Every time another pundit announces the death of fine dining – yeah, yeah: me, too – you can feel a frisson of panic among those who’ve built a reputation on it. Chefs such as Marcus Wareing, who shoutily rebranded his restaurant MARCUS (taking tips from his old shouty boss?). “Stuffy formality is out,” it was announced, without any discernible removal of poles from jacksies. I chortled at a recent piece on Tom Aikens, emperor of the convoluted plateful, and his conversion to a more “casual” approach with a five-course tasting menu, plus wine pairings, for 80 quid a head. Er, Tom, sure you’ve got a handle on this casual lark?
That’s a question I’m inclined to ask Adam Byatt, too, whose haute-ish Trinity in Clapham Old Town, all starched tablecloths and reverential sommeliers, has been delighting bourgeois south London for nearly 10 years. After an all-over refurb, he’s created Upstairs at Trinity, a diffusion line designed to appeal to a less formal foodie Claphamite, one who’s moved beyond cords and turned-up collars and is toying with the idea of a tattoo. You can tell because of the delicate installation (by artist Kristjana S Williams), the wooden wine boxes, wide-open kitchen, dangling charcuterie and padded stools you have to clamber on to reach high tables. High, communal tables. I’m guessing these are the very definition of casual, but they give me the gibbering fear.
The menu is, well, can you guess? Go on, give it a stab. Of course, it’s “small-plates-we-recommend-you-order-five-or-more-and-we’ll-bring-them-to-you-when-they’re-ready”. Nothing says “casual” faster than a clump of dishes that don’t quite feed two all arriving at once. Ingredients reflect what goes on downstairs: true Brit with a bit of a French accent, but up here they speak a bit of Italian, too: gremolata, fregola, fritto misto, bottarga, orzo. Sardinian cracker bread carta di musica (archly translated as “music paper bread”) comes with a dollop of acrid spiced aubergine and is singularly unfit for the job of mopping up juices, or swooping through burrata to absorb its good olive oil and smart, seasonal addition of blood orange, mint and chilli; the cheese is DOP, doncha know, but doesn’t taste the freshest.
There’s a penchant for croquette-ing stuff: opulent venison ragù, a crisp cartoon character with “eyes” of pungent mushroom ketchup; oddly creamy haggis on a plate of rose-pink, wafer-thin roast beef and charred bone marrow slathered with whisky mayo – an automat Burns Supper.
Make no mistake, there are dishes of remarkable deliciousness here: skewered, barbecued freshwater prawns (intoned conspiratorially: “Chef suggests you suck the heads”) with an emulsion of butter, garlic and parsley that whinges for some softer bread to soak it up. And long-stem broccoli, just-scorched to spotlight its inherent nuttiness, scattered with toasted hazelnuts and unusually meaty anchovies, the whole held together with more anchovies in its “bagna cauda”.
Alas, no one seems to have sent the casual memo to the staff, who act as if in constant anticipation of a visit from Messrs Michelin. Dark suited-and-booted, they exclaim approvingly at each choice, extolling the virtues of that broccoli as though it were slow-cooked unicorn egg. I don’t blame them in the least – it’s clearly the house style.
So posh are we feeling, even at our high tables, that it comes as a bit of a surprise when dinner is over in half an hour. Unprecedentedly, I even have some wine left: an absolutely luscious vermentino from the shallow end of a list that seems to have nipped up from downstairs without feeling the need to don trackie bottoms. So, in an attempt to make the meal last longer, we order more food: a bracing blood orange granita; a hugely successful quince-based dessert assembling chewy meringue, fluffy set custard and the fruit stickily candied – spectacular. A spoonful of oozing Epoisses comes with “fried mincemeat”: more croquettes, these so devastatingly rich that they almost defeat the cheese – quite the achievement with that pongiest of fromages. Even so, we leave feeling oddly empty.
But still, I applaud the initiative and welcome any evidence that the suffocating foundation garments of old-school fine dining are being loosened. Here, however, the old whalebone needs to be unfastened a bit more thoroughly, with more thought given to the pleasures of timing – you’re not flipping burgers, guys – before the job is properly done.
• Upstairs at Trinity 4 The Polygon, London SW4, 0203 745 7227. Open Tues-Sat, dinner only, 6.30-10pm. About £35 a head plus drinks and service.
Food 7/10
Atmosphere 5/10
Value for money 8/10
