La Trompette

Cedric

Top range French restaurant in Chiswick 12th September 2009

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La Trompette is a high end French restaurant for the numerous expats that are leaving in West London but try to stay away from South Kensington. Though we were the only French couple in the restaurant the night we went there for a try.

The menue is great. It has a great diversity of nice dishes all with a little twist that sets the food aside of the random French restaurant. I opted for the home made ham terrine which was served with potatoe pancake and quail egg à la bénédicte. Delicious. I complemented this promising starter with a black chichen breast with chorizo stew, deep-fried courgette beignets and creamy risotto. Delicious bis.

Nothing to complain about in the plates, for sure. If I were to be picky, I may say that the restaurant is lacking of a true atmosphere and feels a bit sterile. The other downside is probably the price. Overall, this restaurant aims at playing in the top range. The food is good, but I felt the check was a bit salty nevertheless. The extra quality of the cuisine did not necessarily legitimate the cost leap compared to a restaurant like Chez Kristoff for instance, whose price are definitely more affordable and the food would be comparable on some items.

Overall, I would recommend this place to someone whose budget is not the criteria and want a safe though promising choice of cuisine from the other side of the Channel.

STP

The best in the west 29th July 2009

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Fabulous place for food.

Probably the best you can find west of central London.

I recommend the three course set Sunday lunch for £25. Michelin star food in London at this price is unbeatable! The wine will set you back alot more!

Afterwards visit Chiswick Park and walk off your lunch. Wonderful!

joevu

Favorite local with great food and service. 17th March 2009

1 found this helpful

Have been here a few times, and my wife and I love this place. Great imaginative food, great atmosphere in the restaurant, and the service is great too. The 3 course lunch menu is great value, we've only ever gone to La Trompette for lunch, and the outdoor setting is perfect on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

Escadaf1

16th January 2009

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Excellent service, excellent food. Highly recommended. A la carte menu a little pricey, but set menus are value for money.

sulin

I want to go back! 16th October 2008

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Sometime’s we all need a little treat - and what better occasion than a birthday! To be specific, two birthdays, as both my and Blai’s birthdays fall in the month of July. I’d been wanting to try La Trompette for a while after reading such marvellous reviews online, and the fact that they were recently awarded their first Michelin star didn’t hurt either, and so I booked a table for the two of us last Sunday at 7pm. We turned out to be the second couple in the restaurant, following close at the heels of the first couple. The restaurant did fill up throughout the night with many groups coming in at about 8pm.

After ordering, the bread basket made its way to our table and we were presented with a choice of three breads; there was a walnut bread flecked with bits of raisin, a heavily speckled black olive bread, and a white bread heavy with olive oil. Needless to say, throughout the course of our meal, we managed to try all three. All three were extremely delicious and perhaps we ate more than we should have. Upon inquiring, we were told that they baked all the bread daily on the premises.

I started with the Confit sea trout, crab and cucumber salad, crab croquettes, vichyssoise and pea shoots. There were two generous slices of soft, melting fish sat in a bit of vichyssoise, acting more as a sauce than a soup. Inside the lettuce parcel was the crab and cucumber salad - just lots of crab meat with a bit of diced cucumber in a mayonnaise dressing. While the salad contained white crab meat, the crunchy crab croquettes were made of brown meat. I loved this dish.

Blai had the Soft polenta, English asparagus, cured ham, poached egg, black truffle and olive dressing. While everything on the plate was very well cooked and delicious, Blai did not feel that all the ingredients worked altogether as a single dish. This was the only minor thing we could quibble about. Of the bits I did try, I very much liked the truffle and olive dressing and thought it worked well with the egg and polenta. I can understand though - I feel that some hams can be too assertive when combined with other ingredients.

For my main, I chose the Breast of duck, pastilla of confit leg, hot foie gras, cherry compote and caramelized endive. The breast was cooked as I requested (pink inside) and sat on a bed of spinach. It was incredibly meaty and the cherry compote was beautiful with it. I never would have thought of caramelizing endive as they had here but its bitterness combined with just about everything on the plate, especially the foie gras and compote. A gorgeous dish.

After much deliberation, Blai settled with the Braised legs of poulet noir, with potato gnocchi, leek hearts, vin jaune and tarragon. I tried a bit of everything off his plate and I can vouch that that chicken was as soft as it looks. It just fell off the bone and the sauce that went with it….mmmmm. We ended up having a discussion about what “yellow wine” was and we thought it was perhaps a typo and should be vin jeune, a young, not aged wine. However, it turns out that there is a vin jaune that is similar to sherry. Whatever it was, it made that sauce so wonderful! The gnocchi was chewy and potatoey and reminiscent of a German potato dumpling.

