557. The Cross At Kenilworth.

 

   It was some time - years - since I had last dined at the one Michelin-starred The Cross at Kenilworth where Adam Bennett has held the ship steady as Chef Director since it was opened by Andreas Antona in 2013. Bennett had joined the staff of Simpsons when it was situated in Kenilworth in 2003 and had moved to work with Antona at the new location of Simpsons in Edgbaston in 2004. Coventry-born, Bennett had trained ar Henley College and subsequently worked under Anton Mossiman at the Dorchester and in France ar Restaurant Gut Lassausaie and Restaurant Marc Meurin before returning to England to work in country house hotels including Mallory Court. When Simpsons opened in Edgbaston he was appointed Head Chef under Luke Tipping who was Executive Chef and he held the post until 2013 when he stepped down to lead the United Kingdom team in the Bocuse D’Or competition held that year. Matt Cheal stepped into the role while Bennett’s team achieved the highest position (4th) ever for a British team. Bennett led the team again in 2015 with Britain coming 6th in the European finals and achieving 10th place overall. Bennett took up his post at The Cross in 2013 and the restaurant was quickly included in the Michelin Guide and then awarded a single star which it has retained ever since.

  Rather like Heaven, as described by Jesus Christ, there are many rooms in The Cross with a large outdoor dining area at the back of the building which has all the outward appearance of being an everyday pub until the interior is viewed and the dining rooms are revealed to the unsuspecting - they are spacious, comfortable, cheerfully decorated, rustic in a smart, high middle class sort of way and … busy.

  I chose to order from the three course à la carte menu (£90). Two canapés in the form of gougères with two types of sauce were served. There was a discernible cheese flavour but not at all intense but the exteriors were pleasingly crispy though slightly oily. I have had far more memorable canapés at Simpsons with much stronger and gorgeous flavours than the pair served at The Cross on this visit.

  Afterwards, some good sourdough was served with a nice Jersey butter and this helped to fill the long gap between the time I placed my order and the time when the first course eventually showed its face. It did seem that food was slow to come out of the kitchen, perhaps the baking hot weather was something to do with it.

  It has to be said that the starter was delicious - Dorset crab with a good pasta in the form of cavatelli and a saffron sauce with the well-judged bite of chilli. There seemed to be plenty of crab meat and the pasta was cooked nicely. There seemed to saffron gave it all a warm, comforting appearance and this was a pleasing dish.

  I chose what proved to be a remarkably good and delicious main course of beautifully tasty and tender sirloin cooked over coals with it being spot on as medium rare and served with some toothsome slow cooked short rib and sweet Roscof onion and 6 very well triple cooked chips with black garlic purée and unctuous red wine sauce. This was an excellent dish, the meat being Hereford beef from Ireland (I expect you understand my meaning) and of high quality and the cuisson just as I would have wished it to be. A lovely dish

  For dessert I chose the fine peanut butter parfait with milk chocolate crémeux, the richness of both being splendidly balanced by banana and lime ice cream. A pleasingly light but satisfying dessert.

In contrast to the previous evening’s dinner at Oscar’s French Steakhouse and Bistro where service was speeded up to a dizzying pace, the meal at The Cross proceeded at a snail pace but it’s hard to argue with saying, “Something worth having is worth waiting for”.

12 August 2026

Rating:- 🌞🌞

556. Mallory Court And Oscar’s French Steakhouse And Bistro, Leamington Spa.

 

  The dog and I were very happy to return to Mallory Park, near Leamington Spa, where we had previously passed a truly delightful couple of days a year ago. It had been so good, that this time we had bookings to stay for 3 nights including two evenings - one à la carte and the other for the full tasting menu - in the hotel’s Warwick restaurant still under the guidance of Stuart Deeley. This was a prospect I was looking forward to and the sheer pleasure of staying in the beautiful art deco rooms which look out immediately on to the gardens with the views of Warwickshire was a thing to be savoured. 

  Dog and I deubered at Mallory Court which dates back to 1916 having been built at the orders of James Thomas Holt who then sold it to Sir James Black, founder of the Standard motor company (my father’s first car was a Standard and he named it Clara) and we were greeted as old friends even though Lucy the Labrador was close to a frenzy with excitement at finding herself in this gorgeous hotel. It was gloriously sunny day, the sort of day when the weather is now described as being a ‘heatwave’ whereas when I was young and my father still had his Standard motor car it would simply have been described as a “lovely summer’s day”.

 Our room was as lovely as I expected after last year’s experience and the dog was well provided for and we were both happy to be able to slip out on to our shady little terrace through our window door and make our way through to the gardens which have badly suffered the ravages of the hot, dry summer. The room was stylish, comfortable, light and shot through with art deco glamour.

  After a lunch of charcuterie in the hotel bar, a delicious dish in itself and an afternoon roaming the hotel grounds for as long as was possible given the baking heat, I downed an admirable Singapore Sling in the Mallory Court bar, feeling I must admit, very comfortable and shockingly pleased with myself until it was time to enuber and head for the town itself for the the one rosette AA Guide recommended Oscar’s French Steakhouse and Bistro where Tuesday night is Auberge Night when a three course menu is served for £28.

