514. Tropea.

 

  Tropea gets everything right. The service is remarkably good, helpful, friendly, just the right amount of time spent in pleasantries and the delivery of information about the food being served and useful suggestions if the diner asks for them and a just sense of knowing what service is.

  The seating is comfortable and the tables are big enough to make sure everything on them is not in a permanent state of having to be shuffled around every minute or so. The decor is bright and pleasant, the large front window opening on to the world outside gives natural light to the restaurant even if it is a mildly depressing street in Harborne chokingly busy with traffic, which never seems to me to be as attractive as those who live there seem to believe - it’s not Hampton in Arden or Henley in Arden or Knowle, let’s put it that way.

  But regardless of the somewhat dreary inner city suburb in which Tropea is located, it’s all about the food and that is at the apogee of great, delicious dining in the city - comfortingly rustic, generally portioned, gorgeously, unashamedly enjoyable.

  I started as I feel I must always do, with my aperitivo in the form of a soul relaxing paper plane and then nibbled on the sweetly acidic, nicely crunchy housemade seasonal pickles while I waited for my other antipasti which took the form of delightful sliced courgettes in light, fawn-coloured tempura batter sweetened moreishly with drizzles of Moor Pool honey and finished with pecorino giving the battered courgettes a furry look  - a nice autumn successor to the courgette flower fritti served in summer.

  And then an absolute gem as the pasta course - lovely paccheri with a delicious sausage ragu and the profound domination of fennel all crested by 30 month old Parmigiana Reggiano, the entire ensemble rendering a dish of deep flavour and pleasing texture. A hit!A palpable hit!

   For my main, I chose what turned out to be perfectly barbecued half chicken - its meat as tender and tasty as one could hope for and its size not that of some mean little pullet. This was a bountiful chicken dressed with gremolata and served along with a fascinating salad of celery, parsley, leaves, crunchy radishes and the sweet hit of little halved black grapes - quite delightful.

  I haven’t really considered myself to be a tiramisu man but I opted to have the dish on the grounds that it was about time I did. Of the mistakes I have made in my life, not up to now choosing to eat Tropea’s tiramisu ranks as one of the greatest. On the deliciousness scale this dessert as served in Tropea completely scores 10 and then exceeds the scale by several points. The sponge is so light, the cream so soothing, the whole so toothsome. Best of all, it was a large portion, probably meant to be shared by two but I reflected that the pleasure of dining alone is that one doesn’t have to share such wonderful creations. No, sharing is good but letting someone else even just sample your Tropea tiramisu is a sheer folly which should consign the person guilty of such an act to an instant fifty years in purgatory. I coupled my tiramisu with a bold and perfectly matching White Russian, a choice of which the barman seemed to approve.

Tropea seems to have reached a point where its food is perfectly judged in quality and degree of enjoyment and if it is more unpretentiously rustic than fine, its deliciousness is spectacular. I think it will be my Birmingham restaurant of the year.

See also Blog 489.

Rating:- 🌞🌞 

24 October 2025.

513. The Comfort And Sheer Pleasure Of A Fine Gastropub.

 

  I have great sympathy with the loonie Head Chef, Julian Slowik (played by the supremely creepy Ralph Fiennes) in the masterpiece of cinema, The Menu (2022) when he says to his soon-to-be-slaughtered diners, “But I have to beg of you one thing. It’s just one. Do not eat. Taste. Savour. Relish. Consider every morsel that you place inside your mouth. Be mindful. But do not eat. Our menu is too precious for that.”.

  I find myself not deriving much pleasure in eating. Julian is quite right - the pleasure of dining out emerges from the the tasting, the savouring and the relishing. And also there’s enormous pleasure in just looking at a finely presented dish. But eating - the process which also includes the loading up of the stomach and the alimentary tract downstream of the gastric bag - can be unpleasant especially if the volume of that bag is stretched to its limits by excessive food being loaded into it or, perhaps, the stimulation of the acid of the stomach in aggressive quantities. Eating therefore may also lead to bloating and acidity and there’s not much pleasure in that.

