Blow your own trompet
Mid-Ulster may have a reputation as the culinary desert of Northern Ireland, but it is an area rich with inspiration for chef Noel McMeel and his new 60-seat restaurant Trompets, which opened in July.
Formerly chef of the Ardmore restaurant at the Beech Hill Country House Hotel in Londonderry until August last year, McMeel explains that he chose the town of Magherafelt precisely because it wasn't on the culinary map.
The name Trompets came into McMeel's head during a two-week placement at Chez Panisse in San Francisco in 1995. It's the same name as his favourite mushroom - trompette de la mort. "I love mushrooms - they're such a great source of flavour and have a wonderful texture," he says.
The restaurant's logo is a mushroom-like T, and the interior features watercolour paintings of Tuscan cookery and etchings and pastels by Northern Irish artists.
Internationally inspired cuisine and local ingredients are McMeel's speciality. His work is all about bringing out the best in people, from his suppliers and his team at Trompets to the people who frequent his restaurant. Trompets has been serving 50 covers a day, and McMeel is proud of the fact that most of the diners are repeat customers.
There are three menus on offer. The fortnightly changing table d'hôte menu is available as a two-course (£16.95) or a three-course meal (£21.95). At lunchtime Trompets offers a set menu with six choices, such as chicken and wild mushroom sausage, which can be served as a small or large portion for £5, including tea or coffee. The surprise menu, which changes each evening, is a four-course set menu at £27.50.
McMeel demonstrates his love of fungi in a starter on the table d'hôte menu - cappelletti of wild mushrooms and mascarpone dumpling in a nage of skinned and sliced peppers, which is garnished with fresh herbs, basil, coriander and spring onion.
Eels from the Toome Bridge fisheries at Lough Neagh feature in starters such as terrine of smoked and fresh eel with baby leaf salad and mustard cream. An avid fan of organic food, McMeel has encouraged local supplier O'Kane's Meats in its development of organic beef, which is served with a horseradish dumpling wrapped en crépinette, with celeriac purée and rosemary jus.
Chilled soup of white chocolate and lemon grass with lychee sorbet has been earning rave reviews and is prepared by Emma McLoughlin, a former student from McMeel's part-time teaching stint at the North West Institute of Further and Higher Education in Londonderry.
Pithivier of goats' cheese, normally served as a sweet pastry but which features as a savoury starter on the table d'hôte menu, served with a tapenade of olives and spring onions and a gazpacho salsa, is another inventive dish, as is celeriac and cheese soup with spinach quenelles and dumplings of seafood, chicken or game. n
Trompets, 25 Church Street, Magherafelt, County Londonderry. Tel: 01648 32257
