Trinity is one of my favourite restaurants in London. I love the focus on British ingredients and their style, which is one of sophisticated comfort food. The Sunday supper menu is a lot more rustic than the regular Trinity fare but even the latter, despite being a damn sight more fancy – has a very honest and soothing quality about it.

We first fell in love at The Taste Festival earlier this year, where I must have given them my e-mail address as I have received drool-worthy teasers since, that have worked exactly as intended. Our first real visit, we were a party of six and on arrival, found we had been allocated the chef’s table, which was a rather pleasant surprise. I remember enjoying a delicate crab and avocado salad and a main of juicy, tender suckling pig – that night’s special, advertised as using every bit of the piggy – oink oink.

So, just when I was undecided about where to dine last week (even after putting out the word on Twitter, Londoners – where were you?), another superbly timed e-mail dropped into my inbox. Trinity have introduced a Sunday supper deal. You get three courses – a choice of two starters, a set main course (a whole roast joint or fish, to be shared between a couple or group), a choice of two desserts, a pre-dinner drink, and coffee – setting you back 30 of your finest pounds (sans booze).

There are many things I love about Trinity and this is the first – the bread. Those little rolls are the most adorable angular shape and oh-so cheesy. They are wonderfully warm and when you break them apart and get ready to give them what they want (a good buttering), you get a poof of cheesy steam right up in your face. Fantastic.

To start, we were offered either Jerusalem ‘artichoke soup with hazelnut Chantilly’ or ‘hand chopped terrine of middle white pork, prunes and pistachios with chutney and warm country bread’.You can see I opted for the terrine, which was bloomin’ marvellous. I am officially in love with the hand chopped terrine. Great chunks of meatiness interspersed with fantastic sweet date pockets and flecked green with pistachios. Great textures too, soft ham, even softer dates and then crunchy nutty fun in between.

The main course for the week was oxtail (“sourced from Long horn cattle which graze in the pastures of Appleton Farm in Essex”, apparently), slowly braised overnight in red wine – this is basically what sealed the deal for me in the first place. It arrived with these honeyed Chantenay carrots, super buttery green beans, some seriously smooth creamed potato action and mellow roasted garlic cloves (fast becoming one of my essential roast dinner accompaniments).

Now I realise the contents of that pot below may resemble something you give to your pet but let me tell you, that is some meltingly tender ox meat in there – all wine-y and thyme-y and gorgeous. So everyone just dives in and scoops up a big helping of the meat, followed by some mandatory dripping of juices on the pristine white tablecloth.

To finish, a choice of chocolate pot with ice cream or rice pudding with damson jam. I opted for the chocolate pot, which I expected to be quite small, but when it arrived – what a monster. I couldn’t actually finish it but before I gave in I found time to re-name it chocolate goo. A cake-y circle around the edges but in the centre – pure chocolate goo. It’s a chocolate fondant but bigger and with ice cream. I think that’s enough said really.

Chris came over all old school and ordered the rice pudding, which I’ve never been too keen on to be honest. Apparently though, as rice puddings go, this was top notch. I love the way he scooped out all the jam in one big blob and put it on top of the pudding – how else indeed?

The service is also fantastic, never a foot wrong and yet it’s all very relaxed and the staff are genuinely charming. I promise they didn’t give me any freebies to write this and I still can’t really think of anything bad to say about the place. A little heads up about a couple of things though. Firstly, if you are vegetarian – this restaurant ain’t for you. This Sunday supper menu for example, offered a set main course of oxtail, there is no vegetarian option. Secondly, if you want to dine on the Sunday supper deal, you have to eat at 7pm. I’m thinking either the word hasn’t got out yet or the 7pm time slot may be a problem, as the restaurant was really quiet – even for a Sunday. Do not fret over this minor detail however, Trinity can offer you food at other times, on other days! In fact, I’d rather you didn’t go much anyway because then I know I always can..

TRINITY
4 The Polygon
Clapham Old Town
London
SW4 0JG
0207 622 1199
dine@trinityrestaurant.co.uk

Opening Times
Lunch: Monday – Closed
Tuesday to Saturday: 12.30 – 2.30pm
Sunday Lunch: 12.30 – 3.00pm
Dinner: Monday to Sunday from 6.30pm

I couldn’t find any information about the Sunday supper deal on their website, which is very unfortunate (why the hell doesn’t someone update that?), so I called to make sure and it is most definitely on.