  Thinking about it all, one thing that today’s chefs seem to pay too little attention to is aroma. They stimulate the eyes and the taste buds (and as an unfortunate side effect, the stomach’s acid-secreting cells) but it’s unusual to be in a restaurant and be pleasantly assailed by an enticing smell of gorgeously roasted meat or tantalisingly caramelised onions or freshly baked bread. Perhaps aromas belong only in a south Asian restaurant with its emphasis on aromatic spices - and they are more rare there than they should be - or an old fashioned and rustic setting such as an old pub. Yes, stimulation of the olfactory sense in an alluring way is a much neglected feature of how chefs present their food. 

    Whether or not my first cranial nerve is being stimulated, and it’s nice when it is, I do like to be comfortably seated when I dine. The present obsession with fast food whereby one buys a good quality food item made with love but then is forced to eat it (though of course we should not ‘eat’ as Julian points out and as Margot points out to him when he uses the term) sitting on some uncomfortable wooden and aluminium chair or bench or perched nervously on a backless stool at a dizzying height enough to initiate an acute episode of high anxiety (how many film titles can I fit in this piece?} is all very regrettable and greatly reduces, for me at least, the pleasure of consuming that food (perhaps Julian would like diners ‘to consume’ rather than eat - I may use the verb more often).

  Well there’s none of all that when one dines or lunches at The Wildmoor Oak Inn in Wildmoor near Bromsgrove. It’s such a comfortable, warm place to eat, er, consume. I have written about my previous visits there and I recently returned for more instant pleasure. A pleasing welcome, a comfortable chair (though the tables (necessarily I suppose) are a little too close together) and the gastropub’s autumn menu. What else could an old bloke want?

  I chose a fabulous starter from the ‘specials’ menu, three truly jumbo, superbly devilled red Argentinian prawns, splendidly tender and drenched with flavour, the degree of devilling was as perfect as one might wish - yes, and the aroma of prawn, first cranial nerve satisfied - with little brown shrimps - mini textural masterpieces - served on toast. This was a robustly enjoyable dish and I did indeed taste, savour, relish and consider every morsel that went into my mouth - Julian Slowik. would have been pleased though at the end of all that I did actually eat it all and gained great pleasure from doing so, so perhaps Julian might not have been so happy after all. But I was happy and that was all that mattered.

specials menu

  From the main autumn menu I chose Blythburgh pork chop with bubble and squeak and braised red cabbage as my main course. The pork was pleasingly tender and generously portioned though it may have benefitted from a little more seasoning. The bubble and squeak was not successful in that the outer coating was charred - I assumed this had been Chef’s intention - and not all that pleasant but the interior pieces of potato and cabbage, unmolested by the charring, relived grand old working class English food in a dish. The accompanying sauce was pleasant but I longed for some apple which is such a perfect marriage partner for pork. The red cabbage was excellent with just the right texture and not oversweet. 

  I was rather disappointed by the dessert which again was one of the specials. I was lured into choosing it by the mention of the Worcestershire apples used in it (it would have been nice to see them making an appearance with my pork chop) but it was a sort of poor man’s tarte tatin - delicious nicely cooked pommes, heightened by caramelisation, sitting on a few sheets of filo. This seemed like a lazy way to present fine local produce - the filo was nice and crispy but in the presence of the apples, lightweight and lacking in ambition. These apples deserved to be served in fine pastry as the principle element of a great apple pie.

  Nevertheless, putting my apple moans to one side, I derived great pleasure from my lunch in the cosy comfort of the Wildmoor Oak Inn and already feel the need to return there to again enjoy myself.

