trinity

the restaurant was full on our visit for sundaylunchwith what looked like lots of well heeled local residents. it's a popular place and i can certainly understand why people are happy to spend lots of money, eating and drinking here. it's a very relaxing venue, the food is good and the service is friendly. i did find it a bit schizophrenic though, not quite hitting the mark as a fine dining restaurant but delivering a lot more than your typical brunch/lunch spot.

the look of the place, the service (on the surface), the food presentation (if not the portion size) are fine dining standard. it's just not quite there, the portions are too large for one thing and we had a couple of minor issues with the service, just little things like clumsy cutlery layout, our bottle of wine being a bit too far away and glasses not being kept topped up as well as they could be, that and running out of towels in the bathroom.

the menu was a real mix to, with summer and winter fare as well as brunch andlunchstyle dishes. ironically the summer/winter aspect was not a great problem as the weather outside was in keeping.

we had an amuse bouche that consisted of a hummus dip with radishes and fresh garden peas in their pods and some warm homemade bread. then for starters my companion had the fried ducks egg with scottish girolles, english mustard mayonnaise and toasted brioche - a sort of up market big breakfast, matched with a glass of wild boy chardonnay - kinda of weird, but it worked. i had 1/2 dozen oxtail stuffed snails with garlic butter and soldiers - a nicely presented brunch type dish that was a bit awkward to eat, but very tasty none the less.

for my main course i had the belly of old spot pork, charred spring onions, gooseberries, jerseys and crackling - the portion was huge, but fortunately the pork was nice and light and the gooseberries refreshing, so i had no problem finishing it off. my companions main course was even more substantial, he ordered braised lamb shoulder faggot which came with a rather large pot of pearl barley, peas and mint - very rustic, and definitely not what you expect on a summer menu.

for dessert we had the cherry bakewell tart and the english strawberries, vanilla cream and ginger biscuits accompanied by a rather nice bottle of moscato d'asti.

a return to clapham common for another leisurelylunchwith my parents. last time out, the dairy swept us off our feet. how would adam byatt's trinity do?



we arrived hungry at 12.30 and found, for a while at least, that we had a dining room all to ourselves, with windows opening out on to a sunny clapham pavement. yes, that is starbucks, not a delightful independent coffee shop. give clapham a few months.



we went straight for thelunchmenu. 2 courses for £22 or 3 for £27 (tuesday-saturday). a la carte is of course available, or you can go for the £50 tasting menu. we ordered a trio of greengage bellinis (one boozy, one water, one lemonade) which were accompanied by a complimentary snack box of radishes, cheese sticks with olive tapenade and roe mayonnaise.


more treats turned up before the starters - a bowl of sourdough that was the product of 14 years of fermentation (!) and triple whipped butter. this threatened to steal the show, and seconds were ordered. funnily enough, the only other place i have been served butter on a rock since starting this blog was at the dairy round the corner. clapham knows how to serve its bread. i shall be triple whipping my butter from now on, but i'm not waiting 14 years for the perfect sourdough.


the starters soon made their grand entrance. staff were balletic in their approach to serving, with plates going down in unison as details of the dish were almost whispered to the relevant diner. a quail's egg sat atop a fort of potted smoked trout whilst watercress soup was poured all around - great presentation with flavours to match. my mother meanwhile had a generous portion of vitello tonnato (a piedmontese dish of cold, sliced veal covered with a tuna-flavoured mayonnaise) which was wrapped around bobby beans, with crackling and ravigote (a lightly acidic, classic french sauce). could trinity keep up this high level throughout?



there was no sign of a dip in quality (or quantity) in the mains. that second portion of bread might have been a mistake (i said might). beautifully cooked warm roast salmon with bonus crispy skin, leaning on a spaghetti of vegetables, was surrounded by al dente agnolotti (another import from piedmont, beef and vegetable stuffed pasta) and a crab vinaigrette. wow. i might have to rush back for more before the menu changes with those pesky seasons.



my dad's plate of lamb offal was an impressive sight - not something that i would order, but right up his street. it firmly got the thumbs up, an empty plate telling most of the story. if you've gotlunchplans to eat at heston's dinner (£39 for 3 courses, 2 michelin stars), it might be time to change the booking.




(make sure you look at the attached photos!)

after a brief discussion about sharing desserts, we greedily ordered three separate bowls, spurred on by the superb staff's enthusiasm for their favourite pudding making it back on to the menu.



that enticing, inverted fried egg looking thing you can see is a valrhona chocolate hot pot with salt caramel ice cream. granted, the salted caramel struggled to compete with the gooey, rich valrhona chocolate, but who cares? i was ultimately defeated, but i ate way more of it than i should have.



and then they went and brought us some macaroons on a bed of cocoa nibs. i managed to fit one in - only polite, right?



as you might have noticed, we were rather happy with our lunch. not just the food and drink though as the service was second to none. i shouldn't think it will be too long before we are back for the tasting menu. well done trinity, you (and the dairy) are doing clapham and south london proud.



n.b. trinity has some unexpected opening times:lunchis served tue-fri 12.30-2.30pm, sat midday-2pm, sun midday- 3.30pm. dinner is served mon-sat: 6:00-10pm. on monday bank holidays trinity is also open for lunch.



p.s. adam byatt has another restaurant, bistro union, on the charming abbeville road. i might go along for a sunday supper club evening when corkage is free.

a three courselunchwill only set you back £20. each dish is generously portioned with exceptional quality that is no less than michelin starred restaurants.

i'm not entirely sure how or why or what we were thinking but one saturday about a month ago, with my brother in town, we somehow decided to visit clapham, just for the sheer fact that it was easy to get to with the overground. now, i'm quite in love with the overground with its air conditioning and, well, general over-groundedness but to travel to clapham junction just because we could was, in hindsight, absolute madness. still, i managed to dig up the name of a restaurant i'd been meaning to try in clapham for ages - trinity. a phone call to them confirmed that their setlunchwas available on a saturday - £20 for three courses. good, we had a place to eat. this restaurant isn't actually near clapham junction but rather clapham old town, about a half hour walk through clapham common. that brisk autumn walk through the common was just what we needed to build up an appetite and at 1pm on the dot, we sat down, ravenous, in the restaurant. we were first brought an amuse of fresh radishe