  The local people clearly love the place and were out there in their numbers taking advantage of the price I suppose and looking very pleased with themselves as I had earlier. Oscar’s makes an effort to be rustic and Gallic in an unchallenging way. 

  Oscar’s French Steakhouse and Bistro has been long established, opening in 2001 under the present patron and manager, Pascal Caulle. The restaurant belongs to the Aubrey Allen meat business with Russell Allen being the stated owner. The Michelin Guide included what was first known as Oscar’s and afterwards as Oscar’s at 39 from 2007 to 2018 with a Bib Gourmand in 2008 in which edition it was described as, “Bustling, informal and unpretentious, set in three rooms on two floors … Good value, accomplished French bistro cooking, notable steak specialities”. There are indeed two small dining rooms downstairs and a larger one on the first floor and the front of house staff busy themselves impressively rushing out the food and clearing away the empty plates in, I should think, close to record time. I arrived twenty minutes early, was seated, served complementary baton and butter (both of which were very good), olives, my starter of Gruyère cheese croquette and was well into my main course - pork rib eye with cauliflower purée, fondant potato and cider cream sauce - by the time I should have been actually arriving. The speed of service was dizzying but polite and quietly friendly. The dining room was red and pink and felt very cosy. The evening’s menu was presented on a card the reverse of which depicted a charming cartoon of the restaurant’s unassuming exterior which was a nice touch. I wish other restaurants would provide their diners with nice little souvenir menus such as this but it has to be said that Oscar’s goes far and beyond what most other restaurants, including expensive establishments, cheer up their diners with such as the complimentary olives and baton and a generous portion of butter. And also, of course, Oscar’s has a notable 25 year-long history which makes it rather special and a necessary location for any food lover in this West Midlands region to visit at least once. And it was thrilling to be waited on by Pascal himself, a local legend and someone who has seen many ups and downs in the restaurant industry over the past quarter of a century.

Pascal Caulle

Oscar’s French Bistro as it was in 2015

  But what about the food? Sadly this was not such a triumph. The Gruyère croquette was large and had a nice crispy coat to it but the contents had little in the way of flavour and it was decidedly uncheesy. My pork rib eye was again generous in portion but overcooked and some of it was unpalatably dry. The fondant potato however was close to being spot on and the cider cream sauce at least added some moisture to the meat and I ate the largest part of the dish and bagged up a little of the meat for Lucy The Labrador to enjoy on my return to Mallory Court.

   The dessert for this week’s Auberge evening was an excellent crème brûlée with a good crisp top to it and a pleasing custard of just the right sweetness. This was the highlight of the meal and my happiness level was greatly raised by it. Coffee was served with a pleasing bespoke chocolate - another happy little touch from this charming bistro.

   There were problems. The meal was rushed though the frenzy of serving calmed down after the main course. The croquette needed more cheese and the cooking of the meat could have been better. It may be that the food improves on nights when a less pared down menu is presented. It was a short evening but not unpleasant and I returned to Mallory Court to take the dog for a further walk around the gardens there as the evening grew cooler and the late summer night brought darkness and peacefulness to the fine hotel.

So it was goodnight from mid-Warwickshire.

11 August 2026

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛

555. Summer At Blacklock.

  It has been three months since I last visited Blacklock in St Philip’s Square and I was visiting the city centre it seemed like a good time to return and see if the restaurant had now settled into being a good and pleasing place to enjoy assault and tasty dinner. 

  Many of the tables were not taken, it being a Friday lunchtime and that nearest me was taken by four noisy men which was not a pleasure. The restaurant is spacious and the tables are not closely spaced which is pleasing but the high ceiling allows noise to reverberate and expand to fill the space available.

  I started with a dish which had previously given me a lot of pleasure - the crayfish cocktail served with two slices of excellent toasted sourdough. The cocktail got off to a good start - the little crayfish were nicely textured and the Marie Rose was paprika hot on the mid tongue and back of the palate which was very exciting. I was advised that the best way to eat the dish was to tip it out on to the plate wbich sounded all rather inelegant to me (and so I chose not to do so) but may it have been wise to obey instructions given that the crayfish inhabited the top of the dish in which they were served and beneath lay a surfeit of avocado, to which God had given minimal flavour when he created it, and the chef realising that fact had oversalted the dull and wretched fruit. 

  I moved on to another previous favourite - the pork loin chop, beef fat chips and ‘summer slaw’. The chop was very good, pink but well cooked and decently tender and tasty. The ‘summer slaw’ had some flavour but was not really very interesting and was hard to bother with but the chips cooked in beef fat proved to be the highlight of the course - crispy and tasty.

   The dessert choice is very limited and I therefore once more had the white chocolate deconstructed cheese cake which was generously portioned and very pleasurable in both flavour and, even more so, in texture.

  It’s a large and lively and quite noisy restaurant. Diners seem to be there to eat rather than to dine and so Blacklock achieves its goal in feeding them and making them happy. It’s not a place one can keep returning to because the menu is unchanging and you can only have so much of a good thing before boredom sets in.

7 August 2026

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