All the desserts sounded good but I chose the one that really stood out for me. This was the Fresh citrus fruits, banana sorbet, passion fruit jelly, Earl Grey tea, financiers. Rarely does a dessert make me sit up and say, “Wow!”, and this one did. The photo doesn’t do this dessert justice - it doesn’t show that underneath that Earl Grey tea granité was a layer of citrus fruit segments, and under that was a scoop of banana sorbet, and under that was the passion fruit jelly. While all the ingredients sound disparate, together they blend together: the creaminess of the banana, the citrus note of the fruits and the tea, the zing of the passion fruit. Gorgeous. The financiers were equally fabulous, but I knew they would be after the quality of the bread!

Blai opted for another dessert that sounded just as refreshing, the Iced coconut parfait with lime granité, tropical fruits and lychee sorbet. With the creamy coconut parfait sitting on a pastry base, his dessert was more substantial than mine but still very light and summery. I again only tried a bit of it and it was very good and judging by the way Blai cleaned his plate, I would say that he adored it too!

After dessert, I had an espresso, while they offered some hot water steeped with lemon to Blai as a refreshing alternative. Or as my brother so eloquently put it - “it sounds like you kinda drank a finger bowl”. But honestly, it was nice and really helped us relax and it possibly aided digestion; who knows? Alongside came a few chocolate truffles.

Looking at the photos again is killing me; I cannot wait to return to La Trompette! Of course, this is unlikely to be very soon as all this deliciousness comes at a price; I would never try to convince anyone that this place is a budget restaurant! Two three course menus, 1 bottle of sparkling water, 1 glass of a red Bordeaux, 1 espresso, 1 hot water with lemon (no charge!) - this all came to £100 for the two of us.

Photos at the blog post.

Browners

Faultless 29th March 2008

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I'm lost for words and the only word I've found to describe how immense our 3 year anniversary meal at La Trompette was is...

"faultless".

ceedoubleu at 29/03/08

I really like La Trompette - so much so that I don't dare go there too often just in case it lets me down! Suffice to say it never has.

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johnbc

La Trompette 12th September 2007

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We were taken there by an old friend who can afford to be a wine buff at the uppen end of the wine list. On our experience La Trompette certainly deserves its reputation for a fine wine list and excellent advice on the list. The ambience is comfortable and muted allowing one to relax and to concentrate on the cuisine. This was helped by the excellent service we enjoyed when we went - even allowing for the fact that my friend is a regular it was good by any standard.

What excited us was that the food was so good and had that something "extra" that had the whole table smiling and clearly enjoying as we progressed through the courses. Its rare to find a restaurant that gets it so right - too often chefs go over the top with presentation and trying too hard to impress with wacky ingredients.

We went away totally impressed with La Trompette.

williams

Excellent french in Turnham Green 9th August 2007

3 found this helpful

Excellent for three course set price lunches when time is not material! The food is very good, though sometimes the fish portions are a bit stingy (cheeseboard required later) but what wins us over (as wine buffs) is how expertly the sommelier (they have two) can pick out an appropriate sweet glass each for our different puddings, that lifts the pudding!. we have also benefitted from advice on which of two or three reds would best go with our mains. Dont go wandering to Chiswick Park tube afterwards; Turnham Green tube is much closer. La Trompette is on Devonshire Road and if its full the nearest Chez Gerard does a mean Chateaubriand and Cotes du Rhone.

kerry_r

great value michelin star cooking 1st August 2007

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best value high quality meal in london. great place to have saturday or sunday lunch. michelin star food for fixed price of £25!!

ChrisHarrison

30th July 2007

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The food was splendid - in particular the cheese board was tremendous - the sommelier recommended some fantastic wines and the maitre d' was suitably helpful, but the visit was a little hollow.

We were bang on time for our reservation, yet our table wasn't ready and we had to stand on the street. This isn't the end of the world but when you're about to spend 60-odd quid a head then it irks. No apologies or offers of regret.

Our waitress was a little surly, not particularly helpful - and even forgot one of our desserts and port until reminded. Again, by 11pm on a Friday she might have had a long day, but you expect better.

The restaurant is probably worth its reputation, although in comparison to its siblings (Chez Bruce and the Glasshouse) it is lacking something.

The stunning food just about rescued its fourth star.