398. Sublime Wilderness x Nyetimber Collaboration; Michelin Recognises Rabbit; Toffs Moving On.

 

  I like collaborations. They tend to bring out the best in chefs. And when it comes to “the best”, Chef Marius Gedminas at The Wilderness is a very regular achiever of the concept just as Sonal Clare is a very great achiever of “the best” when it comes to hosting an event. I also enjoy English wine. It gets better as the annual temperatures rise in this island. Nyetimber was the first English wine company to make its mark and good stuff it is too.

  But to get back to basics, this blog is centred on the food encountered when dining out and so I will not stray into the field of oenology, there are those who know quite well what that are talking about while my skill is enjoying the moment when a good wine is brought forth and not getting too wound up about all the details of it. Still, even at this late age, my nose can spot a bouquet when it needs to do so and my taste buds also still function quite successfully. And so to the food served at this immaculate dinner.

  To start off this cascade of pleasures - a toothsome, profoundly flavoured smoked trout belly tart, delightful by itself but embellished with the taste of XO and ginger. The thin, crispy tart pastry was a pleasure in itself. This was served lavishly with the delicious Classic cuvée served from a magnum.Then on to one of the great dishes of the year which had the diners fainting with the gorgeousness of it a bed of white crab delightfully citricised with lime under a a fine espuma with wonderful smoked mussels, the hit and texture of almonds and white asparagus and a burst of flavour from an oyster leaf. This was accompanied by a very drinkable glass of Blanca de Blanc 2016.

   Then came perhaps the most perfectly cooked veal sweetbreads I can remember having been served to me, with peas and asparagus with a perfect bite to it and a chlorophyll Hollandaise. The rise that accompanied caused great surprise - so good was it - and proved to be the hit of the evening from the drinks point of view. Spring on a plate.

   Then the luxury of excellent barbecued turbot - cooked perfectly and bursting with flavour and escorted handsomely by a chicken sauce and crispy capers among other ingredients. Afterwards, and sadly I forgot to photograph it, a fine Orkney scallop, cooked precisely with a Thai green sauce - this time, unlike that I had been served a few days before, pleasingly rife with the flavours of south-east Asia. This was accompanied by a highly lavish glass of 1086 by Nyetimber (the date is the year of the Domesday Book relevant to the estate) 2013. “Ambassador, you are spoiling us”.

  It just remained to enjoy a familiar but not unwelcome dessert of green pear, finely diced, with a bay leaf ice cream and accompanied by a very happy glass of cuvée cherie - and why not!

  A memorable evening of very fine food and highly pleasurable wine.

Rating:- 🌞🌞

  Good news emerged from Michelin on 25 April when it published its April list of new additions to the Michelin Guide. Of the eight new additions, the much admired Rabbit in Stirchley has been allocated its place in the Michelin pantheon (the other seven were mostly in places favoured by the Michelin inspectors, because of their trendiness or ease to travel to - two in London (of course) and one each in Bristol and Edinburgh and three in the Newcastle Upon Tyne area). I have previously written that the opening  Stirchley’s now first ever Michelin-listed restaurant was probably the most important Birmingham dining out event of the year and as spring moves on, I’m sure that remains true. The restaurant owned and run by Ash Heeger and Erin Valenzuala Heeger now has a long waiting period to secure a reservation and is presently booming. This is all very reminiscent of Upstairs by Tom Shepherd. Perhaps the BBC have spotted Ash as a potential competitor on The Great British Menu.

  New sofa different sort from Solihull where Rob Palmer has announced that he is to close Toff’s and begin to work at the Hogarth Hotel in Dorridge which I previously visited during the limited time when the Butchers Social Club was based at the Forest Hotel. After settling in at the Hogarth overhauling the menu of the brasserie there during the summer, he plans to open Toffs at Hogarth in September 2024.

399. Le Petit Bois Adieu!

  In Blog 391 I reported, with a heavy heart, that the delightful Moseley restaurant, Le Petit Bois, was to close on 27 April. It’s a lovely place and I was determined to have one more throw of the dice in this comfortable, bright, perfectly sized French-style culinary establishment, more like dining in someone’s cosy home with its perfectly judged front of house service than a restaurant. Everyone else who had ever known the place, and some who had not, had clearly got the same idea and the diners kept coming on this penultimate evening of service. What an atmosphere and the opportunity to greet one or two diners I had met there before, all wanting to wish good luck to Chef Ben Taylor, Zsofia Kisgergely and their fine staff, made this an evening to look back on with a warm feeling and a smile.

  And so to the food - a pleasing and sensibly limited à la carte menu chalked up on a blackboard, all very tempting and at a very affordable price. 

