Finally, I made it. Getting to eat at Trullo has literally been years in the making due to a couple of abortive attempts before. But when my lovely Italian friend Lucia and I were deciding where to meet up, she travelling from north London, me from south-west, Trullo seemed like a perfect option. So, a table was booked and her husband David and my son Jonathan came too.

I’d been to Trullo’s ‘younger sibling’ Padella back in 2019 and loved it (click here), so expectations were high. Also, Trullo, since opening in 2010, has received many ecstatic reviews: ‘I’ve been twice in the past three days’ (Giles Coren); ‘Great food, expertly cooked’ (Jay Rayner); ‘We could have been eating in that perfect, elusive little Tuscan trattoria’ (Tracey MacLeod). It seemed we were all in for a treat … but were we?

Sitting on a busy road just off Highbury Corner, there’s little Tuscan (or even Puglian, where trulli are found in Italy) about Trullo’s location. However, once we’d entered, we were given a friendly welcome and shown to our table; menus were put before us and water was offered. The interior is what I’d call ‘sophisticated cafe style’: simply furnished, scrubbed pine floors – nothing fancy, but stylish.

We were first but our friends soon arrived. We took a little time deciding what to eat, I have to confess, there was much to catch up on. But finally we agreed to order some antipasti to share and we’d each order a pasta dish for our main. Some delicious looking Sourdough with Le Ferre estate olive oil (£5.50) arrived fairly quickly, with our wine, but the three other starters we’d ordered were very slow to come. We asked our waiter after a time when they were coming. Two minutes, we were told. Perhaps a little optimistic …

The bread was indeed very delicious. I could have happily eaten more but we’d only ordered one portion and fortunately there was enough for a slice each. We’d also ordered Finocchiona salumi crocchetta (£9.50). They came with masses of cheese on top (and it turned out, inside too)  … and one of us didn’t eat cheese. They were good though.

Grilled Norfolk quail with Cobble Lane ‘ndjua (£14.50) came for the two men. Lucia doesn’t eat meat; I don’t like game. It wasn’t cooked in a way that it was easy to pull from the bone, so a bit fiddly to eat, and Jonathan said it would have been better to bone it, which a good chef should be able to do. Neither was it particularly tasty …

Meanwhile, Lucia and I started on our Cornish monkfish carpaccio with pistachio and orange dressing (£16.50). I hadn’t had monkfish carpaccio before but memories of a gorgeous sea bream carpaccio with orange I had at Bocca di Lupo years ago (click here) inspired my choice. Sadly, last night’s version was very disappointing; neither of us liked it much. The fish was chewy, the taste not particularly pleasant.

Well, Trullo is known for its pasta and we had four versions coming, so hopefully our mains would be more successful.

I chose Tagliarini with picked Dorset crab, chilli and Amalfi lemon (£17). It was nice; I enjoyed it … but there wasn’t anything exceptional about it. Lucia meanwhile had Pici with basil, Amalfi lemon and parmesan (£14). She said it was very lemony, but good; she liked it.

Jonathan chose Fettuccine with rabbit and taggiasca olive ragu (£18). David told us a good story about how the Romans brought rabbits to England and how they housed them on the way. I remembered how I used to cook rabbit a lot years ago … until my daughter got a pet one! This didn’t put off my son, who enjoyed his dish.

David’s own dish was Pappardelle with beef shin ragu (£15), which he enjoyed.

We decided not to have dessert but ordered coffee to finish. David and Jonathan had shared a carafe of Primitivo (£18.5)  and Lucia and I had ordered glasses of white wine each: Gavi (£10) and Mandrarossa (£6.50). The bill came to £173.25, including service, for the four of us.

Sadly, it hadn’t been the treat we’d expected. There were no great highlights; a couple of actual disappointments; and while the pasta was good, it wasn’t exceptional. We all said it was nothing like as wonderful as Bancone, which we all love. And Jonathan and I had recently been to Caldesi in Marylebone (formerly called Cafe Caldesi – click here), where we’d had fabulous pasta. However, what had been a treat was to spend an evening in such good company, so I was a happy person coming home.