Weekly Review: La Trompette

Top place that rewards the journey to Chiswick.

Quick hit: First-rate French-inspired modern cooking, engaged service, and stunning desserts.

Details: Booking essential. Chiswick. ££££.
Restaurant website. More on Instagram and from Michelin.
Find it on Google Maps. 3-7 Devonshire Rd, Chiswick, W4 2EU.

If you live in southeast London, a trip to Chiswick feels like a trip to the countryside. Spend 40 minutes on the train, albeit the district line, and you find yourself on a leafy high street, full of local shops. Apart from the London brick as the prevailing building material, and with a squint, it could be Cambridge.

I was thinking about this as I reflected on Anjli Raval’s piece in the FT Magazine this weekend which argued that today’s best take on the professional lunch might involve a trip to said countryside.

Certainly many people live in Chiswick and many more in west London, so it can also be a convenient choice for a Friday all-afternoon meet-up.

Chiswick is also a business centre in its own right. The Chiswick Business Park is home to some of the UK’s most important corporate HQs. According to Google Maps, the park houses corporate offices for Qualcomm, Paramount, Pernot Ricard, Danone, Sony Mobile, Foxton’s, IMG, and various others. There are more nearby.

So there are lots of reasons to head to Chiswick for lunch. And if you are, it’s hard to imagine a better choice than La Trompette.

A mainstay in west London and a long-time holder of a Michelin star, La Trompette has delivered fantastic food and delightful experiences for more than two decades. Its sister spot, Chez Bruce, has a similar track record in south London.

I visited with a group of friends on a recent Friday to take advantage of a free corkage offer. Each of us brought a bottle, which sommelier Donald Edwards graciously managed for us.

It was for La Trompette to provide the food. And the kitchen, under head chef Greg Wallman, really delivered.

We started with oysters from Malden. Fresh, juicy and sweet, they were cleverly supplemented with a bit of celery and a dab of a sriracha-like hot sauce. Served with a lovely Billecart-Salmon rose champagne. Perfect.

Starters included tuna sashimi and thinly sliced veal with bagna cauda, a dipping sauce made from garlic and anchovies. Both were excellent. But the standout starter was the crab and scallop tortelloni with bisque. Rich and wonderful, I could have happily eaten a pot full and taken a nap. There was an off the hook white Rioja with this course, similarly rich and wonderful.

Thinly sliced veal rump cap with bagna cauda.

A short interlude for a beautiful white Burgundy from Chassagne followed. Then the main event.

For mains, with an old Bordeaux waiting on the sideboard, most of us went for lamb, although happily, there was one order of Anjou pigeon with figs. Both dishes were excellent, and the lamb was a great match for the wine with a wonderful hit of acidity from celeriac and meaty crunch from a portion of belly. But the pigeon was a bit more interesting, with a deep sauce, full of fantastic flavour.

Lamb loin and crispy belly. The gnocchi were perfect for soaking up sauce.

Anjou pigeon with roasted figs. Photo courtesy of James Whatley.

For dessert, the headline item was Chocolate soufflé, that must-order culinary miracle. We also tried the vanilla, caramel, and pecan éclair.

And here, a brief digression: Why do we value pastry chefs so much less than head chefs? In most kitchens, the head chefs have very little to do with the pastry section. They simply hire a brilliant pastry lead and leave that person to their work. But pastry work is arguably more technical, more precise, and more prone to failure than any other section in the kitchen. Why don’t we know their names? In professional kitchens, pastry chefs are more likely to be women. I wonder if that’s a factor. I’m ashamed to say that I failed to get the name of the miracle worker behind La Trompette’s pastry section. I will try harder next time.

Chcolate soufflé at La Trompete. Photo courtesy of James Whatley.

Because the soufflé was perfect, and so was the eclair, and paired with a lovely, sweet Gewürztraminer, it was the ideal way to complete our experience. Except for the “let’s have one more bottle” that we enjoyed on the terrace afterwards, obviously.

Reflecting on the experience during the train ride back to London, I decided that I had really enjoyed my visit to Chiswick’s demi-countryside. And La Trompette really delivered.

A lot of credit for our experience goes to sommelier Donald, who took the measure of our group, spent a lot of time having fascinating and often hilarious chats with us about wine and other things, and guided the pace and rhythm of the afternoon to perfection.

The other real highlight was the price. Our three course lunch, ordered from the full menu rather than the set menu, was priced at £65.00 per person. We benefited tremendously from bringing our wine under the free corkage offer. And while I am not suggested it was “cheap eats,” the La Trompette price point is about as reasonable as you will find for any Michelin-star caliber experience in London.

So if you are looking for a lunch spot in Chiswick, or you want a destination restaurant that happens to be nearby, La Trompette answers very well.

Thanks for reading this week’s review. Following last weekend’s FT Magazine dedicated to the subject, it seems that lunch is a hot topic. Which makes this a great time to subscribe if you’re not already and to share Professional Lunch with friends and colleagues.

And if you have a place you think I should try or a recent experience you’d like to share, please feel free to message or leave a comment.