  From the Specials menu, mounted on the wall opposite the main menu, I chose the warm salmon with a beetroot salad. This was one of the loveliest salmon dishes I can recall eating - at first glance simple and pleasingly uncomplicated - but this was the most toothsome of salmons, the beetroots were nicely cooked and a perfect foil for the salmon and there were little bursts of horseradish working along with the beet. What a great pleasure.

  For the main, I thoroughly enjoyed the, again, beautifully cooked fillet of cod served with an extremely tasty lobster bisque - the dish shouted lobster - and four plump mussels with a side of haricots verts to give some bite to it all.

  Finally, a magnificent - in size and quality - crème brûlée served with a delightful walnut biscuit. This was an exceptional dessert. Undoubtedly Chef Ben Taylor and Le Petit Bois was going out on a high.

Ben Taylor

Zsofia Kisgergely 

  And so Adieu! to Le Petit Bois. We shall not see its like again though we hope we will. 

395. Politics, Film Noir and Shakespeare (Part 2).

 

  I am not someone who particularly likes being photographed nor do I wear black clothes but I still went ahead and made a reservation to dine at The Wilderness on the evening filming was taking place there and the dress code was “all black”. The experience was named Film Noir and a short film was being produced by a company titled Made by Brum. The documentary was described as a “love letter to Birmingham’s alt scene” which is hardly my bag but well, anyway, in for a penny, in for a pound. 

  And so, yet again, off to The Wilderness I did go. Fortunately, I was of no interest to the filmmakers and so I had all the pleasure of dining off a remarkably excellent menu without the discomfort of making a screen appearance, so to speak.

  Several of the items on the menu were familiar but there were one or two new dishes to bring the freshness of spring to the Jewellery Quarter.

  As ever, the canopés were delightful - robust, punchy flavours, thin, crispy pastry, hidden in there a chomping good tartare with the sweetness of little blobs of mango purée. Such little pleasures are paradise made of.

  The first course was by now familiar to me but familiarity, with this gem, does not breed contempt. Chutoro tuna, gorgeous  with the tang of jalapeño bursting around the fish more like a bang of wasabi, and thin slices of fine olive. A dish now established as something great.

  ‘Tis the asparagus season and a fine, bruiser of a Wye Valley spear was next to be delivered to the table. With plenty of bite to it, it basked on the plate before me, and was happily accompanied by tasty pieces of smoked eel but the prettyThai green curry sauce was lacking in any heat and was not as exciting as it might have been. Perhaps it did not need to be, asparagus, it seems to me, should stand alone relatively unadorned and untroubled by anything going on around it.

  Then an irreproachable dish of Chalkstream trout with a delicious yuzu butter ponzu sauce and the tang of XO sauce. Then, another familiar member of the menu’s ensemble - BQ Cull Yaw lamb, cooked exquisitely, with seaweed, shiso and wild leeks served with remarkably slowly cooked and robustly flavoured lamb on a muffin; the latter is the element, as I have previously remarked, which gives me least pleasure. The highlight of the dish was the gorgeously unctious lamb sauce.

  And then a thrill for dessert - a sorbet of acutely flavoured Amalfi lemon sorbet with a grating of Buddha’s fingers fruit as well as of the lemon itself. What fun to have the fruit itself presented at the table. The sorbet was served with a crunchy buckwheat cracker and marigold.

  I thoroughly enjoyed the second dessert made up of little cubes of delightful and perfectly textured Riesling poached pear with bay leaf and the not-overbearing flavour of cinnamon. To end, The Wilderness’ white chocolate skull was served as a petit four.

  The restaurant was buzzing with its sable clothed diners and the film makers homed in on what was happening at the pass. It had been yet another happy evening in The Wilderness.

397. Hotel Du Vin Bistro, Stratford-Upon-Avon.

 

    When in Stratford - and staying at the dog-friendly Hotel Du Vin - do as the French do. Just as, by extension, when staying in Paris where Molière was born - do as the English do - well perhaps that would not be entirely wise given the amount of shoulder shrugging which would result. Regardless, Lucy The Labrador and I were passing the weekend in Stratford to enable me to attend the Birthday lunch and stabling ourselves at the chic, if expensive (especially at this particular weekend) Hotel Du Vin.

  Sunday dinner was needed and I opted to dine in house. The dining room is modern and in the style of the rest of the hotel. The music is a little too loud and not quite in character with the Gallic nature of it all but the service is satisfactory though mildly muddled at times and the menu promising with some Gallic delights on offer.

