Friday, 2 October 2020

La Trompette, Chiswick

For all the stick Twitter gets, quite rightly in some cases, it does occasionally provide some genuinely heartwarming and valuable moments. "If you could go to one London restaurant before you emigrated," asked the food writer Kay Plunkett-Hogge, "which one would it be?". The replies from the London food world are a list of some of the very finest restaurants in town, a timely reminder that whatever the world throws at us, this city really does know how to eat.

Before lockdown, my own answer to that question could have been the Ledbury, a world-class fine dining place that has given countless showstopping moments over the years but sadly couldn't survive the pandemic. Its memory will live on, though. Or perhaps as so many others have replied, Quality Chop House, whose unpretentious approach to bistro food belies a genius-level mastery of technique and relentless search for premium ingredients. Or even Tayyabs, whose trays of mixed grills are tied up with so many happy memories now that eating there is now an exercise in ghee-soaked nostalgia. These, and many other restaurants I have been lucky enough to visit over the years, could be my definitive, final London meal. They'd all live up to the moment, I'm sure.

Following a languid, boozy reunion with old friends in Chiswick last week, I've decided to add La Trompette to that list. Now, full disclosure time, for various reasons this was not a rack-rate La Trompette experience, lovely though I'm sure that is. One of said friends' boyfriend was serving our table, and thanks to a list of special occasions that had built up during lockdown (two birthdays, the completion of a PhD) and general glee at being able to do normal things again, we were treated to a somewhat "mates rates" pricing structure that didn't quite reflect the amount of food we managed to plough through, or indeed the number of glasses of wine. But at the same time, operations like this can't be faked or feigned - you can't just conjure up food this good only when you happen to know who you're serving, or spot a blogger's camera. La Trompette is, genuinely, a world class restaurant. Be absolutely sure of that.

Part of my enthusiasm is pure selfishness - the menu at La Trompette is like someone's found a list of all my favourite things to eat and written them down for safekeeping. So there's game, of course, not just the more obvious things like quail and venison (though they are they too) but guinea fowl and grouse and even hare which I think I can count on one hand the number I've times I've ever spotted on a menu. For seafood there's oysters and scallops but also cockles and turbot, ingredients that require a bit of thought and effort and intelligence to make the most of. It's a restaurant-lover's menu, created by people who love restaurants.

Anyway enough waffling; to the food. Oysters came dressed with tosazu, apparently a sauce made of vinegar, soy, mirin and - most interestingly - bonito stock, which added a sweet umaminess to go alongside the briney shellfish. I've been eating a lot of oysters recently. I like oysters.

This was the aformentioned hare dish, all pink and tender and lovely. It was amazing how they'd managed to cook this tiny fillet as you would a rare sirloin, with just a touch of raw in the middle of each slice and yet still with a nice dark char on the edge. They came with a little pile of soft grains soaked in a completely knockout game jus which obviously won yet more points, and then as if that wasn't enough the whole lot was showered in truffle. Oh, and that on the side is a little cluster of hen of the woods mushroom, crisp on the edges and with a firm, meaty texture in the frods which helpfully soaked up more of that sauce.

Venison - sorry, "fallow deer" tartare came with an interesting twist on the classic recipe, using elderberries and pickled walnuts instead of the usual capers and cornichon. Also, full marks for using straw potatoes on top, a trend I'm still patiently waiting to catch on in London's burger bars. Everything is better with straw potatoes, but particularly burgers, trust me.

The difference between a merely good restaurant and a great one is its ability to both suprise you with something new but also make that experience enjoyable and rewarding. I'd never come across the combination of sweetcorn and cockles anywhere before - I suppose the nearest equivalent is a Southern USA seafood boil which involves corn on the cob and seafood in the form of crayfish - but this was something genuinely new, the dairy of the velouté, smooth and rich and buttery, studded with little sweet, bouncy cockles. Very clever stuff.

Before the mains, a little extra course of giant Cornish (of course it had to be Cornish) scallop with kohlrabi and a frothy miso butter. This was an exercise in presenting this fantastic bit of seafood in a way that merely enhanced its inherent loveliness without confusing or overshadowing it, and the miso butter was a perfect way of doing that.

Now obviously I went for the grouse, and it was literally perfect. Just funky enough, cooked pink and tender, with a little dollop of bread sauce as a nod to tradition, and a dressing of elderberries for a taste of the hedgerows. In place of game chips, smoked potatoes, which were incredible things, crisp outside and creamy within, with a subtle smokiness and just as addictive in their own way as the straw potatoes.

The other main was turbot, a huge, meaty chunk of it, with fluffy gnocchi and a kind of herby sauce spiked with marjoram which again was one of those flavour combinations I've rarely if ever seen before but worked very well indeed. To be honest, I was still a bit distracted by my grouse, but I didn't hear any complaints from the other side of the table.

We had four desserts. Look, if you can't finish a 5-course lunch with matching wines on a random Friday in September by ordering all the desserts from the menu at once, then when can you, in all honesty? They were all great, but particular mention should go to the apple crumble soufflé and buttermilk ice cream, which was a perfect texture (not too eggy, or dense) and the muscovado custard tart which right up there with the Marksman's brown butter and honey tart, which anyone who's ever tried it will tell you, is quite the compliment. The fourth dessert, by the way, was a bitter chocolate pave with raisin and milk ice cream. All the ice creams were smooth and creamy and light, a masterclass in the form.

I was always likely to enjoy La Trompette, being from the same stable as Wandsworth's Chez Bruce, Kew's the Glasshouse and yes, the Ledbury, and also given that anywhere with a fondness for unusual game and modern British cooking is going to tickle quite a few of my personal fancies. It is, as I've said, a restaurant-lover's restaurant, with a solid pedigree and years of practice in capable and friendly service, a polished, happy operation that you'd have to have a piece of your soul missing not to appreciate. If the food had been merely decent, we still would have had a whale of a time that afternoon, because in places like this, it's practically impossible not to.

But add into that alchemy some of the very best food I've been served in the capital, well then you have the makings of something truly special. Experimental when it wants to be, using unusual ingredients and fancy techniques always in a way that delights rather than confuses, that surprises rather than shocks, it is a friendly neighbourhood restaurant to those who want it to be no more than that, but it is also, crucially, a special-occasion destination for the food-obsessed (guilty) where you can indulge your craving for game or seafood or and be absolutely reassured that what you'll be served will be the absolute best it can be. And I intend to do just that, as often as I possibly can.


The above bill doesn't include some of the wines, including an introductory round of champagne, or the scallops, or the extra dessert, but probably isn't a million miles off a realistic bill if you read it upside down and squint.

1 comment:

Its me again said...

Sounds nice , oysters look a bit dry, could be the pic. lots of liquid is a sign, not an absolute guarantee of freshness. Is that ice cream in a soufflé, I know its the done thing, but hot soufflé melted ice cream, never worked it out? Other than than my silly niggles another cool review, a place to visit, for sure.