Rating:- 🌞

18 October 2025.

  Jumbo prawns also gave me considerable pleasure as a starter when I had lunch at The Oyster Club by Adam Stokes a few days earlier. Again I was comfortably seated and warmly welcomed and feeling thoroughly happy even before my prawns with accompanying aioli had been delivered to my downstairs table. The prawns were very nicely textured and tasty and, yes, had discernible prawn aroma to them, so again cranial nerve one was satisfied.

  For my main I chose, as I often do, Dover sole with a little shoal of perfectly textured brown prawns and samphire scattered over it like magical marine fairy dust. This dish is one of Birmingham’s most noble main courses and the consuming of it represents a few minutes well spent. 

  The dessert was rather disappointing, sadly. This is the case with desserts all over the country. Pastry chefs are so vital and so thin on the ground. My message to restaurateurs woukd be to invest in one and make a big thing about it. An accomplished one will raise your restaurant to new heights. This dessert was edible enough - a tasty, icy strawberry parfait with undoubtedly unseasonal strawberries between wafers. Well, who goes to a fish restaurant for the dessert?

Rating:- 🌞

9 October 2025.

  Why, you may ask yourself, did Julian Slowik feature so heavily in this edition? Simply because Channel 4 is presently streaming the movie and I saw it again for the first time since I viewed it when it had its first cinema release. Like a fine meal as with this ultimate gourmand’s film, you remember the pleasure of it but not necessarily all the details and it was delightful to relive all those forgotten memories again.

  My other favourite foodie film is of course Ratatouille, probably the greatest dining out movie of all. In it once more there is a sinister figure, this time not a chef but a diner, Anton Ego the restaurant critic, After years of dining on the sophisticated cuisine of fine dining Paris he eventually finds gastronomic peace in the comforting food of his childhood, a plate of perfectly cooked ratatouille. Isn’t that the way we’d all like to exit the stage? Though in my case substituting the ratatouille with a perfectly cooked plate of battered cod and chips. Yes please. Thank you very much.

Anton Ego, gastronomic paradise in a plate of ratatouille

512. GULP Collaboration With 1485 Wines.

 

 Back to the Jewellery Quarter and an evening at Kay Winwood‘s Gulp where she was serving an Italian 6 course meal in collaboration with the wine merchant 1485;which was showcasing Terre di Serrapetrona wines.

  The meal started with a sharing plate of various antipasti which was delicious and then moved on to what I think was quite the best salad I have had this year (and I have had quite a lot of salads inflicted upon me in 2025). It was made up of pecorino, the sweet citrus of orange which really lifted the dish walnut plus some bitter leaves which worked wonderfully well with the orange’s sweetness, fig and the happy crunch of candied. This was a delicious and delightfully memorable dish.

  Some excellent bread was served and a very tasty 15 hour-cooked beef ragu with not quite al dente tagliatelle and more pecorino adding to the pleasure of it all.

   Next porchetta which was a little dry for me with, tenderstem broccoli (this particular green is ubiquitous) and truffle polenta and sweet, sharp cherries to really give the dish a pleasurable lift.

  The dessert was lovely - warmed plums with nicely chewy almond ricciarelli (a biscuit originating in 14th century Sienna), lemon ricotta and pomegranate seeds. It was a fine, perfectly balanced dessert both in textures and degree of sweetness. I loved the little spoon provided to eat it with - it was a good example of the charming and original quirkiness of dining out at one of Gulp’s occasional dinners. 

  This was a highly enjoyable evening in Gulp’s unique setting which ignites a companionable chattiness among the dozen diners, usually strangers to each other prior to the meal, sitting around the prettily laid table. The wine pairings were excellent and a good time was had by all.

Kay Winwood 

Peter Bridgwater of 1485 Wines

Rating:- 🌞

27 September 2025.

511. Hotel Du Vin, Birmingham.

 

  I attended a dinner at Birmingham’s Hotel du Vin in Church Street, nextdoor neighbour to the Grand Hotel. This was my first visit there although, as reported in several previous blogs, I have dined at the Stratford upon Avon branch on a number of occasions and found the food there to be generally very enjoyable and I had watched a cooking demonstration by the Hotel du Vin’s Group Director, Matt Powell, who prepared a fine looking Mont Blanc at this year’s Colmore Food Festival.

