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Take a stroll down Shoreditch’s Great Eastern Street and you may come across a curious façade festooned in a shock of thick greenery, with ivy, rosemary and summer jasmine clambering up cream-painted walls. Take a closer look and you’ll find it’s not a florists or an apothecary, but is in fact an Italian restaurant: Gloria, the original plush trattoria brought to London by Big Mamma Group.

Gloria’s distinctive and Instagrammable looks don’t stop with its outside décor – inside you’ll find a riot of colour, with marble floors and striped upholstery inspired by the Amalfi coast. It’s also always busy – even on an unassuming Wednesday evening, which is when I found myself emerging through a curtain of leafy fronds to enter the restaurant.

My guest and I were led to a colourful set of armchairs surrounding a split marble table – certainly a quirky way to sit down at dinner! I have to say I wouldn’t be opposed to more restaurants adopting this dining style; sometimes food is best enjoyed reclined in an armchair. In fact, the whole experience feels like a breath of fresh air, the perfect chaotic, hedonistic antithesis to the stripped-down minimalism of so many London restaurants. Gloria doesn’t bother with restraint or elegance – it’s a perfect kitschy wonderland, and its unapologetically loud about it.

We began with cocktails, and this was when I quickly realised I was about to be in for a treat. Motivated by curiosity more than anything else, I had opted for a sorbet-based cocktail: the ‘Lo Scroppino,’ a concoction of homemade bergamot sorbet with Italicus liqueur and limoncello topped off with champagne. It was so delicious that it may as well have been a dessert. You know you’re in trouble when a cocktail tastes this good – I had to swear off having any more.

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Our antipasti arrived on gorgeous little plates (the experience of dining at Gloria is almost as much a visual experience as it is a culinary one). I devoured a divine bruschetta made with focaccia and topped with herby ricotta, confit datterini tomatoes, torn mozzarella di buffala and grated parmesan. It was so yummy and so different to any bruschetta I’ve had before, with the herby ricotta elevating it into a really memorable dish. Our second antipasti was even better: gooey cacio e pepe crocchetta filled with provola and finished with truffle honey.

The crocchettas had given me the bug for truffle so when it came time to order mains my eyes went straight to the ‘In Truffle We Trust’ pizza, a new addition to their summer menu and out-of-this-world good. Topped with black truffle cream, sautéed oyster mushrooms, provola, aioli and fresh black truffle, it was gorgeous, earthy and full-flavoured. The pizza dough at Gloria is rather unique, made with 48 hours of leavening, then baked at 400 degrees Celsius for 80 seconds. The result is an impossibly soft and thin base that balloons out into a giant fluffy crust.

We finished by splitting a tiramisu, because we couldn’t not. The tiramisu was served up in the traditional way, brought out from the kitchen in its tray and sliced into a waiting goblet. There is something of the ritualistic in this way of serving the dessert – fitting for something so heavenly.

Gloria is definitely one to visit – a feast for the eyes as well as the taste buds, and by the end of the evening your camera roll will be just as full as your stomach.