  French onion soup is irresistible and I chose it as my starter. Underneath a happy melted cheese lid was a tasty soup with plenty of pleasing, tender slices of onion though I have had sweeter onions but nonetheless this was a pleasure to dive into (see illustration at the head of this piece).

  In addition to a menu with a generous but sensible amount of choice on it, there was a ‘Specials board’ which had some heavily priced items on it. But - like French onion soup - I can not resist a sole when it’s on offer and the noble fish can not be better served than when it is sole meurnière and so I plunged into ordering from the board.

  The sole was indeed a magnificent beast, and was prepared beautifully with a perfect texture and nicely seasoned. I should have liked a little more citrus but this was a fine dish, larger than many of the soles that have been offered unto me in recent times and so, I guess, the higher price was understandable. All accompaniments were extra but I opted for the very toothsome pomme purée with Camembert which was lovely.

  There’s a sound argument for sometimes eating meals in reverse. Desserts are for me very much an afterthought and I would often rather not have one if only because I am too full to enjoy them coming, as they do, as the meal’s curtain is winding down. Being served two desserts is the sort of thing, in my opinion, that happens to souls in purgatory and that is something which tasting menus often inflict on the innocent with or without their consent. 

  I always like to see what is being offered on the dessert menu and I always find the presence of tarte tatin to be a temptation but frequently reject that naughty French pleasure in the knowledge that it would overfill me. Such was the case this particular evening. Now, if dessert were served at the beginning of the meal, then the tarte tatin would have been winging its way to my table in next to no time.

  Regardless (shrugging of shoulders) - I signed off with two pleasingly sharp sorbets - lemon and blood orange and felt I had dined well.

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛🌛

396. Politics, Film Noir And Shakespeare (Part 3).

 

  This year, 2024, Stratford-upon-Avon held its annual Shakespeare’s birthday celebrations on 20 April, three days prior to the actual anniversary. There was the usual parade through the town, see below, and more importantly, the annual birthday lunch held in a vast marquee in the RSC gardens where a smattering of theatrical levees may sometimes be spotted.

  This was my sixth Shakespeare’s birthday lunch (because of the pandemic no lunch was held in 2020 nor 2021) - the food is often unspectacular but edible enough but there is usually an exciting atmosphere as four to five hundred people who know lots about Shakespeare and the theatre gather together in their smart togs to have a generally good time. This year, everything was helped along by the fine, sunny spring weather and the presence of Dame Vanessa Redgrave who was to receive the annual Pragnell Award for her contribution to our appreciation of Shakespeare.

  The meal kicked off with a generous portion of burrata paired with a very toothsome heritage tomato and aubergine caponata with pickled shallots and decorated with seasonal flowers including those of the tasty wild garlic and an amusing coloured quill-shaped cracker, each diner at the table of eight receiving a cracker coloured differently from those of his neighbours. What a great opening act.

    How difficult it must be at such an event to arrive at a main course which will not be offensive to any of the diverse diners (allowing of course that vegans will be offended by anything given half a chance). This chef made the very sensible choice of roast Cotswold chicken and a fine job was made of it - pleasingly plump and nicely cooked chicken breast with an apt sauce laced with foraged herb oil and a reasonable pomme purée and three robust Wye Valley asparagus spears and tiny pickled mushrooms. A great dish for a large banquet. My compliments to the chef. Vegans, by the way, were regaled with a plate of delica pumpkin and pumpkin purée and more.

  Dessert took the form of a deconstructed pavlova with stone fruits and a lemon verbena custard. The meringue was presented in shards and, as with the first course quill, each diner at the table received a different coloured meringue and furthermore, very cleverly, each received their meringue in the same colour as that of their quill. What a triumph. 

  To close, three excellent local English cheeses were served with crackers and focaccia and grapes and a scintillating truffled honey which is probably the same stuff served to the gods of Olympus.

    It was just left for Vanessa Redgrave, all cracking voice and Shakespearean delivery to the core, to speak after the award was made to her and close with Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day ….. and everyone turned out into the late afternoon sunshine and ambled through Old Town with the rosemary twigs still jammed in their buttonholes or pinned to their eye catching dresses. A very English afternoon and none the worse for it. And … good food.

  Prior to the lunch, Lucy The Labrador and I attended the annual birthday parade from Bridge Street, along Church Street and Chapel Street, through Old Town to Holy Trinity Church where Shakespeare and family members are buried. There was plenty to see - Mr Shakespeare with his quill, priests, town criers, the inevitable Morris Men, the MP, lots of local dignitaries all wearing chains and splendid gowns, men in military uniforms, musical bands, scholars, vast numbers of schoolchildren, lawyers and even ambassadors. 

  Only in England.