67. Recently Opened Woodsman Sets An Early Pace.

  After complaining by habit about The Good Food Guide a companion and myself followed its recommendations and headed for Stratford-upon-Avon to have lunch at The Woodsman, the fairly recently opened restaurant in the expensively refurbished Falcon Hotel, now known as the Hotel Indigo, in Chapel Street. The Executive Chef of The Woodsman is Mike Robinson who is the co-owner of the Michelin-starred Harwood Arms in Fulham and the Head Chef is Jon Coates. The focus of the restaurant is the cooking of a range of meats - British game, beef, Hebridean lamb - as well as fish from Cornwall with the large wood-fired oven and charcoal grill at the heart of the kitchen. The restaurant opened in April 2019 in this 16th century building and its decor is pleasant and comfortable, aptly both rustic and modern.

  The waiting staff were perfectly satisfactory though an occasional smile might have been pleasing. Food was placed on our table without explanation which in some ways was a relief as I can’t bear waiting staff giving long explanations of what is on my plate often with an inaudible voice and frequently with an indecipherable accent rendering the whole business completely unrewarding. On the other hand when special dishes such as those served at The Woodsman are put in place a few words introducing the occupants of the plate set before one can be helpful.

The starter lived up to my expectations of what The Good Food Guide’s ‘Best New Entry, UK’ should be serving up. Both my companion and I chose the miraculous, gloriously rustic, shockingly delicious Pressed terrine of pork and duck and pistachios with scintillating pickled chestnut, an unctuous chutney and a shock of a slice of pickled gherkin along with a good-sized slice of sourdough. This was a dish to dream about in years to come - on the surface simple but with some wonderful flavours with the terrine which was of perfect consistency and the mild stings of the delightful accompanying pickles. If  only I could have a stock of the terrine and its accompaniments in my fridge at home to savour whenever I wish to do so. The most delicious terrine I’ve had in a long time.

  For our main courses I chose dry-aged côte de porc with endive and caramelised apple and my companion chose partridge with which he was very satisfied. My pork chop was notable for its size and its gorgeous tenderness and how lovely it was to find apple accompanying it (chefs so often fiddle about with some other fruit to accompany pork and fail to realise that apple and pork are a long and happily married couple and no other innovative interloper can be replace the apple in that perfectly companionable relationship). The endive did not really thrill me and I initially felt resentful at being asked to pay £5.50 for a really rather small dish of ‘dirty mash’ and £5 for an equally small dish of creamed spinach but the mash was exquisite and the spinach unimpeachable and added to the sublime pleasure of this beautifully delicious British main course sans foam and all the other tiresome prerequisites of ‘modern British’ cuisine. 

  For the curious, ‘dirty mash’ is a lust-inducing combination of heavily buttery mashed potato with braised oxtail, lardons, crispy onions and English truffle. For this sidedish alone, I suspect The Woodsman was admitted to The Good Food Guide. I sit here as I write telling myself that I must have more of The Woodsman’s dirty mash and the sooner the better. 

For dessert I chose a fine pumpkin cheesecake enhanced by cinnamon ice cream and salted pumpkin. It did not leave me ecstatic but comfortably pleasured and there is no reason to complain about that.

66. A Star For The Wilderness?

  As mentioned in Blog 64, for the second year running The Good Food Guide inexplicably failed to include Alex Claridge’s The Wilderness in its proud-to-be-a-Londoner pages. There must be a certain sense of anticipation therefore, with the upcoming publication of The Michelin Guide Great Britain And Ireland 2019, lurking in the heart of the Jewellery Quarter that revenge will be a banquet served er, well fresh hot and scalding and Claridge’s sheer genius will finally be recognised by the award of a Michelin star. Certainly, as depicted above, the website Great British Chefs seems to be of the opinion that The Wilderness will join the constellation of Birmingham’s starred restaurants.

  Indulging in some enjoyable speculation Great British Chefs tips Nottingham’s Restaurant Sat Bains With Rooms to reach this year the vertigo-inducing heights of the award of 3 Michelin stars but no other Midlands restaurants are considered to be teetering on the edge of such greatness or even of achieving the lesser greatness of two little twinkly items. 

  Great British Chefs does stick its head out and predict that the seeming gastronomic wasteland of that always-the-bridesmaid city of Manchester will finally be awarded not one but two stars - one for Adam Reid At The French and another for Mana (I do hope not - it’s such an amusing little running joke that the Michelin inspectors play every year and to end it now would take all the fun out of things - it’s rather like the way all the television viewers in Europe always give nul points to the British entry in the Eurovision Song Contest - life just wouldn’t be the same if Manchester had a 

Michelin star and it would be one less thing for that city’s population to whine about. Still it would make all the BBC luvvies who’ve moved there feel that living in the gritty north might have one little compensation after all).

