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
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