126. A Lost Year But A Happy Christmas.

 

Just when Birmingham and the West Midlands seemed to be doing so well from the gastronomy point -of-view along comes one of God’s smallest creatures, or perhaps it’s one of The Devil’s smallest creatures, which men named Coronavirus, and sets about wrecking everything. COVID-19 also followed straight on from flooding in some west midlands towns which had already done a lot of damage.

 Surprisingly, or perhaps not so surprisingly, most of our distinguished restaurants have so far survived this year of lockdowns and tiers and eat out to help out by turning to producing expensive takeaways where the diner became partially the chef and entirely the waiter. Where there’s a will there’s a way. The general ability to think innovatively and work hard has for centuries been the hallmark of the pragmatic midlander, not cosseted like self-preening Londoners or self pitying like some whining northerners, which is why Birmingham restaurants have held out so long, they’ve got on with it pragmatically and often with a sense of humour and determination to overcome all odds even when things seemed to continue to get worse no matter how hard they tried. The city was devoid of people but our restauranteurs found a way. Let us hope that a rapid roll out of the Oxford Astra Zeneca vaccine will soon be bringing back the diners who, let’s face it, probably have not spent much money at all during 2020 on rest and relaxation. If restaurants can hold on a little longer then a boom time may be awaiting them.

  Fortunately Birmingham was not placed in Tier 4 over Christmas unlike the south-east, birthplace of the new London variant of COVID-19, and Shropshire was still able to keep its hotels and restaurants open being in Tier 2 (until today which seems unkind as Covidity rates in the county remain startlingly low compared with elsewhere) and so the dog and I were able to pass our long-booked Christmas in Ludlow at Fishmore Hall in our own little bubble of one dog and one man.

 

What a delightful place it is to pass the Christmas break and each day was remarkably different - Wednesday somewhat wet and cold, Thursday dull and a little damp but not cold, Friday (Christmas Day) gorgeous, clear blue skies, bright sunshine, crisp with a lovely sunrise and a spectacular sunset, Boxing Day damp and increasingly rainy culminating in Storm Bertha overnight with rain and wind which decreased over Sunday until we woke to snow on Monday morning. 

  No matter the weather I feasted well in Fishmore Hall with the deputy chef Chloe Wednesday overseeing Christmas lunch (her proud parents were at the next distanced table) and I indulged in classic Christmas turkey, a very rich (perhaps a little too rich for me) chestnut and apricot stuffing, a pig in blanket, generous helpings of 6 different vegetables (nothing succeeds like excess) and a very unctious gravy/sauce. For my starter I had enjoyed a pleasingly thick roast carrot and cumin soup with little chunks of pickled cucumber which really lifted the dish along with an onion bharji which served as a tasty crouton. Dessert took the form of a Bailey’s crème brûlée which was just right after a very sizeable main course.

 

 

  

Chloe had been the pastry chef/sous chef at Fishmore Hall (before Joe Gould took up his post I think) and so I expect she was responsible for some of the splendid pastries and cakes served up at the two Afternoon teas (really it’s quite alright just to call them Teas) which were included in my Christmas package. My favourite had to be the Lemon and raspberry Battenburg but she also provides exquisite macaroons which on this occasion took the form of a blueberry and violet macaroon. Accompanying these two great pleasures was a splendid praline mousse with Tia Maria jelly and white chocolate (I’m not one for chocolate desserts but white chocolate does it for me every time. The savouries were a tasty little Coronation chicken sandwich, my favourite - a thoroughly enjoyable Ham hock, honey and mustard slider (I’ve gone so far in life without knowing until then what a slider is) and a smoked salmon, cream cheese and beetroot wrap. Least successful for me was a fine-looking but not terribly pleasant Tuna and red onion melt which would have been delightful without the aggressively favoured red onion in it which for a few moments alarmed me and made me wonder if I’d developed a disordered sense of taste. The tea was of course accompanied by very edible scones.

  Restauranteurs and diners will be pleased to see the back of 2020 I’m sure but when I’ve been allowed to do so I have had some grand meals here in Birmingham and our neighbouring counties. Keep fighting a little longer. There’s bound to be a dawn soon after this darkest Tier 4 night.

