The best trifle is homemade! But failing that, and if you can't find it at a restaurant, Marks and Spencer will have a version of it in their food section.

Kay

Interesting question! To be honest I have rarely, if ever, noticed trifle on a dessert menu in a pub. They tend to stick to the usual suspects of sticky toffee pudding (my fav), spotted dick, cheeses etc.

I googled it and it really only came back with homemade recipes so I dont think its a popular pub/restaurant dish (but happy to be proven wrong by other Brits!).

One place did come up 51 North Bar & Kitchen found on Poland Street off Oxford St...perhaps you can find it there?

I don't think I've seen it on very many dessert menus either. If you can't find it, don't worry, there are enough traditional English puddings (desserts) to try. My favourite is Eton Mess -- meringue pieces, whipped cream and berries. You will find it everywhere.

It looks as though not even Rules or Simpson's in the Strand are offering it as a regular thing. It's probably not considered sophisticated enough, though I do see mentions that one or other of these or some hotel restaurants have offered it from time to time. Most supermarkets will sell ready-made pots of something like it, as Kay says - M&S or Waitrose are likely to be the best.

St John have it at the mo, though their menu changes frequently, so you'd be best checking in advance (and they are across town, not in Knightsbridge).

http://www.stjohnrestaurant.com/menu/lunch/

There's no such thing as "traditional" trifle: everyone's mum had their own recipe. And no mum's recipe I knew featured rhubarb: the fruit that turned a generation into food faddists.

This isn't nitpicking RM67's laudable initiative - but there's a reason rhubarb fell out of favour from 1960 till the late 1990s, and the tinned strawberries, packet custard, Emva cream sherry, chopped up bought sponge cake all sprinkled with hundreds and thousands we grew up on are simply from a different gastronomic planet from the one whippersnappers like Fergus Henderson at St John have helped create.

I also suspect whatever M&S or Waitrose are selling right now is likely to be very different from whatever you've learned to be trifle: present day culinary sophistication has simply progressed too far.

So here's a contrarian suggestion. The TRULY great thing about trifle is it doesn't need cooking and its glory days were before Britain adopted fridges. You can assemble it in a hotel room, using the kettle to make the jelly (I NEVER ate trifle that'd been exposed to a fridge)

And it's still spring (British English for cold enough on your windowsill for gelatine to set overnight. Believe me it is.Bloody tomato seeds are refusing to germinate). Google till you find a recipe that sounds like what you've previously tasted. Buy a nice crystal bowl from a market (take it home afterwards), buy the ingreds from the most downmarket shop you can find (even Lidl doesn't sell sherry sweet enough these days. But big central London Sainsbury'ses have all gone downmarket). Then assemble it yourself.

I suspect you'll get near infinite advice on the finer points from the old lags on this board. You might prefer QC sherry to Emva for instance...

If you leave the coloured hundreds and thousands long enough, the colour leaches into the custard.

Those with more sophisticated tastes may like to add some tinned cream to Flanner's scouser recipe.

Flanner may have it about right, I think. Tinned custard is available in the supermarket, I believe, and plenty of suitably neon-coloured jellies.

annie-pie - as others have mentioned I would just get one at Marks and Spencers for like £2 or £3, I've had them a few times and they are really nice and not hugely different from a homemade one (jelly with fruit, custard and cream basically). They do a large bowl for 2-4 people or smaller individuals desserts.
As a child I hated my mother's homemade trifle with tinned fruit and lumpy custard. Yuck! It's one thing that I'm glad the supermarkets have "sophisticated".

I was reading a recommendation for the restaurant, Canteen, and saw that they have trifle on their menu. They have several locations in London.

http://canteen.co.uk/inc/food.pdf

Sorry, here is the link to the restaurant website, too.

http://canteen.co.uk/

Wow dorfan2

I could fall into that menu and eat there for a week
Fish finger sandwiches - I hope they come with HP sauce

RM, Seed Cake & A Glass of Madeira for elevenses??? Sounds perfect!