  Back to the West Midlands and Great British Chefs also suggests that Pensons in the Netherwood Estate in Worcestershire may also be awarded its first Michelin star under its chef Lee Westscott reflecting its new entry into The Good Food Guide this year.

  The chefs and restauranteurs just have a few days left to wait to find out.

  

65. A Pulpería For Birmingham Courtesy Of Aktar Islam.

Pulpería 1820 by Pancho Fierro (1809-79).

  The Birmingham Post reported in its 19 September 2019 edition that celebrity chef, Aktar Islam, currently riding high with his excellent Opheem restaurant (featured in The Good Food Guide) but not so firmly mounted with his Legna restaurant (understandably not featured in The Good Food Guide), is to open another restaurant in Birmingham, this time in Brindleyplace, in which the emphasis will be on Argentine steakhouse-style food.

  The restaurant is due to open in November 2019 and, as well as specialising in steaks, will sell fish, grilled chicken and vegetarian options though I always wonder about why anyone would want to visit a steakhouse and then not order steak. It’s rather like watching Peaky Blinders and switching off every time someone swears an obscenity or commits an act of violence.

  The Post quotes Islam as saying that, “I’ve spent a lot of time in Argentina and have been fortunate enough to have some truly wonderful experiences in the country which I want to share with diners in Birmingham”.

  The restaurant will be named Pulperia. Pulperías, so Wikipedia tells me, were the names given to company stores and dining facilities in parts of South America most notably in the sodium nitrate extraction industries in northern Chile between 1850 and 1930. Wikipedia tells us that the pulperías were establishments which “combined the services of the general stores and the Wild West barroom of the United States in the nineteenth century”. One hopes that Iqbal’s restaurant will neither resemble a general stores nor carry the risks of Jesse James or Wyatt Earp stepping into the establishment whilst one is cutting away at one’s steak. Presumably not as Iqbal describes to The Post that the restaurant will feature a “plush dining room”.

  That all sounds very exciting and I look forward to discovering for myself whether or not Iqbal has come up with another Opheem or another Legna. The other question I have in my mind is whether 

the restaurant will be named Pulperia or Pulpería.

64. Good Food Guide 2020.

  I now have my copy of The Good Food Guide 2020 and so I feel able to write my opinion of it in more detail than before. It is as usual a blend of vague usefulness and pretentious silliness. As we might expect it is London-centric with the English provinces forming an addendum from page 167.

  Elizabeth Carter’s editorial deals firstly with the subject of reducing food waste - a sort of 1950s schoolboy’s nightmare of “eat up everything on your plate or else .... “, the role of restaurant chains and then quite rightly identifying the problem of people who make a reservation and then fail to turn up for it thus costing by this collective rudeness and lack of consideration and absence of personal responsibility £16 billion of revenue per year - no wonder so many restaurants are forced to close.

  The entire West Midlands (which I define as North Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, West Midlands county and Worcestershire but for some unknown reason also includes, according to the Guide, one restaurant across the border in Wales) this year has a combined total of 60 entries (east London alone has 69!). They are all listed below together with their  ‘cooking scores’. Birmingham has a total of 11 restaurants listed (just 16% of the total for east London which is a slightly frightening statistic). There are 2 new entries for Birmingham - Opheem and The Oyster Club - and no removals so that Birmingham’s total returns to its 2018 level. In contrast Manchester, famed for having no Michelin starred restaurants at all, has 20 restaurants listed in The Good Food Guide - it’s astonishing what being home to a large number of BBC luvvies can do for a city’s restaurant ratings.

  There must be something deeply personal that has resulted in Alex Claridge’s The Wilderness being omitted from the Birmingham list again or perhaps Good Food Guide experts don’t like black, the overwhelming colour of Claridge’s restaurant’s rather characteristic decor. I’m sure Alex Claridge must be fuming about once more being considered to not serve ‘Good Food’.

  One of the problems for me with this diner’s guide is its constant need to drop into excruciating purple prose. Thus we have in a review of Salt in Stratford upon Avon, “Paul Foster’s venue sits in the heart of this heritage-laden town, not far from the school where it’s most famous scion learned his grammar.” Which could easily be, “Salt is situated centrally across the road from the school at which Shakespeare was a pupil”. And again, about Purnell’s, “In a handsome red-brick building just off the city centre, comfortingly removed from the hubbub of the Bullring, a diverting space has been created with fractals, stripes and filigree light globes positively designed to divide opinion.” Why the Bullring is mentioned is a mystery as it’s quite a distance from Cornwall Street where Purnell’s is situated and when sitting in Purnell’s I have never once thought, “I’m so pleased that the restaurant is removed from the hubbub of The Bullring”.

  The Guide is an old-fashioned, upper middle class, Remoanerist sort of publication and is not to be trusted so much as it thinks it should be. Deep down it struggles to cope with the new and fails to recognise the failures of its long-term favourites. It is taken by the belief that if you spend a lot of money then what you’re buying must be worthwhile if not outstanding. 

