89. Brad Carter On Saturday Kitchen.

  Brad Carter, Chef Patron of the Michelin-starred Carter’s Of Moseley, appeared as one of the guest chefs on BBC1’s Saturday Kitchen on 14 March and presented one of the dishes sometimes sold at his at his restaurant - Scottish dairy beef with wheat grass and bone marrow. I have only visited Carter’s once before (see Blogs 5 and 12) because I dislike Moseley and having to travel there and I feel I should go to the restaurant again though if anything, despite this being a very well thought of restaurant by many, Carter’s dishes aren’t all to my taste and with a no choices menu and some of the dishes being just a little bit eccentric I dislike the thought of having something I wouldn’t have chosen forced on me particularly when I’m paying for it.

  The programme was interesting as Carter stated that he liked serving food along with the food that the creature would have eaten itself. I suppose if he serves frogs’ legs he might try to find a way to also serve flies which would be a splendid realisation of the old joke about there being a ‘fly in my soup’ - this would not be so innovative as he already serves, as Alex Claridge famously once did at The Wilderness, ants to deliver a lemon flavour (see Blog 1). I’m not sure what flavour flies would hold in them.

  It was good to hear the Brummie accent, which he has, let loose on a BBC programme. After Glynn Purnell’s hosting of the programme the week before the BBC seems to be coming along leaps and bounds in giving more recognition to the West Midlands and its people and they way they speak. Perhaps it’s all to do with Peaky Blinders.

Brad Carter

  And this is what to drink with your plate of Scottish dairy beef, bone marrow and grass:- 

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  At last year’s Ludlow Food Festival I very much enjoyed the talk given by Suree Coates who for many years has had a single-handed, small fine Thai food restaurant in Ironbridge. I was very sorry to see on a Midlands news report two or three weeks ago, when the flooding of the River Severn was at its worst, a picture in the report which showed that her restaurant, Suree’s Kitchen, had been badly affected. The good news is that the restaurant was able to reopen on 5 March. It’s a place I dearly want to visit (I would have gone before but there was a long waiting list for a reservation). It’s distressing to see small businesses affected by these calamities after all the efforts their owners have put in over the years to keep their establishments going. But it’s pleasing to see how quickly people can bounce back.
  And now the Coronavirus problem will be a blow upon a bruise for many dining establishments whether they have recently been affected by flooding or not.

Suree Coates

The riverside flooding at Ironbridge with Suree’s Kitchen clearly affected.

“I’m back” Facebook message.

88. Lunch At Opheem.

  With the government kindly informing us that my generation’s days are numbered by the inrushing tide of Coronavirus and the BBC gleefully reporting the death of yet another old person we Old Blokes presently have to think twice about the risks of going out to eat. We also have to think of the benefits of dining or lunching out at this particular instance. 

  For example, it is rather easier to get a reservation at short notice at a popular fine dining restaurant than it would normally be. And judging by how empty the cross city train to New Street late morning on a Friday was and how quiet New Street Station was mid-afternoon on the same day, when one might expect the crowds to be building up, it seems that one is actually less likely to encounter other humans potentially seathing with viruses than one is in one’s own home.

  On Thursday evening I had the thought I would like to visit Opheem which I had not dined at since October 2018 and was surprised I could get a reservation at this one Michelin starred restaurant for Friday lunch. That was thrilling in itself.

  The journey there was a little anxiety-inducing with the constant threat of a virus-soaked traveller getting on the train and choosing to sit in my immediate vicinity but I did not hear a cough all the way to the restaurant and no-one came into view sweaty with fever. Which is unusual in itself, usually in normal times the train is full of coughing, sweaty people.

  The menu was not so different from 16 months ago. Well, if you’ve got great dishes and they’re selling well why ditch them?

  Suddenly it came to me, with all this threat of limited mortality in the air, that I was rather like a condemned man being allowed to choose his final meal (not that I’m expecting an immediate shuffling off of this mortal coil despite what the BBC may suggest). Well, this final meal was really rather splendid. First a joyous little trio of amuses bouches (apparently that term is still in use). The precise details of these little dainties are rather complex and therefore forgotten by me (well I am an Old Bloke) but there was a charming little strawberry-flavoured spicy ring which I ate in 6 bites and it was, very cleverly, only at the end of the third bite that the spice began to make itself apparent. Very clever. There was also a delicate little tartlet with a cheesy mousse and, one was recommended the order in which to eat them, finally a chunk of pickled, peppery cucumber adorned with nasturtium and pansy flowers which is a memorable little tidbit.

  Then the bread. A shiny glowing brioche perfectly deliciously covered in small lamb chunks and served with a lamb pâté. Is this the best bread served in a Birmingham restaurant?

  At this time my Monkey 47 and tonic arrived. Gins and tonics rarely come along so beautifully flavoured - the barman had got to work with some grapefruit which had raised the old monkey up to a higher level than it already sits at. We discussed his gem afterwards and he said that he finds that Monkey is best served in that style though a Mediterranean tonic may be optimal or, alternatively, serve it enhanced with cucumber and mint.

