Restaurant Review - La Trompette

In March 2013 La Trompette reopened after a refurbishment which has seen two small additional dining rooms, a larger kitchen and a general décor refresh; the restaurant can now seat 75 diners at one time. The kitchen has been upgraded in more ways than one, with the installation as head chef of Rob Weston, who was head chef of The Square under Phil Howard for over a decade.

My meal this week started with a quail raviolo with savoury onions topped with bacon foam and a barbeque dressing. The pasta had good texture, the hint of bacon went well, though the overall effect was quite rich (5/10). Scallop (optimistically listed on the menu as "scallops") with lightly curried parsnip puree had the useful balance of pear to provide some acidity. The scallop (from Orkney) had good natural sweetness and was carefully timed, the hint of curry flavour not too strong for the scallop (6/10).

For main course, roe deer was served with glazed carrots, mash, turnip tops and juniper. The deer had good flavour but again this was a very rich dish, and I wondered whether a little more acidity would have been useful (5/10). Short rib of beef was slow-cooked and served with a croustillant of oxtail-smoked bone marrow, and picked walnuts, the walnuts here providing an extra textural element and the pickling a useful sourness to cut through the richness of the beef (6/10).

For dessert, early season Alphonso mango was served with gingerbread, passion fruit, whipped ewe’s milk yoghurt and lime. This was a refreshing dish, the lime working well with the yoghurt, and the mango contributing their lovely fragrance (6/10). Chocolate pave was served with milk ice cream and candied hazelnuts, the latter working well with the chocolate (strong 5/10).

Service was very good, as it always is here. Overall this was a much better meal than the last one I had here under the previous chef. I had previously downgraded the score for La Trompette and was on the verge of doing so once again based on my previous meal here, but under Mr Weston things are clearly back on track, even in the first week of operation. There are limits to how high La Trompette can aim given its price point and the ceiling this imposes on ingredient quality, but the technical level of cooking seemed to me getting back on track today, and I think that the new chef is on the way to restoring the culinary standards of La Trompette, which had slipped under the previous incumbent. This meal was between 5/10 and 6/10 level, and I anticipate the overall scoring edging back up a point once again as the kitchen settles down.

The notes below are from previous visits.

Opened in 2001, La Trompette is an off-shoot of The Square; while going for a simpler style of cooking, in its own way just as successful commercially. In 2008 it gained a Michelin star. The chef was Anthony Boyd, who was previously the head chef at The Glasshouse in Kew, but this changed as of the end of 2012. The restaurant will be expanded, extending into the next door building, in early 2013, and when it reopens will have as head chef Rob Weston, the long time right-hand man of Phil Howard at The Square, which is good news for Chiswiclk. I have eaten many meals at La Trompette over the years; an example is described below. The menu was priced at £42.50 for three courses, and there is a particularly carefully chosen and modestly priced wine list. Nearly 700 wines are available, ranging in price from £17 to £600, with a median price of £41 and an average mark-up of just 2.4 times the retail price, which is very kind by London standarfs. No wonder that the list has won several awards over the years.

At a February 2012 meal, warm smoked eel was topped with a mayonnaise of egg and wasabi served with beetroots flavoured with balsamic vinegar. The beetroot was good, the mayonnaise pleasant though without much evident wasabi flavour. In any case I seriously doubt that real wasabi root was used here: the usual coloured horseradish that is passed off in London as wasabi was presumably used. The dish was pleasant, though the eel (from Somerset) was not particularly exciting (4/10). Organic salmon ballotine was served with crème fraiche, a little caviar on top and pickled cucumber on the side. Again this was a nice enough dish, but the salmon had limited flavour (4/10).

The best dish of the night was venison, with both loin and also haché (i.e. chopped) of venison served with red cabbage, onion puree and poivrade (pepper) sauce. The deer was cooked pink and had plenty of flavour, seasoning was good and the sauce had reasonable depth; there was a hint of mustard too, which enlivened the dish nicely (6/10). Sea bass was pan-fried, served with Jerusalem artichoke puree, parsley root, roast salsify and red wine vinaigrette. The bass was timed well, the vinaigrette good, though the puree was a little lumpy (4/10).

My mango sorbet with shortbread was very enjoyable, the biscuits having good texture and there being plenty of fruit flavour in the sorbet (5/10). The “Black forest ice cream” had cherry, vanilla and chocolate ice cream spheres with slivers of chocolate and a cherry to garnish, and was also very pleasant (5/10). Service was excellent, our Australian waitress friendly and efficient.