making egg and chips." On the room's etiquette: "Lunch was served at 1pm on the dot, and the factory staff ate at the same time as the random diners, who just have to fit in around them and be respectful of the fact that this is their space." ref
• Guide standing: The Good Food Guide carries it as a Local Gem, which is the guide's own category rather than a score.

Good to know

• Where: 1 Bowood House, Empson Street, Bow E3 3LT, inside the ApparelTasker factory on an industrial estate. Tower Hamlets, and closer to Bromley-by-Bow than to anything else.
• When: as of Dent's review, lunch Wednesday to Saturday around midday to 3pm, dinner Friday and Saturday evenings. Those hours are eleven months old, so check before you travel.
• Cost: about 25 pounds a head plus drinks at the time of the review, with the two main dishes at 13 and 15.
• Booking: the room is small enough that turning up unbooked is a gamble.
• Drinks: kombucha from Matka Ferments alongside the wine, including a dehydrated strawberry and sweet cicely one.
• Hygiene: rating 5, inspected 16 April 2025, Tower Hamlets ref.

Jeff's take (his words)

Nothing from Jeff. The saved-places export carries this row with an empty Note column, so jeff_note stays empty.

Verdict (Chef Jeff ladder)

must-visit — Build the day around finding it, because the ratio of cooking to equipment here is absurd. Sophia Massarella runs an open kitchen with two induction stoves and a bain-marie, in the staff canteen of a Bow garment factory, and out of it comes regional Italian food that James Lowe of Lyle's and Eleni Thoma of Joyau have both named unprompted, in different publications nine months apart. Two independent working chefs pointing at the same room is the strongest evidence we hold short of Jeff's own word, and Grace Dent then went and confirmed it in the Guardian, writing that it takes genuine guts to take on a few tables that look out on a load of sewing machines. The cooking is technique you notice: a Sorrento tomato hollowed and stuffed with carnaroli rice, baked until the skin gives but still carries the weight, with the rice somehow still al dente after soaking up everything. Thoma's word for the menu is uncompromising, and it changes daily. About twenty-five pounds a head, and the factory staff eat at 1pm sharp at the tables next to you, which you fit around rather than the other way round. The room is a glassed-off corner of a production line down an industrial-estate track past the bins. Craft carries the most weight and the craft here is doing more with less than anyone in this slice.