  But it is a part of the recording of British food history and if one buys it on those grounds then it is worthwhile.

Birmingham - Adam’s - 7 

                         Carters Of Moseley - 6

                         Folium - 4

                         Harborne Kitchen - 6

                         Lasan - 3

                         Opheem - 4

                         Opus - 2

                         The Oyster Club - 2

                         Purnell’s - 6 

                         Purnell's Bistro - 2

                         Simpsons - 6

West Midlands -  Hampton in Arden - Peel’s Restaurant - 5

Gloucestershire (north) -

                             Arlingham - The Old Passage - 2

                             Barnsley - The Potanger - 3 

                                               The Village Pub - 2

                              Cheltenham - Le Champignon Sauvage - 8

                                                     Koj - 2

                                                     Lumière - 5

                                                     Purslane - 5 

                              Eldersfield - The Butchers Arms - 4

                              Northleach - The Wheatsheaf Inn - 2

                              Painswick - The Painswick - 4

                              Paxford - The Churchill Arms - 2

                              Selsey - The Bell Inn- 1

                              Southrop - The Swan at Southrop - 2

                              Stow-on-the-Wold - The Old Butchers - - (local gem)

                              Stroud - The Woolpack Inn - - (local gem)

                              Upper Slaughter - The Atrium - 6

                              Winchcombe - 5 North Street - 5 

                                                      Wesley House - 1

Herefordshire -   Aymestrey - The Riverside at Aymestrey - 3

                             Hay-on-Wye (Yes, I know it’s in Wales but the editor of Good Food Guide insists  on listing it in Herefordshire) - Richard Booth’s Bookshop Cafe - - (local gem)

                             Hereford - The Bookshop - 1

                                               Madam & Adam - - (local gem)

                              Pembridge - The Cider Barn - - (local gem)

                              Titley - The Stagg Inn - 4

                              Upper Sapey - The Baiting House - 1

Shropshire -        Ludlow - Forelles at Fishmore Hall - 1

                                             Mortimers - 3

                                             Old Downton Lodge - 2

                                             CSONS at The Green Cafe - - (local gem)

                             Oswestry - Sebastians - 2

                             Shrewsbury - The Walrus - - (readers recommend)

Staffordshire -    Alstonefield - The George - 3

                             Burton upon Trent - 99 Station Street - 1

                             Ellastone - The Duncombe Arms - - (local gem)

Warwickshire -   Henley-in-Arden - Cheal’s Of Henley - 5

                             Kenilworth - The Cross At Kenilworth - 6

                             Shipston-On-Stour - El Cafe - - (readers recommend)

                             Stratford-upon-Avon - No.9 Church St - 2

                                                                  Salt - 6

                                                                  The Woodsman - 4

                              Warwick - Tailors - 3

                              Whatcote - The Royal Oak - 5

Worcestershire - Broadway - The Lygon Arms - 2 

                                                  Russell’s of Broadway - 3

                             Ombersley - The Venture In - 2

                             Pershore House - Belle House - 3

                             Stoke Bliss - Pensons - 6 (new entry)

                             Welland - The Inn at Welland - 1

                     

63. Ludlow Sausage Trail, A Brummie In Anglesey And A Thai Lady In Ironbridge.

  The Saturday session of this year’s Ludlow Food Festival was memorable for the beautiful weather and the large crowds attending, I read that there were 15000 people on that one day. Sunday was cloudier but pleasant and the crowds had thankfully thinned out considerably but there was a lot to see, taste, listen to and enjoy.

  There were large crowds ambling around the town for the Sausage Trail which is always the highlight of my dog’s year as she has her own ticket which provides her with 6 sausages in the space of a few hours as well as a lot of attention from the many dog admirers present in the town.

  This year my favourite sausage was from Morgan’s Country Butchers of Water Upton which stood out because of the mustard seeds added to the meat giving a little heat and vibrancy to the product. Strangely, as seems to happen even year, Lucy The Labrador gave the sausages the same scores as I did myself so she too, like myself, gave the Morgan’s sausage a perfect 10.

  For me, one of the best demonstrations was by Brummie Andrew Tabberner who has worked in Anglesey in recent years and then in July opened his own restaurant there, The Gaerwan Arms. Tabberner’s links with Ludlow occurred when he worked at La Becasse with Will Holland. Tabberner waxed lyrical on the wonders of running a restaurant in Anglesey with most ingredients available fresh within just a few miles of the restaurant and the pork belly dish he prepared in front of the audience made the rather tired cut of meat look astonishingly attractive. He also provided some highly spicy popcorn for the audience to sample and some slices of a fabulous blackberry Bakewell tart which is currently on the menu in his restaurant and alone makes the journey to Anglesey well worthwhile. He clearly loves Anglesey but this is one Brummie chef whom I would love to see working back in his home city.

