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.