  It has to be said that the entrance area of the hotel, which in a previous life was the Birmingham Eye Hospital, is chic and exciting and has a bit of razzamatazz about it. The dinner was for forty people and those present included the former West Midlands Mayor, Sir Andy Street, and the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mel Stride, interesting people to listen to in this setting when the present government seems to be doing everything in its power to wreck the hospitality industry, miserable visu.

  We started with what was described as a ‘spring vegetable soup’, somewhat displaced in time as autumn is now well advanced. It looked spookily murky and one wondered what lurked beneath the surface but on plunging one’s spoon into the depths what was met was thoroughly enjoyable. There was a brunoise of very nicely cooked vegetables in a light, tasty broth with particularly pleasing bits of fennel and a very nicely judged underlying taste of tarragon. 

Next, for the main, braised ox cheek was served as bouef Bourguignon in luxurious, silky sauce with charming, sweet shallots and button mushrooms. There was also a reasonably successful mash, a little cloying, and some very nicely cooked new potatoes and some almost garishly green beans which were reasonably tender. On the whole this was a satisfactory dish but somewhat unexciting and less than lukewarm. I am pretty tired of ox cheek (I did not choose the menu) but I appreciate that when cooking for forty people, slow cooking cheek like this makes the process pretty simple and it isn’t easy to get forty dishes and keep them as warm as they should be. On the other hand, just because something is not easy it doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be done. If I am going to ear ox cheek repeatedly everytime I attend an organised dinner perhaps chefs could steal an arch from Tom Shepherd and serve it as alive. To annEnglishman the mere word, “pie” has a draw to it.

  

    There was a competent crème brûlée to close - a little ramekin of custard with a crispy top to it will rarely displease anyone unless incompetently handled but this was a crème brûlée not striving to reach the heights (one thinks back to Glynn Purnell’s 10-10-10 egg surprise and is downcast at the demise of Purnell’s). Perhaps chef might have served a neat little sable biscuit to lift this dish up from the level of strictly basic.

  This was standard mass cooking for a large group and was generally quite edible and did what it said on the label (though how much more pleasurable it might have been served warm or even hot and with some extra element to jazz it up a bit.

Rating:- 🌛🌛

26 September 2025.

Former West Midlands Mayor, Andy Street

Shadow chancellor of the Exchequer, Mel Stride.

507. Ludlow Food Festival 2025.

 

  The whirligig of time brings in his revisits, to paraphrase Malvolio, and once more the Ludlow Food Festival was with us. Sans sausage trail, which in all events was good as my new puppy was so full of energy and the need to jump up everyone she saw - and there were lots in Ludlow for the festival especially on the Saturday - that taking her around the sausage stalls, so loved by my late, lamented old girl, would have been a dangerous operation. I hope the new Lucy will be more mature and calmer next year and that once more the good butchers of Ludlow and Shropshire will be in active competition.

  We were accommodated, at a not immodest price, in a room with a ghost (or so I was informed when we checked out of the historic The Feathers at the top of Corve Street though that particular spectre - a woman apparently - did not make its presence known to us - perhaps it was nervous of being nipped multiple times by my pup -as it surely would have been).

  On arrival, while getting settled and preparing for the short walk to pick up my preordered Festival tickets, I had a Ploughman’s Lunch in the bar of The Feathers. This too was not inexpensive but seemed to have been prepared with as little love as possible - Cheddar cheese, 4 thin slices of apple, a rather sweet chutney, two flavourless mini-pork pies which it seemed likely had found their way to the hotel kitchen via Tesco just down Corve Street, some sorry-looking celery sticks and the one saving grace - a lovely slice of tasty ham which had nothing of Tesco about it. Oh woe for the Ploughman’s Lunch! 

