Cafe David could beat Goliaths

Location: Trentham Retail Village
Cuisine: Contempory British & European
Approx Price: Starter £5 Mains £15-20 Dessert £5

Café David is one of those restaurants that you’re just not sure what to expect. It’s setting, in the heart of the Trentham Retail Village, means it could easily be an up-market Cafeteria serving the usual fare of uninspiring jacket potatoes and panini. Happily however, on our visit, Café David proofed to be a modest but classy little restaurant, with the sort of menu you might expect to see in any 4/5 star hotel restaurant.

Just to cover the preliminaries, the décor of the restaurant was chic without distracting from the main attraction – the food. Nothing winds us up more here at GGNSB than restaurants or pubs that try to be either trendy or niche by hanging a load of junk off walls. Café David is minimalist without seeming sparse.

Eateries are often let down by poor service. Cracking food can be let down by a rude waiter or if it’s been left to go cold. Again, this was nowhere near the case at Café David – the waiting staff was polite, cheery and more than efficient.

And so on to what is important – the grub on offer. We kicked of with Fish Cakes & Brushetta – the choices available were fairly diverse but nothing really stood out. The starters were good, but nothing special, something you might expect in a reasonable City Centre Bistro.

However the ordinariness of the starters couldn’t be further from the spectacular quality of the Main Courses. We piped for a Pork Medallion & Black Pudding Stack (£16) and seemingly Café David’s Pièce de résistance, Fillet Steak Rossini (£22). The former could have been a fussy and ornamental dish but instead consisted of generous portions and was complimented well with a creamy mustard sauce. The Steak Rossini was, and I’m not exaggerating here, perfect in every way – the knife glided through the meat like butter, the pate was smooth and rich and I nearly fell of my chair on tasting the red wine sauce.

Because of substantial portions in the main course we decided to skip desert, this being a reflection of our menu choices rather than on the quality of the food. My only criticism was that perhaps the starters were a mismatch for the spectacular Mains. Also the Menu did not provide many choices for those of a Vegetarian inclination. Fortunately here at GGNSB we are all fully committed carnivores.

The wine list was pretty sound. We went for a Malbec, which hit it off really well with the steak. For those who know a bit more about wine than us there was plenty to pick spanning all tastes and most budgets.

To wrap up I really enjoyed our meal at Café David. For a small place in a retail park it is not the obvious place to go for a slap up meal, but it punches above its weight. Sometimes you should think out of the box – in this case I was delighted that we did. The fantastic Main Courses and charming staff made the experience a total pleasure.

GGNSB Rating: 8/10