Review: Trivet, London Bridge

We’ve hit peak small plate. I know that, because our waitress at Trivet took the trouble to explain the menu: “Our menu is a three course concept. We suggest you pick one from the starters, one from the main courses and one from the desserts.”

Which is entirely fair. I expect there are probably many gen-Z hipsters who have never been to a restaurant that isn’t either small plates or a tasting menu.

Trivet looks effortlessly cool, tables are elegantly polished and given acres of space for your comfort, there’s smooth wood everywhere. I felt like I’d stepped inside a magical Ercol cabinet. This is classic a la carte fine dining. There are no tasting menus for you here. There are no amuse bouches. The audience seems to be people in black turtlenecks for whom fine dining is more an assumption than a luxury.

I started with a beautifully cooked artichoke stuffed with an all spice cream and topped with generous truffle shavings. All the notes in this dish played harmoniously together, and I love finding a new combo on my plate. The sourdough broth and diced root veg underneath rounded out a really good starter. Maureen’s veal sweetbread had an awesome cumin glaze, although for me this very generous thicc sweetbread needed some serious charring to balance against the vast and creamy interior.

More great combos in the main. Powerful bit of pigeon, nicely roasted, paired with persimmons and chervil root. The perfume of the fruit drifted through the earthy, nutty, gamey dish like a will-o-wisp. Maureen’s Iberico pluma was as good a chunk of pork as you can imagine, and it worked well with a satisfyingly deep beetroot puree and fermented beetroot leaves. Shiitake mushrooms somehow weren’t the best notion with this, but that’s the trick with brave combinations; not every one will score with every punter.

My dessert was glorious. Nothing outlandish about this almond and cherry tart, but the sticky depth of cherry flavour packed in there with the gooey almond was exactly the kind of gurgly pleasure you want to finish up a fine meal, and the cardamom ice cream with it was a nice pop of bright green spice. Hmm… Maureen’s choice was the signature Hokkaido potato millefeuille, going brave again and maybe insisting on one bravery too far. The pastry and potato itself was excellent, the unexpected flavour working really well. But the sake cream in the sandwich was just too austere. Mr Potato needed something sweet and indulgent to really win us over.

Trivet is traditional fine dining. Here are your three plates of food, and here’s your eye-searing bill – around £70 for 3 courses without drinks. Is it worth it? Well, I was seriously impressed by the precise cooking and the inventive combinations. And being an old fart, and having perched on many uncomfortable industrial stools in hip small plate restaurants, playing elbows with the folk next door and tetris with the dishes on our tiny acreage of tabletop, I’m going to admit that spacious and comfy surroundings oozing cool are worth a few bob on their own. So, yeah, I think Trivet is worth your time.