Tabula Trattoria — Restaurant in Lumphini Subdistrict

(Visited Jan22) Delicious, flavourful and creative dishes, and drinks. Almost all the dishes I ordered were graced with some smokiness. Service is attentive and knowledgeable. Menu has no pictures. Ambience perfect for a date night.

Salmon Nori Taco (10/10) Seaweed taco shell that is filled to the brim with aburi salmon cubes and delicious spiced aioli. Each cube is coated with the delicious smoky sesame aioli, which is also slightly citrusy. Loved the touch of avocado puree, and ikura. Originally, I was apprehensive about ordering this dish as it is described so simply on their menu. With reassured by service, and emphasis that this is their most popular item, I took the chance and was not disappointed.

BBQ Baby Octopus (10/10) Absolutely loved the ajo blanco which was creamy, buttery and garlicky. The octopus is sufficiently large for a baby octopus, and covered with a slightly spicy, smokey bbq sauce. The tomatoes provide that savoury umami, and sweetness that brings out the salty octopus.

BBQ Sloane's Pork Loin (9/10) Pork loin, with a crisp exterior, delicious fatty slices and sitting in a broth of smoky glory. It did get rather dry and monotonous towards the end. The brainsed lentils reminded me of baked beans. Pickled chillies did not make the dish spicy.

Baked Cambert (8/10) Oozy insides and topped with smoked honeycomb crispy crumbs, and seated on a bed of pistachios, cashews, and walnuts. Well executed, but not special.

Burnt orange and Milk ice-cream (10/10) Amazing milky icecream, garnished with smoked orange (they're extra smokey and oozing with smoke). Couldn't believe it paired so well!

Cocktails ordered: First lady, Camera girl, Black...

So I really really want to score this as a 4 or even 5. But why 3?

Well first the good, wife had pork belly, which was done perfectly. Without a doubt, nicely prepared and delicious. Cocktails.. Not a huge choice of house cocktails but their mixologist clearly knows how to make all the basics and put together a few more. We left impressed with his tuxedo (5/5) and to a lesser extent the Quince Vesper (4/5). There is a slightly more limited choice of spirits than I expect for this type of place that has made a reputation on cocktails, but what they do,- they do seem to do well.

So how come not a four star (or five which I give rarely)? Well my hangar steak while perfectly cooked in Terms of texture and temperature (medium was flawless), it lacked a lot of flavor. Dare I say bland. I hope this was a once off, because clearly the cook knew how to do a steak, and the piece of steak while not stellar certainly was passable as raw materials... But it lacked either Marinade, seasoning while grilled or both. I'm sure they can do better and I hope it was an outlier on this.

The second reason I can't score this higher on my first visit is I ordered the patatas as a side. The waitress took the order and was fine. When I was served with my steak I found it came with potatoes, and then she served me a large portion (maybe 1 kg of patatas). Maybe you should tell the customer the steak includes a decent size of patatas already? I ended up barely touching the extra dish.

In all I'd say it's decent, but a little more attention and this place can easily do better... Its almost there, but...

Great food with mediocre service. Make sure to check your bill!

The food was great, you must try the Truffle and Cheese Comte, the Siri Shakshuka and the Barbie Girl (watermelon drink).

All the food smelled amazing and we went as a group but the service was mediocre at best. Some food was late, some orders were not taken and made the service a nightmare.

The waiter needed to take the order multiple times when there was only one person ordering the majority of the dishes. They brought multiple cappuccinos when no one ordered. They charged for an additional cappuccino which we had to get changed. Then they didn't add wine and when the wine was added, it was charged twice, the bill was modified three times before the final.

As a customer we are not responsible for ensuring the bill is correct. If we are spending 8000 baht, we expect the wait staff to prepared to take orders without being flustered.

I wish I could give this place a 3.5/5 stars.

However, the food did make up a lot. It smelt great and...