No. you’re not seeing things. That is a butchers counter at the back of this restaurant. Which tells you that this is going to be an unusual place to eat.

This long-established butchers shop in north St Margarets (in the shopping parade near the junction of St Margarets Road and Talbot Road) has recently branched out to be a cafe during the day and a restaurant by night (open Wed through Sat up to 9pm).

They also do catering, which is how Mr Riversniffer heard about it. At a function, on enquiring who had made the delicious party food, the answer came back “Thomas the butcher, and they’ve also opened a restaurant in part of the shop”. Well, that was intriguing, so we just had to try it.

A friend was staying with us, and she generously declared it would be her treat. So three of the Riversniffer family and our friend lost no time in booking.

Having had their party food previously, Mr Riversniffer had a hunch it would be good. It turned out to be faultless. From the moment the free pre-starter nibbles arrived (see picture above), through 4 starters and four main courses it was absolutely delicious.

I hope they won’t mind me reproducing a couple of exerpts form their menu:

Three of us had the avocado with crab, which was fresh and very tasty. No 1 son Riversniffer (being almost completely carnivorous) had the beef carpaccio, rated first class.

The main course menu is fairly (but not exclusively) meat orientated:

Three of us had various forms of steak, one had the lamb shanks. The steaks were predictably top notch, and the lamb shanks had that unctuous texture that they have when they’re done really well. Chips with the steaks were big, real, home made and very tasty.

And the wine? Well, they’re not licenced at the moment, so one must make the arduous journey (all of twenty yards!) to The Good Wine Shop on the corner of Talbot Road. There we bought a bottle of red and a bottle of white and took them back to Thomas. The wine proved outstanding. So you get the best of both worlds – a great meal and a shop stuffed full of great wine twenty yards away…

I think you can tell by now where this review is heading. From our experience you would never have guessed it was early days for this establishment. From start to finish the food and the service were very assured. V Thomas is a brave and original venture, which absolutely deserves to succeed.

The bill? Just under £90 for the four of us (we didn’t have puddings because we’d done too well on the earlier courses). The government gets about £12.50 0f that in the form of VAT,  so for the calibre of food we thought it very good value indeed. Wine, of course was separate, but the Good Wine Shop has some outstanding wines for under a tenner and Thomas generously do not charge corkage.

Given its position, surrounded by long-standing residents and the more recently arrived residents of the former Brunel site, I hope and believe V Thomas will soon be beating the customers off with sticks.

Book  early for a unique dining experience.

V Thomas

387 St Margarets Road

Twickenham

TW1 1PP

Tel: 020 8892 3725

The Petersham on a sunny Sunday lunchtime – a special occasion.

We were seven, two families celebrating a double birthday, one in each family. Tipped off about the double birthday, they had kindly given us the best table in the house.

Our table was at one o clock. By one thirty the place was completely full – it was apparent we had been wise to book well ahead.

We pushed the boat out. Montagny Premiere Cru to start, Mercury 2007 (Faively, Riversniffers’ favourite Burgundy shipper) to follow.

Four had oysters to start, and three had pidgeon and sweetbreads.

Our main courses were two roast beef, two guinea fowl and three sea bass. Mr Riversniffer had the roast beef. Pink, accompanied by a wonderful horseradish sauce and proper, perfect roast potatoes (not dunked in semolina to crisp them up).

The room is elegant, reminiscent of say the Savoy in the fifties (that’s last century for any youngsters reading this). The service is urbane, correct, flawless. And the cooking is bang up to date. All the main course were pronounced delicious.

Then the puddings arrived.

Here are some examples:

Apple Financier

Vanilla Ice Cream

Rice Pudding with Prunes and Armagnac

And coffee to finish:

With lovely chocolates of course...

Three hours had flown by very enjoyably – it was nearly four o clock when we asked for the bill.

Ah, the bill. Including pre-dinner drinks, service and lots of the aforementioned Burgundy, it came to £66 per head. Not cheap – maybe it’s a good thing that birthdays come but once a year.

But nobody said perfection comes cheap. And the Petersham on a Sunday lunchtime is as near perfection as makes no difference.

You owe it to yourself – but do book ahead.

The Petersham,

Nightingale Lane,

Richmond,

TW10 6UZ

Tel: (restaurant) 020 8939 1084

The fit-out must have been expensive. Rustic Italian, it has a relaxed, urban feel (if that’s not a contradiction in terms).

Starters were slow-cooked cannellini beans with Tuscan sausage (intense flavours) and prawn and crayfish cocktail (utterly refreshing).

Main courses were tagliolini with crabmeat, and calves liver, both perfect. We also had a bottle of white wine, Verdeca, Puglia 2008 (approx £16) which was modern, clean and intense, with a long finish.

The service was charming, professional but also relaxed.

All of this will be no surprise to those who’ve been to sister restaurants Osteria Pulcinella and Pincho, those very professional Church Street establishments.

But at Brocca, chef Pasquale Spaziano has raised standards to new levels. Despite the mid-market positioning Riversniffers has no hesitation in tagging Brocca under “fine dining”.

For a fine Italian meal, the lucky residents of St Margarets can now choose between Brocca at one end of the village, and the more formal A Cena at the other end, near Richmond Bridge.

Let’s hope we don’t get spoilt by too much choice. Who’d of thought it would ever happen to St Mags?

Oh, almost forgot – the bill? Including a couple of coffees  and a generous tip, £65 for two.