125. The Roaring Twenties - Birmingham’s Michelin Three Star Restaurant.

   It’s the early 1920s. The Great War is now a memory albeit a recent one and there is hope that nothing like it will take place on this planet again. The second wave of the great influenza pandemic has burnt itself out. Men home from the war, at least those who have come home, are trying to settle back into ordinary life. Political change is in the air. Those who can afford it would like to have a good time.

  So, here in Birmingham in those early years of the Roaring Twenties where would you go for a slap-up meal? You might turn to A Guide To Birmingham 1924 published by John Bartholomew & Co. which provides a useful list of presumably satisfactory places to dine in:- 

  

Barrow was located in Corporation Street. It was an important establishment in the city having been founded by John Cadbury at 93 Bull Street in 1824 as a tea, coffee and cocoa-selling business and situated next door the shop of his father, Richard Cadbury, who had opened a drapers shop at 92 Bull Street. The business known as Barrows Stores was taken over by Richard Cadbury Barrow. Under the redevelopment scheme put into action by Birmingham’s greatest mayor and political figure, Joseph Chamberlain, a new Street in the town’s centre - Corporation Street - was constructed in the 1870s and cut through Bull Street removing part of Barrows Stores and meaning that the business then became located on the corner of Bull Street and Corporation Street. 

  The old premises were demolished in 1904 and Barrows was then located in a new building with a restaurant on the first floor in part to enable the shop’s customers to sample the tea and coffee on sale. The cafe and restaurant was opened in 1905 and described thus, “The Cafe has large windows overlooking Corporation Street, from which a view of the busy throng below can be obtained. It is elegantly and tastefully furnished, is panelled with fumed oak and lit by electricity”. As the early years of the century passed more cafes and restaurants were added to the Stores to cater for the varying tastes of different customers so that by 1930 there were six - ‘General’, ‘Seasonal’, ‘Adam’, ‘Picture’, ‘Smoking’ and ‘Tudor’. It is not clear which of these is suggested by the list of restaurants published in the 1924 list above.

  In the early 1960s the original buildings in Bull Street were demolished and Barrows Stores moved to a smaller building in Bull Street. Barrows Stores Ltd was sold to a large supermarket chain in 1966. The stores featured in the movie Tolkein about the early life of the author JRR Tolkein, where in his youth,  the writer is depicted as ‘hanging out’ with his close friends who called themselves The Tea Club. The facade is recreated satisfactorily in the movie but unfortunately the film makers chose to film the movie in Liverpool! 

The above list was published in 1924. Pleasingly a couple of months ago I obtained a very decent copy of the 1925 8th Edition of the Michelin Guide Great Britain with its blue cover. Restaurants were described with stars though the meaning of the stars was rather different from today. “In this edition we have indicated a number of restaurants which we can recommend to tourists who prefer such establishments for meals. Unless otherwise stated they are not open on Sundays. As a guide to cuisine, appointments and general accommodation we have divided them into three categories shown thus:- *** Luxurious, well-appointed restaurants, ** Very good restaurants but not with the same luxury of appointments and variety of menu, * Simple but well kept restaurants”

  So how many Birmingham restaurants did the Michelin Guide deign to list in 1925? Well, only one actually. But it did have a three star rating so you could say that it was Birmingham’s first ever Michelin starred restaurant. It was the Exchange located at no 9 Stephenson Place. And it had three stars. There’s many a present-day Birmingham chef would give his right and left arms, both legs and other vital parts of his anatomy to have three stars at this present time. 

 

 The Exchange building was opened on 2 January 1865 and was such a big event that The Illustrated London News featured the grand opening on the cover of its 14 January 1865 edition (see below). The building was located on the corner of Stephenson Place and Corporation Street and among the various facilities there were refreshment rooms which, one assumes, became the sumptious restaurant which Michelin felt to be the only dining place worth mentioning in Birmingham in 1925. Criminally, in the ghastly large scale vandalism which resulted in the wholesale destruction of beautiful buildings in the city which took place in the 1960s to make way for vile brutalistic concrete carbuncles, the Exchange Building was demolished in 1965. We have no knowledge of Michelin’s view of the cuisine served at the Exchange in the 3 decades before it disappeared as no Michelin Guide for Great Britain was published from 1931 to 1974.

