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At Teal, Sally Abé Makes Fine Dining Feel Less Precious

At her intimate new bistro in Hackney, Sally Abé swaps tasting-menu stiffness for comfort, conversation and nostalgic British dishes.

In February, Sally Abé got the keys to her first solo restaurant, Teal. Located on Wilton Way, a buzzy street in Hackney, it was previously home to Michelin-starred eatery Pidgin, which closed in 2024 and was replaced by the short-lived Sesta. Abé had been looking for a potential spot since 2019, and it took a long time to find a small site that would be achievable without investors. She remembers opening the door for the first time in complete shock. 

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“I was here on my own, and I walked in, and it was all dark,” she tells Observer in early May, six weeks after Teal’s debut. “I was stuck here for a minute, just thinking, ‘My God, this is real now.’ A restaurant is something that most chefs aspire to have your whole career. And certainly in the last six or seven years, that was more turbocharged for me. But I couldn’t believe it was actually happening.”

It took only Abé and her business partner, Abe Drewry, six weeks to transform the space into Teal, named for Abé’s favorite game bird, a type of wild duck. There are only 25 covers across the tables and countertop, which overlooks the bar and kitchen. The colors are soft and welcoming, and the atmosphere is relaxed—a carefully curated home-away-from-home vibe.

“I want it to feel like an extension of my living room, warm and inviting,” she says. “Everything on the shelves is from my house. All of my books and loads of my knick-knacks. Some of the artwork is from my own walls. My goal was to make it feel very calm when you’re in here. Like it’s somewhere that you can settle into for lunch or a dinner and waste a few hours and not look at your watch.” 

Opening a restaurant without investors is unusual, but Abé didn’t want to answer to anyone else. She and Drewry funded the restaurant without going into debt, which they were able to do by sticking with a smaller room and hiring just five additional staff members. 

“The best thing about this site was an achievable reality,” she says. “To build a restaurant from the ground up, you need a million quid. Obviously, we’ve spent nowhere near as much as that here, but that’s because it’s so much smaller. And I’m really proud that we’ve done it........

© Observer