The Avalon - Restaurant Review

Cuisine: Modern European

Cost: 

Rating: 

Where?:  16, Balham Hill, London. SW12 9EB

Closest station(s): Clapham South, Clapham Common, Clapham Junction, Balham.    

Telephone:  0208 675 8613

Website: www.theavalonlondon.com  

Being a delightful summer’s day and wanting to sit outside the Avalon seemed a good choice as somewhere to go for sustenance and a drop of wine. Falling into the category of gastropub the Avalon sits between Clapham South and Balham with a large terrace at the front and a huge garden at the back. Whilst the atmosphere is pleasant enough there is something a little flat about the whole place, the inside is forgettable and the outside rather like someone went on a shopping trip to a garden centre and bought all the chunky wooden furniture they could find without a thought as to how it would look when they got home.

I thoroughly enjoyed my starter of crab with wasabi aioli, cucumber and fried basil (£6.95)– not a complicated dish but one that was well suited to the good weather and packing sufficient flavour. It was therefore rather a shame that the mains were such a let-down. There was nothing specifically wrong with my dish of linguine with rock shrimps, garlic and lemon; apart from the lack any real flavour. Eating the dish was very much like eating a bowl of pasta that one might knock up at home in a couple of minutes with a dollop of jarred pesto smeared on top – on this occasion it simply had a scattering of prawns. My dining partner’s stuffed courgette with lentils and mozzarella was again uninspiring and bland (and a little too healthy for my tastes). I don’t believe that the ingredients necessarily lend themselves to great feats of flavour, however if the chef hadn’t thought of a way to give the dish some taste then it has to be questioned whether it should be on the menu. At £11 - £21 for mains, though not expensive, a lot more could have been expected.

At £14 the house wine was perfectly acceptable and the bloody Mary with which I started was also well made. The Avalon is not a bad pub, I would happily return to sit in at the front to have a cheapish bottle of wine in the sun and perhaps share a couple of the cheaper starters to fight off any pangs of hunger. I will not however be returning to for a meal, as with too many places it has attempted to jump on the gastropub band wagon without, to my mind, considering what it means or putting sufficient effort into the food.  

Trinity - Restaurant Review

Cuisine: French

Cost:  

Rating:

Where?:  4 The Polygon, Clapham Old Town, London. SW4 0JG.

Closest station(s): Clapham Common, Clapham South.   

Telephone:  0207 622 1199

Website: http://www.trinityrestaurant.co.uk

I can’t quite put my finger on it, however there is something that I just don’t like about Trinity. Knowing the restaurants in South West London quite well, it stuns me that so few people ever seem to speak about it, despite after Chez Bruce it being one of the more upmarket restaurants in the area.

I don’t really understand what Trinity is trying to achieve, it has a look which reminds me of a Swedish log cabin (I haven’t actually been to Sweden, so perhaps that is no resemblance at all) and is tucked away in Clapham Old Town in a little street that gets relatively little footfall. Having entered we were greeted warmly and shown to our table in this clean, smart and minimalist dining room. One of the first things that struck me was the large number of staff – surely far more than a small restaurant needs. At no point during my meal could I say that I relaxed, the quantity of staff meant that there is an almost endless procession of people coming to the table each with some form of rather pointless role.

The pig’s trotter on sourdough to start was excellent, the crackling with which it comes was crunched through with glee. The mains however did not live up to this, my pigeon was pleasant however not particularly exciting and a little tough. The squid and risotto nero with which my dining partner followed again was so-so, however far too large and lacking delicacy or subtlety. The wine list allows you to find bottles from the £25 mark.

Trinity is certainly not terrible and it does an awful lot right, it just failed to prove a particularly enjoyable meal. I certainly found the service overly rigid and formal. I imagine that it would be a good destination for a business lunch and the chef’s table that overlooks the kitchen might also add that little something extra to improve the experience.  

There is often a three course lunch menu for around £25 which allows a taste of Trinity at a slightly more reasonable price, though for the same money you could go to Chez Bruce which to my mind provides better food and an infinitely more relaxed environment.