We have now been to all three of Bruce Pooles, Michelin Starred restaurants. The first to open was, Chez Bruce in Wandsworth, 1995, the 2nd, The Glasshouse in Kew in 1999 and finally La Trompette in Chiswick, in 2001. All suburbs of London. My personal favourite has always been La Trompette, basically as for a while there, I could walk to it, second in line was the Glasshouse, also easy to get to, as it is on the district line, right next door to Kew underground station, and then finally Chez Bruce. I wrote last year about Chez Bruce, but it is way down my list of must go to restaurants and not only because it is south of the river  and oops I don’t really like going south of the river, a bit too much of a faff, BUT we found the service, decidedly  iffy. For example, the waiter addressed us with ” You done with that?” Alright in a lesser restaurant maybe, but in a Michelin starred establishment. NO!, The lights were turned up bright before we were hardly on our coffee ( I was almost expecting the chairs to be put on the tables and the floor to be swept!) But the worse crime I felt was that when I tweeted Bruce, about this, there was and has never been a reply. Too Bad.

We also found that out of the three, the Glasshouse was the most affordable, +/- £32 for three courses AND the sister restaurants often gave away vouchers for a special offer, midweek. Not any more I fear, as the price is now £47 in both the Glasshouse and in La Trompete. Affordable for two but when you take the family , it now becomes almost a 2nd mortgage, by the time one adds wine, aperitif, coffee and service!

Still, we went for a birthday treat, and I have to say, we were all ( well almost all) very happy with our meal.The restaurant was full and the service was still as slick as ever. 

 The willowy brunette chose the Watercress Soup with a slow cooked hens egg, she said it was excellent, but then she is very much a soup person and I could have predicted that as being her choice. The boys chose the Tartare of Welsh black beef with smoked paprika and candied beetroot. Me, I had the cured salmon with a prawn beignet avocado, and oyster dressing. All very scrumptious! 

      For our main courses, we chose the loin of Welsh lamb, our newly wed said it was lovely , the Cornish cod was delicious  as was  the wild garlic risotto, however, the other half of the newly weds, who is seriously into food, declared that his Line Caught Turbot ( and additional £5 ) was sadly disappointing, that the red pepper sauce, did nothing to enhance the dish and that somehow the sauce was sweet.

   
   We all skipped dessert so can not comment on that, but back to the Michelin Stars. In a February edition of the London Evening standard it was reported that La Trompette in Chiswick, was given a one-star rating out of five by  Food Standards Agency inspectors, a one-star status means “major improvement necessary”.

The report, following an inspection by a Hounslow council food safety officer in October, said the restaurant had struggled to reach safety standards over several years and had “still not got to grips” with them.

The officer was concerned that the head chef “demonstrated little knowledge of the location and content” of the food safety manual. Other shortfalls were in systems to prevent rodent contamination and cross-contamination of E.coli 0157.
So all I can say is that I hope they have got themselves sorted out by now, as certainly this was  my favourite of the three restaurants, but we shall see.

Pearl S Buck , the Pulitzer Prize winner, wrote many many books, but the one which won this prestigious prize was called, The Good Earth.

Recently dear friends invited us to join them at a restaurant in Chelsea , London called the Five Fields. For some unexplained reason, I associated the name with the book, The Good Earth, and consequently imagined it to be an upmarket Chinese restaurant. Having “done” Michelin starred Indian and gourmet Spanish in recent weeks, I thought this could be fun!

Fun, it was but Chinese, it was not!

Five Fields is an up market British restaurant a short walk from Sloane Square underground station, and is named because once upon a time this area was called Five Fields or Ebury. However in 1666, it belonged to an heiress Mary Davies, who at the age of 12 married Sir Thomas Grosvenor. Other areas of London which were fields ( well most of it in fact) were Tyburn ( now Marble Arch) where public hangings took place and Buckingham Palace was a country estate surrounded by fields, and there were only 2 bridges over the Thames. All of this can be seen in  map created by John Roque in 1746. Fascinating stuff, but I digress.

So back to the restaurant Five Fields. A small elegant restaurant down a side street, the decor is smart and only seats about 35/40 people, the staff are very attentive and friendly, but not the ‘ in your face’ sort of way. A couple of years ago, it was the home to a Spanish restaurant, but after an extensive makeover became Five Fields.

  The tables are nicely arranged in tows and fours but presumably they can be re arranged to accommodate 6. 

Let us start with the wine list, a very nice wine list indeed but with a mark up of about 3 times retail . I understand that restaurants have to make money somewhere, but given that retail prices include a profit, a 3 times mark up is a bit excessive. However it was still very nice.

The menu for such a nice restaurant is £55 for three courses and is innovative. Although as you can see from below, it needs a little translation or understanding!

  So for starters, we chose the Fois Gras with the beetroot and the Sweet breads. The fois Gras was amazing actually with what looked like a small beetroot, which was in fact the fois Gras, which I presume was wrapped in a coating of beetroot, , absolutely delicious . The sweet breads were equally good, looked beautiful, decorated with small flowers. 

 For the main course, tow of us chose the Roe Deer, one the Cod and one the Herdwick Mutton. Once upon a time, the word Mutton conjured up, something old and tough and almost inedible, a really cheap cut of meat, that would be stewed for hours along with some root vegetables, and usually not very tasty at all, but would feed a large family relatively cheaply. For the most part today, sheep meat is lamb, young and tender,mount with modern farming methods and the trend to re-introduce rare breeds and old fashioned cuts of meat, Mutton has once again hit the menus, but rest assured it is nothing like it was before. 

The roe deer, was melt in the mouth and served rare. And the cod, which apparently was wonderful even though the portion was very much on the small side .

 The dessert menu, really did need some deciphering, and so we more or less took pot luck, how difficult is that? . 

I seriously can not remember which one is which, however they all looked beautiful, I do know that I ate the chocolate one, Which was divine, and given that a) I do not have a sweet tooth and b) that I do not normally eat desserts, that is praise indeed . Would I go again, yes ( with reservations ie the price of wine) and would I recommend it and that is certainly a Yes.

Five Fields

8-9 Blacklands Terrace, London, SW3 2SP, United Kingdom

• 020 7838 1082