We arrived at Trivet, early, as usual. This was my (Carl) pick and since I booked I have been slightly hesitant about the fact it was A la Carte and not the usual tasting menu. I love the theatre of a tasting menu and feel a dodgy course on A la Carte, means you don’t enjoy a third of you your meal! A real risk
The welcome was nice and we were shown to a good sized round table, perhaps a little too close to the busy Sommelier’s area and the main thoroughfare to the toilet, but comfortable.
The restaurant is informal and modern and on this lovely summer evening open and airy with the bifold doors push right back. The owners of Trivet are both ex-Fat Duck and it feels like they have made the ambience and food style deliberately miles away from the Fat Duck, which is not necessarily a good or bad thing, just an observation.
We started with the menus and the lengthy discussion with the sommelier over the important choice of wines. After a shaky start, turning up without a clue of which dishes we had ordered, the Sommelier was excellent, suggesting wines that were new to us and ultimately very, very good! We had wines from Slovenia and Greece! Wines were locked in and the food began! ,we all started with the goats cheese hors d’oeuvres, which were OK.
So to the main event, James and I started with ‘Drunken Lobster; which I really enjoyed, James perhaps less so, Annette chose ‘Cornish Wild Sea Bass which she enjoyed, and Ingrid chose the ‘Risotto ‘ll Maestro which was also good.
Now here is a break from my usual Michelin club night out! My main was excellent! I don’t say that often, in fact just a handful of times in our many nights out! Also unusually, it was chicken! A Michelin star restaurant with chicken as a main, whatever next! But excellent it was. Elsewhere around the table I am not sure the same level of pleasure was being had. Ingrid was really not impressed with the ‘Turbot Picchio Pacchio’ and James and Annette had the ‘not a crispy duck’ which I think they enjoyed, but nothing to really write home about.
Cheese came next, an optional extra, and a fairly small portion, though to be fair we did share one between four, but at £26?? The wine to accompany the cheese though, was again excellent, unusual and again something new to us with cheese, Only back in the cellar this week, a 1992 Domaine de Rancy, another big tick for the sommelier!!!
And so to dessert, and another departure from the usual Michelin Club night out! Dessert is usually a highlight, artistry, taste, indulgence all served on a plate! At Trivet however, all was not as it should be! My ‘Hokkaido potato’ Mille-feuille, yes I did say potato, was good, not great, but good. The potato played a greater part in the anticipation than it did in the taste, but I enjoyed it. James chose the chocolate and coffee tart, which was good, in James’s words, “how can you go wrong with chocolate and coffee?” That brings us to the dessert chosen by Ingrid and Annette, ‘Trivet Baba’ which was trivet with a coconut something or other. Now, in normal circumstance, if I see ‘baba’ on a menu, I’m there, fully invested! However, on this occasion, I wasn’t sure, where is the rum? It’s a baba!! Or is it? A baba without rum is like strawberries without cream! I am all for invention, but it has to be an improvement on the original, otherwise if it aint broke, don’t fix it! So back to Annette’s and Ingrid’s baba, it didn’t work, too dry and it saddens me to say, two babas returned to the kitchen! Again though, the dessert wine, a big hit!
We took the usual kitchen visit, which was great, chatting to Jonny about the restaurant, the reasons behind the menu and style.
So how would I sum up Trivet! A really nice, chilled out restaurant with nice food and an excellent wine list. They have two stars, a la carte and take walk-ins, not something you will say in the UK very often. It is certainly worth a visit, but somehow I did miss the theatre and excesses of a taster menu and opulence of some other venues. I enjoyed the wines enormously but when the bill is £1K+ the food has to be great, but with three bad plates and a couple of average ones out of the 12 that were served it was just not good enough.
