Foodess' review of La Trompette

I had been longing to return to La.T. having been recommended it last year by a regular diner and also recalling good memories of my own from a visit in the past. We booked end Oct 2008.

Décor and atmosphere like the rest of the Brucey group is informal which we like. I ordered boudin blanc in Madeira sauce served on a bed of spinach which was afloat. How it arrived without the very thin juice being spilt was a miracle, and with no starch on the plate I would have welcomed a strainer. The sausage itself was very good but I am sure that the sauce/jus was not as intended and perhaps worsened by poorly drained spinach. It had a slight acrid taint as though some cooking juices had been burnt but no sweetness present as would have been expected from fortified wine input. When asked if everything was alright, I mentioned the foregoing (minus the bit about acrid/burnt), but waitress returned to tell me that it was how it was meant to be. I can’t help wonder why it is no longer served that way – now with roast apple, bacon and mustard sauce and to be fair could purely be for grounds of variation/seasonal change. I think red mullet followed but the rest was not good enough to be memorable.

My partner and I had 3 unremarkable courses between us, the fourth as above. It was all sloshed down with reasonable quality wine; my yearning now quelled and desire to return again waned. Had I booked another night, it may have been as good as Sq.M. states in preamble if chef was on form. Looking at Glasshouse latest menu I could eat the lot, but not perhaps all at once. I hope Anthony Boyd’s standard is as good as it used to be when it was a ‘regular haunt’ of ours. He and his sous chef had been working together for over 15 years and it showed, or should I say it didn’t because you could not detect when Head Chef had a night off. Fantastic sommelier at Kew too. Anyone been there recently?