  With Lucy comfortably installed in out atmospheric room where, when the sun moves across the window, the stained glass in it projects a lovely pattern on to the bed, I set off for the Friday afternoon session of the Festival. This was mainly an orienteering exercise for the big event was in the evening - the Slow Food Feast and this turned out to be one of the most delicious meals I have eaten for quite a while.

   The meal was introduced by Shane Holland, Executive Chair of Slow Food and Trustee of Borough Market and curated by Steve Guy. This was a remarkably enjoyable meal - one of my favourites of this year - delicious in every respect from the opening ‘Bread and Stuff’ - ‘surplus’ bread with ‘surplus’ local butter, lovely sweet ‘surplus’ vegetable pickles with an astonishingly delicious marrow, Shropshire salumi and local n’duja ragu. Such pleasure.

  Next came a lovely slice of Great Berwick organic roast beef (Great Berwick Farm is situated slightly upstream of Shrewsbury with its fields adjacent to the river Severn), cooked immaculately, with a summer salad where there was a heavy emphasis on fennel and heritage tomatoes which were joyously refreshing. A hit! A palpable hit!

   We moved on to a delicious Spanish pork stew made up from Mockleton Meats pork shoulder and bacon cooked with Teme apple juice and served with B-road bean gildas, smokily tasty charred cabbage, miso and almonds to gives a nice crunchy texture. This was very good indeed.

  How lovely to be next served a local cheese course - Appleby’s Cheshire and Monkland Little Hereford (there are no Shropshire-made cheeses apart from Ludlow Blue made at the Ludlow Food Centre - Shropshire Blue is made in, er, Lincolnshire) - happily accompanied by plum chutney, overripe figs and cream crackers.

  Finally, the dessert - a pleasingly light blackberry and apple upside down cake with sweet roast plums and queijo fresco (a mild, soft, creamy, white unaged Iberian cheese). 

  This had been a remarkably delicious meal and a very happy start to the Food Festival.

Steve Guy

Day 2 - I discovered that The Feathers serves a very fine Full English in what used to be, and may still be for all I know, its Richard III restaurant. With oak beams and an impressive fireplace and comfortable furniture, I thoroughly enjoyed every element of my cooked breakfast - the scrambled egg was mildly baveuse as I prefer, the bacon was neither under nor overcooked, the hash brown was beautifully crispy, the tomato juicy and black pudding not dried out. 

  There was a lot going on inside the castle grounds - George Egg was amusing during the first session and then I took the opportunity to buy myself a Beefy Boys Beefy Boy burger. These burgers are produced with passion and toothsome when consumed. I then moved on to Mr T’s Pies stall to buy some of his excellent produce to take with me and to enjoy once I returned to Birmingham. I had the version packed with delicious slow cooked beef, ox cheek I should think, moist and bursting with flavour and contained in excellent pastry.

George Egg

Beefy Boy burger.

Mr Tee’s Pies stall

  I sat through an interview with the restaurant critic and food writer, Jimi Faruwewa, and then had a good tour of the stalls in the castle grounds - gins, ciders, beers, wines, cupcakes, cooking equipment, ceramics, books, charcuterie, cheeses, bread and patisserie, various rural organisations, meat, fast food - there was much to look at. But as the afternoon drew to a close I returned to The Feathers to prepare for the annual Fire Feast to be held, as in previous years, in the ancient castle banqueting hall.

  It was as spectacular as ever but also proved to be a good reminder than autumn had now established itself with chilly evenings and early darkness. The first course was finely barbecued scallop with its coral interestingly accompanied by a sauce of local Perry which was very pleasing and then an excellent plate of local charcuterie and cheeses served with figs.

  An impressive slice of fine local beef  was accompanied by a selection of seasonal vegetables, some of which I would have liked a little more if they had been cooked for longer. Still, it was an impressive dish and I would have regretted missing it. There was a very happy dessert of plums (this has been a great year for the fruit - and damsons - with my own trees yielding far more than I could deal with) with an ‘autumnal ice cream’ and flaked almonds to give a nice crunchy texture to it all. 