  So much has been lost. If you invent a time machine, hop back to 1925 for me and go for dinner at the Exchange and please photograph the dining room for me along with a copy of the menu. Even better, take me with you.

124. At Home And Away.

 

  Miserabile dictu, a food lover’s life under Tier 3 is a life of lost opportunity. Lost is my reservation for my pre-Christmas Purnell’s lunch which I’ve made one of my happiest personal Christmas traditions for several recent past years. But wait! Purnell’s cavalry is riding to the Christmas tradition rescue. Along with several other distinguished Birmingham restaurants, including the Michelin-starred Simpsons, Carter’s of Moseley and Opheem, as well as The Wilderness and Pulperia, Purnell’s has started a weekend Takeaway service for a four or three course lunch with, if required, a wine flight.

  Naturally I placed an order for the first weekend’s delivery which was brought to my doorstep (for an extra delivery fee) by sommelier Adrian on the afternoon of 5 December, too late for me to summon up the energy to prepare for myself and then consume a four course meal washed down with four half-bottles of wine but laying out the prospect of a Sunday lunch made up of some of Purnell’s greatest hits prepared and eaten as the day passed by.

  The contents of the goody box were initially a little mesmerising being rather numerous and I failed to recognise the fish especially as its packaging was unlabelled. But after girding up my loins it became apparent that the accompanying instructions  made it clear that the preparation steps were simple and not demanding and so we were off with a “substantial meal” (starter of smoked haddock scotch egg defined by various government ministers [after some debate] as a “substantial meal” in itself, necessary to be consumed if one has the desire to consume alcohol in a still open Tier 2 hospitality venue). Of course only Glynn Purnell and his crew could have come up with the cheeky, hilarious, ironic (perhaps sarcastic) choice of scotch egg as the starter of their first ever Tier 3 Purnell’s @ Home meal. The scotch egg, more Purnell’s Bistro than Purnell’s, came with spinach (which I successfully wilted), curry oil and chives and I performed a very amateur plating up while not wrecking the enjoyability of the dish. To be fair, the scotch egg wasn’t the greatest Purnell’s dish - the flavour of smoked haddock was perfect, not too overwhelming, but a layer of potato is less pleasing than a layer of sausage meat which is used in the traditional scotch egg. Still, the irony was fabulous.

  

  

I should not forget to mention the sheer joy of having Purnell’s pain de campagne in the house accompanied by a little container of the excellent butter served at the restaurant though the butter was a little over salted.

Smoked haddock scotch egg with spinach and curry oil.

  After I found the main component of the fish course - a lovely piece of cod covered in perfect spices - and managed to boil-in-the-bag the pickled carrots which therefore did not quite have the texture I’m sure Glynn Purnell would have hoped that I would achieve and then carried out the rest of the preparation without error including the shallow frying of the cod (2 minutes each side) I was able to plate up, perhaps with a little too much curry oil to achieve the height of elegance, and enjoy Purnell’s exquisite Fish du jour masala with Indian lentils, pickled carrots and coconut. This remains a fabulous dish even when I have been let loose on it. Such great pleasure.

 

 Then the main course of Braised daube of beef, which was so beautifully tender that it fell apart merely as a result of placing it on the plate and its flavour was mesmerising coupled as it was by extraordinarily delicious glazed carrots and Savoy cabbage. My plating up reached levels of inelegance never before seen with a Purnell’s dish but who cares? - I loved it.

 

   

My plating up was equally inelegant when it came to the legendary Burnt English Egg Custard Surprise 10/10/10 which was the dish that first lured me to the establishment in Cornwall Street but life’s too short to worry about the look when the flavour is everything. It was served with a winter-worthy Paupers cake, whipped mascarpone and crystallised lemon zest. Looking at my picture, it could be breakfast.