You owe it to yourself to go. But book early – the word is spreading.

Brocca Antika

139 St Margarets Road

Twickenham

TW1 1RG

Tel: 020 8891 2644

Riversniffers bumped into two seasoned restaurant goers who ate at Brocca on the first Saturday. Their verdict? The best meal they’d had anywhere in 2009 – at any price – absolutely fabulous.

She had bruschetta followed by a calzone. He had aubergine and mozarella bake, followed by crab tagliatelli. They had a good bottle of Italian white. The bill? £46 including a tip.

The next day the couple went to the Wolseley. They said that the meal, although really enjoyable, was “nowhere near as imaginative as Brocca on the Saturday”.

Riversniffers can’t wait to try it out and is booked in there in the next week. There will be a full write-up here shortly afterwards.

Looks like they’ll be beating the customers off with sticks.

Book early for Christmas!

Brocca Antica

139 St Margarets Road

Twickenham

TW1 1RG

Tel: 020 8891 2644

The Guardian did not get it wrong. I won’t go through what we had, as the menu can be seen here. But in summary, our meal for four was superb in every respect. As well as seriously impressive food, the service was just right – not too fast, not too slow and hit just the right note.

The bill for three courses for four people including a bottle of 2001 Medoc and a 2004 Petit Chablis was £200. Not cheap, but you wouldn’t expect it to be – this is a superb eating experience.

While we were there the phone was constantly ringing, and they kept tactfully informing the callers that they were fully booked. So for dinner booking is absolutely essential, and it’s advisable for lunch too.

So now at last Richmond has a top-class restaurant again. Well done to the team at La Buvette.

La Buvette, 6 Church Walk, Richmond, TW9 1SN                                       

Tel: 020 8940 6264

Thus Matthew Norman, a restaurant critic at the Guardian, in a recent review of La Buvette, Richmond. So Richmond’s very long period without a first-class restaurant (see my review of A Cena on 28th Feb for more on this) may be at an end.

I cannot hope to do better than a critic on a national newspaper, so please just follow the link to read Matthew’s article:

The Guardian – Review of La Buvette

Needless to say, we’ll try it ourselves as soon as possible and report back.

La Buvette    6 Church Walk, Richmond, Surrey   Tel: 020 8940 6264

We never go out for dinner on Valentine’s Day.

After a run of bad experiences (overbooking, price ramping, shoddy food, couldn’t-care-less service etc) Mr and Mrs Riversniffer vowed some years ago never again to dine out on that day.

But when Mrs R said in January she’d booked A Cena, and what’s more it would be her treat, Mr R did not offer the slightest peep of objection. The fact is, if someone is offering to take you to A Cena, you don’t look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth. It’s usually very, very good.

At this point a slight diversion – why is Richmond unable to support a first class restaurant?

Richmond has always had plenty of choice in the mid-range (say £50-70 for two including a bottle of wine). But despite the town always being portrayed as “affluent” or “well-heeled”, restaurants which have aimed at the top of the market have not lasted long.

Over the last thirty years it is difficult to recall a single first division restaurant that survived and thrived. Twenty years ago one entrepreneur opened an up-market eatery in the then-new Richmond Riverside development. Shortly before he closed up six months later, he observed “nobody in Richmond has got any money.”

I leave out of this the Petersham Hotel. In recent years under chef Alex Bentley it has been consistently very good indeed. However, the Petersham is a hotel, and I’m talking about stand-alone restaurants.

Riversniffers would welcome comments. Can you remember a single first division restaurant in Richmond town in the last thirty years that maintained consistently high standards of food and service and survived for longer than say a year?

Anyway, back to A Cena. We arrived on time at 7:30pm and were shown straight to our table. A brace of martinis and two glasses of prosecco were followed by starters of scallops with anchovy, roast cherry tomatoes, green beans and parsley. Sounds delicious? It absolutely was.

Our main courses were: Pan-roast Scottish Beef rump with Chestnut mushrooms, red wine and white truffle oil mash and Sicilian Style Roast Guinea Fowl with lemon and braised broad beans with speck and olive oil mash. Both were faultless.

Puddings were: New York style vanilla cheesecake with blackcurrants and strawberries in Valpolicella syrup with meringue and cream – faultless again.

All this was accompanied by a bottle of Veneto chardonnay and topped of with a large espresso for him and a glass of iced coffee with vodka for her (highly recommended by the way).

Service was attentive, courteous and, well, faultless.

Did we escape the Valentine’s Day curse entirely? Not quite, because there was a special £50 a head prix fixe menu. We reckoned if you’d ordered what we had on a normal night it would have cost about £32 per head. There was a premium to be paid for venturing out on the dreaded night.

But we didn’t begrudge paying it. It had been a great evening, our third successful visit to A Cena in eight months. Each time it has been a rare treat.

So can we now say that at last Richmond has a well-established (four or five years established, I would guess) first division restaurant? Well, technically no, because A Cena is 100 yards on the left on the Twickenham side of the bridge, as you leave Richmond. So it’s in Twickenham, not Richmond!

Anyway, however you define where it is, it’s a great place and highly recommended. Including a bottle of wine, expect to pay around £60 for two for lunch, £100 to £120 for dinner.

Booking is essential.

A Cena, 418 Richmond Rd, Twickenham, TW1 2EB.

Tel: 020 82880108

http://www.acena.co.uk/