  I have been to every Fire Feast apart from the first and never regretted doing so even though the food is often quite cool by the time it gets to the table and the chill of autumn nags at one unless one is well  wrapped up with warm clothing. There are plenty of fellow diners to talk to - I was delighted this year to chat to a group of farmers from Norway and interested to hear about the socialist government in that country which seems to be oppressing Norwegian farmers as much, if not more, than is Starmer’s regime here in England. The farmers had travelled to Ludlow expressly to attend the Food Festival and a good time they were having as a result of their travelling here.

  Day 3 - The following day, after another excellent Feathers breakfast, I returned to the festival to attend some more food demonstrations and talks. Firstly to the talk by Da Hae West on Korean cuisine which was interesting enough to tempt me to buy a signed copy of her book Balli Balli.

   Jonathan Howe and his wife Helen of the Michelin-starred Lumière in Cheltenham gave an illuminating demonstration of some of the dishes served in their restaurant and I also enjoyed the contributions of Shane Holland of Slow Food, Andy Link of the Riverside Inn in Aymestrey and James Sherwin of Wild Shropshire in Whitchurch.

  By mid afternoon, the weather had decided it was really time for the festival attenders to pay the price for the pleasures they had enjoyed during the weekend and a downpour from leaden skies gave Ludlow a good soak. But it had been a good weekend which marked my tenth Ludlow Food Festival.

  I had dinner at The Feathers on Sunday evening. To start I chose the nicely presented chicken, apricot and pancetta terrine which was pleasant and tasty. For my main course I opted for the generously portioned slow cooked pork with a tasty little black pudding Bon Bon with its successfully crispy coating, slightly cloying chive mashed potato, tenderstem broccoli (I maintain that whereever I eat it, the adjective ‘tenderstem’ applied to this irritating vegetable is a distinct breach of the Trades Description Act) and a delightful cider jus. Although cider had found its way into the sumptuous jus, I do feel that every pork dish should be blessed with a good dose of apple and this dish would not have suffered in the least if some of that fruit had been included in it.

Rating:- The Feathers Richard III restaurant dinner - 🌛🌛🌛🌛

14 September 2025.

Day 4 - Prior to departing The Feathers, I enjoyed another excellent breakfast and espied something interesting - standing on a table were two historic Richard III restaurant lunch and dinner menus dating back probably to the 1970s and the second a little later. The older of the two was a magnificent work with a lovely picture of The Feathers on its cover and decoratively hand written list and description of dishes. In the first menu, prices were in decimal currency and so it clearly dates to post-February 1971 but the dishes on offer were very much of their age, as were their prices - prawn or seafood cocktail (£1.95), crab stuffed eggs (£2.10), chilled lettuce soup with fresh cream (90p), spinach and tomato quiche (£1.50), Feathers potted savoury (£1.75), roast sirloin of English beef (£5.50), grilled whole Dover sole (£8.50), gammon baked in Cumberland sauce (£5.25) - in all a choice of a total of 11 starters and 10 mains though the list of desserts was not included and so I can not report on what sweets the diners were enjoying then

  The second menu was a typed one - technology had taken over - and, as part of a lunch menu priced at £5.95, included such dishes as curried eggs, melon and grape cocktail, seafood ramekin, poached fillet of lemon sole in cheese sauce, loin of pork with cherry sauce, chicken cider casserole, roast saddle of lamb with rosemary and garlic and a dessert “from the Trolley” (ah! those were the days. Bring back the dessert trolley).

  

  And so the dog and I checked out of The Feathers leaving the ghost of room 201 unseen behind us and after a splendid weekend in Ludlow I took with me a couple of souvenirs - a signed copy of Dae Hae West’s book and some Stych Farm ceramics..