I was very excited about the prospect of dining at Trullo, a small but relatively new Italian restaurant located within spitting distance of Highbury and Islington tube. After all, it had been receiving rave reviews from all and sundry, and I hadn’t heard a bad thing about it. Impromptu visits were impossible as reservations were snapped up weeks in advance, and it’s receipt of a Michelin Bib Gourmand last week just accentuated it’s growing notoriety. I think what happened next is best described in an almost accurate transcript of a conversation I had with a friend about it:
THEM: How's you? Saw you didn't love Trullo?
ME: No, Trullo was so disappointing on many levels.
THEM: Why is that?
ME: One of us was late as she had gone to the wrong restaurant (d'oh)
THEM: ergh... how did she manage that?
ME: She went to Tinello, so not too hard an error to make :)
THEM: the other side of town
ME: Well, still on the Vic line, so not a total nightmare. We asked if there was any flexibility on the table time as they wanted it back by 9pm, so a 2 hour window, but they bluntly said not likely and maybe we could call her and read her the menu over the phone?
THEM: They asked what?
ME: Exactly. Anyway, he pressurised us into ordering, which we did, although it was almost impossible to get their attention when we wanted to order as we were sitting at the corner table. We ordered pretty much everything they had. There was no fish as the delivery was stuck on the motorway, but you know how I feel about fish
THEM: That I do.
ME: So, she arrived and all was good in the world (she ordered the rabbit fritti). Service got a bit better, all was looking good. So starters arrived, quail and kohlrabi salad, quail was nice, good aioli, kohlrabi was meh.
THEM: Aioli? That isn't Italian!
ME: Nope, but tasted good. The pastas arrived, penne with chilli and mascarpone lacked any kick but was nice enough. Beef ragu pappardelle was nice, very beefy, but to be fair, nothing special. But then....the duck ravioli though in sage butter sauce. They were amazing and easily the highlight of the meal
ME: So they cleared them away, and I didn't feel massively rushed at this stage, although we were conscious of the clock, so not exactly relaxed. Mains, as they so often are, were very disappointing. My 30 day sirloin was bland, overseasoned and weirdly chewy. The polenta tasted pretty disgusting in my eyes, with a huge amount of gorgonzola in it, so overpowering. Rabbit came as "fritti", but also came with a rabbit offal salad which was so salty it was inedible. I hate doing it, but we had to send the salad back. They were very good about it and brought out a fresh lot pretty quickly.
ME: They actually hurried us into ordering desserts, but brought us an extra tiramisu to make up for it. The blood orange panna cotta was not set enough and was starting to break up, and whilst ugly, tasted really very nice. Tiramisu would have benefited from being wetter (more coffee) but was on the whole very nice, and the only other thing that really rocked my world that night was the honeycomb and hazelnut ice cream. I have a soft spot for nut based ice creams anyway, but this was really excellent.
THEM: Would you go back?
ME: No, probably not
So that was that, a thoroughly underwhelming meal which came to a total of £45 each (with wine and service). I sat at the bus stop patiently waiting for my bus in the light drizzle and reflected on what had gone wrong. The first major mistake was for a restaurant with ambition, and charging on average in the high teens per main, to impose a two hour turn around with no flexibility. At these prices, I would expect to be able to enjoy my meal without having to check my watch every five minutes and feel hurried by the staff. It left more of a bad taste in my mouth than the over salted food. Which is sort of my second point. The pastas were excellent, but everything else was either disappointing, inedible or average. Not really what I had hoped nor expected. As I text messaged a friend about the meal, my phone kept auto correcting “savouries” to “saboteur”. I can’t help thinking that there was a little bit of truth in that.
Trullo - 300-302 St Paul’s Road, London N1 2LH
Trullo - 300-302 St Paul’s Road, London N1 2LH