 

 

 At the end there were two little “gifts from the kitchen”, memorable little balls of white chocolate covered in hundreds and thousands. So I have had my traditional Purnell’s Christmas lunch after all and have been a Purnell’s chef for the day. As the year draws to the end, what could be more satisfying?

  The wine flight was admirable and the little half bottle of the El Coto 2016 Rioja was wondrous.

  With Birmingham due to continue in Tier 3 after 16 December I’m sure, a Birmingham publicity Advent calendar did its best to support our Michelin starred restaurants by naming them in its one of its little windows:-

  

Meanwhile, others too continue to offer their Eat At Home specials:-

  

Footnote. Scotch eggs. What the Financial Times has to say on the matter - 

122. Tiers For Fears.

   As Birmingham restauranteurs come to terms with the reality of the COVID-19 Regulations Tier 3 designation for the city there are more reactions from local leading names in the industry. In a question put to his customers on his Facebook page Glynn Purnell sought to gain information about the potential success of a takeaway service for his restaurant until the present crisis is over.

  Alex Claridge’s The Wilderness announced the non-reopening of his Jewellery Quarter restaurant by e-mail to his clients and used it is an opportunity to promote a tee shirt the restaurant is selling with the inscription, “It can’t rain all the time”. We hope that is true.

  

And Simpsons and The Cross at Kenilworth:-

 

 Jabbar Khan, the founder of Lasan, made famous by its then head chef Aktar Islam, and other restaurants, meanwhile is planning to open a new restaurant on Harborne High Street in the unit formerly housing a Cafe Rouge though the type of cuisine to be served there is not yet known. The restaurant is being designed by the Spencer Swindon Design group which designed the interior of the Plough Inn which will be opposite Khan’s new eatery. Khan has described it as going to be, “elegant and urban chic”. In the first part of the twentieth century, Brummies usually referred to the area using the derogatory term “Hungry Harborne” because the notoriously snobbish inhabitants liked to give the impression that they had rather more wealth than was actually the case and to maintain this image they would rather miss a meal than not have the items which projected prosperity. Perhaps Khan’s new restaurant may help to prevent the locals from still being ‘hungry’ and with its ‘urban chic’ still project the image of prosperity. I suppose the arbiter of that will be the effect of COVID-19 on jobs in an area where young professionals, unemployed, furloughed or still working, like to think of themselves as cool. Then again, t’was ever so.

121. Veil Of Tiers.

Tier 3 - Hell by Giotto di Bondone 1267-1337, Scrovegni Chapel Padua.

   Late in the morning of Thursday 26 November the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, announced the plans  Boris Johnson’s government had made for when England would exit the 4 week long COVID-19 ‘lockdown’. There were to be 3 Tiers as before but in the newly renamed Very High Tier 3 restaurants and hotels and public houses were to remain shut apart from the provision of takeaway meals. The precise locations of the unfortunate Tier 3 areas were to have been revealed on a government website but so great was the number of people trying to discover in which tier their own area had been placed that the site soon crashed. But the truth was soon revealed - Birmingham, Staffordshire, West Midlands and Warwickshire were all allocated a place in the Hell of Tier 3 while Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Shropshire were consigned to the Purgatory of Tier 2. Indeed of the whole of England only Cornwall, Scilly Islands and Isle Of Wight had found their way into the Heaven of Tier 1.

  This announcement was a great disappointment and cause for concern for the future of the hospitality industry in the West Midlands.  Notable Birmingham restaurants broke the news to their customers with various messages on line and The Birmingham Post headlined the threat to the industry in anticipation of the city’s allocation to Tier 3.

  Only 5 days prior to the government’s announcement, Sam Morgan, patron of Craft and 8, had been publicising that the restaurant had been putting into place more of its ‘dining pods’ which had proved to be very popular during the preceding weeks and helped to ensure heavily booked reservation lists for the restaurant.

 

So in the words of Haircut One Hundred (I have no idea why they suddenly came to mind):-

  And is that the boiling lake of Tier 3 Hell where the lost souls of restauranteurs end up? I hope not.