  I thoroughly enjoyed the demonstration by Suree Coates who single handedly cooks exquisite Thai Food at her tiny restaurant in Ironbridge, Suree’s Kitchen. The restaurant is open only 3 evenings per week and there is, perhaps not surprisingly, a month’s wait for a table reservation. But the lady is charming and the smell from her food as it was cooking was enough to make me want to head for Ironbridge and indulge myself in her clearly delicious and very personal Thai cuisine.

62. Gin In Abundance At Ludlow’s 25th Food Festival.

Here we are, Lucy The Labrador and I have made ourselves very comfortable at Fishmore Hall Hotel, home to Forelles restaurant, and we are have had out first day at the Ludlow Food Festival which this year is celebrating its silver jubilee. Ludlow may have lost its reputation for being home to some of England’s most famous restaurants but it continues to celebrate those years of greatness by hosting the festival which, 25 years ago, was the very first to be held in Britain.
  Nowadays there seem to be fewer stalls than I remember there being four or so years ago and there seem to be also as many stalls selling different makes of gin than different sorts of food but who’s complaining? In fact I bought myself a gorgeous bottle of Chase Pink Grapefruit and Pomelo Gin which I sampled served with ordinary tonic and a slice of pink grapefruit yesterday evening in the bar  at Fishmore Hall and which was thoroughly delicious with its pleasing sharpness. That was my major first day discovery of the event.

  I went to some excellent cooking demonstrations one of which was given by Richard Buckley, the vegan chef of Acorn in Bath which I so enjoyed visiting last year (see Blog 29), which was centred on raising the preparation of a large ‘donkey’ carrot to a gastronomic pièce de resistance. He was a charming speaker and his food is remarkable but I couldn’t help coming away from the demonstration feeling that it had been Much Ado About A Carrot.
  He made a few quips about current chef fashions emanating out of London such as blobs of purée placed on a plate must now have a crater sunk into them so that it can be filled with some sort of oil and he explained why restaurants never put four of anything on a plate - in these present times all young ambitious chefs must have their Japanese phase and number 4 is linked with death in Japanese culture so to put four of the same thing on one plate is akin to wishing death to your customer! So, beware the Chef who places four identical items on your plate - grab your coat and run!
  Tomorrow is the highlight of Lucy’s year when we embark on our annual walking tour of Ludlow as we participate in the Sausage Trail - not to be missed - she has her own ticket which I secured amid the rumour that tickets were almost sold out.

61. Stratford’s The Woodsman Is Good Food Guide’s Best New Entry.

 Why is the second weekend in September the weekend when everyone holds a festival at which I want to be present? I assume it has something to do with giving people a couple of weeks after the end of the school holidays while balancing that factor with the shortening of the days, the cooling of the temperature and the end of summer weather to be replaced by something more autumnal. As well as other events at which I would quite happily be present, Birmingham is holding its first ever Peaky Blinders festival but alas it clashes with the Ludlow Food Festival, this year celebrating its 25th anniversary, to which I am a devoted attendee if only to ensure maximum happiness in my labrador’s life when we participate in the annual Sausage Trail for which she has her very own ticket. No doubt, I shall be writing more about this.
  But today, 12 September, is the publication date of the Good Food Guide 2020. I do not yet have my own copy but there is enough information on the internet and in this week’s Birmingham Post to at least have some headline idea of what it has to say about Birmingham and West Midlands food this year.
  Of the top 50 restaurants in Britain the highest placed West Midlands restaurant is Cheltenham’s Le Champignon Sauvage (some things never change) at no. 24 with Birmingham’s Adam’s at no. 49 and that’s your lot.
 I glean from The Post that the West Midlands has just 6 new entries in the Guide - Pensons in Stoke Bliss in Worcestershire, The Bookshop in Hereford, the already Michelin-starred Peel’s Restaurant in Hampton-in-Arden (not Henley in Arden as stated by The Post), Aktar Islam’s wonderful Opheem in Birmingham along with the city’s second new entry, Adam Stokes’ overpriced and less-than-wonderful The Oyster Club and, in Stratford-upon-Avon, the restaurant which won the Guide’s ‘Best New Entry’ (for the whole UK), The Woodsman which has been opened in the refurbished Tudor building which houses the Indigo (Falcon) Hotel in Chapel Street close to Shakespeare’s home, New Place, as well as King Edward’s Grammar School where the Bard was schooled for a while.
  William Sitwell was ecstatic when eating at The Woodsman and even Giles Coren, as much as he dislikes eating with the ‘One Eyes’ in the provinces, has been positive about the restaurant. With those recommendations I’m off to Stratford myself at the end of the month for what is hopefully going to be an increasingly greatly anticipated pleasure.