Trivet Review

Opened in late 2019 in the Bermondsey area of London, Trivet is a restaurant of great acclaim, having held two Michelin stars since 2024, as well as three AA rosettes also. With a day trip to London planned, I was on the lookout for an informal family-friendly restaurant but one that is delivering some top class food, and on paper at least, this definitely seemed to fit the bill. I was therefore really looking forward to giving the place a try for the first time as I rocked up for lunch with my wife and two children, on a hot late May Saturday.

The restaurant is located a short walk away from London Bridge underground station, and the welcome on arrival was very warm and professional. It's clear despite the high standard here that this is a relaxed venue and there was no issue whatsoever with us bringing children. I really liked the feel of the restaurant too; it's a smart modern space and with the bifold doors fully open to the outside terrace area, the little bit of breeze outside helped keep us relatively cool also. We were sat at a large round table with plenty of space which is always a plus as well.

On offer at lunch is a full three course carte menu (which we ate from in the main) and a shorter terrace menu; some snacks and side dishes appear on both, and there was no issue at all with having some dishes from one menu and some from the other if you wish too, which is a refreshingly sensible approach. One of the key reasons we visited here is the non-tasting-menu approach; although I very much enjoy tasting menus, they're just not suitable for children in most cases. There's no children's menu and I wasn't expecting one, but there are inherently child friendly options on the menu as standard, like a side of homemade fries.

Drinks wise, there's a weighty wine list, but on this occasion as the only drinker in our group, I went for a Liquid Garden from the signature cocktails list which was very enjoyable. We weren't given any other drinks list besides the cocktail sheet and the wine list, so I'm not sure what else is on offer in all honesty, but it felt like there probably wasn't a huge non-alcoholic selection here (if there was, you'd expect at least a couple to make it onto the cocktail list). Our waiter did offer us homemade lemonade though which was very good (full of proper lemon zing) and enjoyed by everyone on the table.

Lunch began with a mushroom amuse-bouche, a sort of mushroom custard topped with mushrooms and flowers and served in a little bowl. Even though our youngest wasn't eating from the full menu this was still served to all four of us (always a good sign when restaurants do this) and it was a very tasty little dish to kick off our meal.

To start the meal proper, I went for the Orkney scallop, served atop Tokyo turnip and a sea broth. This was a really solid dish, the scallop cooking was perfect and the broth was delicious too, it was just a really accomplished plate. My wife went for the stuffed courgette flower which was another really enjoyable plate, whilst the kids had a portion of bread each. The bread was really good, consisting of a couple of slices of sourdough and some very tasty gnocco fritto, with a block of divine Kefir cultured salted butter on the side. We ordered two portions of bread for the kids as a starter, but we were given a free bread refill later on too which was very much appreciated.

For mains, I went for the grilled Cornish turbot, served on a tomato and borlotti bean sauce with razor clams and some corn bread on the side. The turbot was delicious, the cooking of the fish was genuinely to-the-second perfect, and the tomato-based sauce, although there was quite a lot going on, was very tasty too and worked really well. Borlotti beans are one of those things I just don't usually like (I've had some bad experiences in the past!) but you can consider me a convert after this dish. Even the cornbread on the side, which our waitress advised when serving was to mop up any left over sauce, was super tasty.

My wife went for the pigeon and persimmon dish; squab pigeon roasted over charcoal served with heritage carrots. This was another highly technical but delicious dish; starting with some pigeon bonbon sticks on the side which carried a perfect level of heat. The cooking of the pigeon itself was without fault and again, all the flavours on the plate just worked in real harmony. You could feel this is a dish that's probably evolved over time, but the result of that evolution for our visit was some stunning cookery, it was another great plate.

My daughter tried the artichoke main which again had a lot of interesting flavours which she enjoyed, whilst my young son just had a portion of the homemade fries which he was very happy with (some of his favourite ever). These are served with some onion ketchup but our waitress offered (unprompted, I wouldn't dream of asking) to bring some tomato ketchup instead which was really appreciated. She said in a light-hearted way that they keep tomato ketchup on hand "for kids... but also for the staff" which I thought was a really lovely and inclusive thing to say.

After some very impressive savoury cooking, there was absolutely no chance of us leaving without dessert, and this proved to be an excellent choice. For me, it had to be the signature 'Hokkaido Potato' dish; baked potato mille-feuille, sake and white chocolate ganache, with a butter and sake gelato. The first thing I have to say is that visually it was absolutely stunning; I've seen pictures of this dessert from earlier in the restaurant's history, but without wishing to cause offence to whoever plated it back then, what I was served looked a hundred times better on the plate.

But did it taste as good as it looked? In short, yes; I do have a sweet tooth and I knew this wouldn't be a super sweet dessert, but the flavours were fantastic. The mille-feuille itself (with the super-thin potato layers) was delicious, and the butter and sake gelato on the side was an incredibly smooth texture. Again you could just feel this is a dish that's been relentlessly worked on and perfected over time, and I actually felt lucky to be eating a version I don't think could be improved.

My wife had the pistachio cake from the terrace menu, served with kirsch cream and cherries, which she very much enjoyed too. For the kids, there are a range of different gelatos on offer and they both went for the cherry sorbet which was full of flavour and as good a cherry sorbet as you could hope to eat anywhere.

And with that, our hugely enjoyable lunch came to an end. Collecting the bill (with a fairly chunky but increasingly common 15% service charge) was no issue, and as a parting flourish this was accompanied by some very tasty petit fours consisting of rhubarb and cream cheese macarons , and a delicate half chocolate shell that resembled a little egg. As with the earlier amuse-bouche, they served two each of these for all of us including the kids.

I thought the food overall was excellent; there was some really impressive and technically precise cooking on show, and I feel we experienced the result of what has probably been a lot of refinement and improvement over time in the dishes we were served. It's normal for a restaurant to evolve and get better of course, but I just get the sense where this is now a restaurant where they're not putting anything on the menu until they've really perfected it internally, which is how it should be for any top restaurant in my opinion (but often isn't the case).

The service throughout was great too, all the staff were very pleasant (including with the kids) and we were well looked after. As I was stood outside on the opposite side of the road after our meal trying to get a decent picture of the restaurant (tough given the on street parking in front), chef patron Jonny Lake even popped out and thanked us for coming.

I wasn't expecting that and all I could think to shout back across the street in the moment was "everything was delicious!" but that's a pretty accurate summary of our experience here. Overall I'd say this is a really outstanding restaurant with a super combination of a relaxed (child friendly) feel with some genuinely top class cooking. I don't make it down to London from the frozen North too often anymore, but I'd love to visit here again in future and have no doubt I'd experience another excellent meal.