  Back to the food. Remember the cost of the lunch is £35 including a half bottle of excellent house wine. Cry your eyes out, London. I chose the delightful Shaami, 3 little patties of finely minced mutton served with heritage tomatoes (more visual that gustatory in their contribution to the dish) and a scintillating green chutney.

  And so to the main act - Thangri masala - which looks like the name of a species of wildlife rather than what it really is - a plate of delicious perfectly cooked tandoori chicken breast with a generous quantity of successfully spicy tomato and fenugreek sauce. The dish looked slightly inelegant but not in the least unappetising, the rich thick sauce beckoned temptingly and delivered the goods.

  For dessert, Rewandchini (does this mean rhubarb in Urdu or Hindi?, is there a word in those languages for rhubarb?) - forced Yorkshire rhubarb with rhubarb yogurt, pretty sorrel leaves and crumbled white chocolate giving some crunch to the dish all coming together as a light and mildly exotic rhubarb crumble. Pleasant but not earth-shatteringly special. Also, served in a large bowl and difficult to spot when looking down into the deep well, perhaps it doesn’t have the delicate visual effect that it should.

  These were the choices on the lunchtime menu:- 

  A highly enjoyable meal. Something to savour on the dangerous, virus-infested journey back home where when I returned, BBC radio was broadcasting an interview with an ‘expert’ on how to prepare children for the impending deaths of their grandparents. Nice.

  No direct connections with food in  Birmingham and the West Midlands as far as I know, but it’s worth recording here that Michel Roux, of landmark importance in the history of dining out and gastronomy in Britain, died on 11 March 2020 at the age of 79 in Bray from a long-standing lung condition. He and his brother Albert made British gastronomic history when their restaurant, Le Gavroche, became the first British dining establishment to be awarded 3 Michelin stars in 1982 (it was opened in 1967 and received its first and second stars in 1974 and 1977 but returned to 2 star status in 1993 two years after Michel Roux Junior had taken over as the restaurant’s Chef Patron from Albert Roux. The Roux Brothers’ second restaurant, Waterside Inn at Bray was also awarded 3 Michelin stars in 1985 and still retains them.

The young Michel Roux (left) with his brother Albert.

87. Great British Menu - Alex Claridge Only Chef Working In The Midlands To Be In Central Region Heat.

Alex Claridge

The names of the chefs participating in this year’s Great British Menu have been announced by the BBC and there’s some big names and from Birmingham’s point of view the biggest news is that Alex Claridge is participating in the competition. He is one of four chefs taking part in the Central region (Midlands and East Anglia) heats and he is the only one who actually works in the region. Two of the other chefs work, inevitably, in London/Home Counties and the fourth works in Wiltshire - the publicity describes the location as “the Cotswolds”.
  The other three chefs are Sally Abé who is Head Chef at the Michelin-starred gastropub, The Harwood Arms in London, and she qualifies for our region’s heats by virtue of having been born in Mansfield in Nottinghamshire but she trained in Sheffield and then moved to London and has worked there ever since; Niall Keating, Executive Chef at the 2 Michelin-starred Whatley Manor in Wiltshire, who was born in Staffordshire and started work as a kitchen porter at the age of 15 at the Fitzherbert Arms in Stafford and then working in Bath and then for Sat Bains in Nottingham as chef de partie and Dom Robinson who is Chef Owner at the one Michelin-starred The Blackbird in Bagnor in Berkshire - he was brought up in Derbyshire and worked at Fischer’s in Baslow before moving to work in London and at one time in Dubai.

Sally Abé

Dom Robinson

Niall Keating 

  So Alex Claridge is the only Chef in the Central Region heat who does not have a Michelin star. I don’t see that as a problem. He is also the only Chef in the Central region heat to actually work in the Midlands. After my wonderful lunch at The Wilderness last week (see Blog 85) I’ve no doubt that Alex Claridge could easily find himself cooking at the banquet.

86. Pulperia Fails To Open As Planned. Lunch At Maribel Instead.

  Not so much Buenos Aires as Venice. At least that’s what you’d think when you first see the building in Brindley Place in which Aktar Islam’s much awaited and much hyped, newly opened Argentine restaurant, Pulperia, is located.

  I had a reservation to give it a try and so I duly turned up a few minutes before the appointed hour only to be told that due to problems food was not being served for lunch at present. The restaurant manager had tried to get hold of me but the message seemed not to have arrived. Well it all looked very nice but I shall have to wait for another day to give the food a try. The entrance itself is very swish and classy-looking. What a great location.

  But there I was. I’d braved the public transport wincing every time someone on the train or tram gave a cough and I had meticulously tried to avoid touching anything where infected hands may have been first but my Coronavirus-threatened journey seemed to have been all in vain,

.Then I remembered that just across the square was that very decent restaurant Maribel formerly Edmund’s and then Edmunds Bistro de Luxe (see Blogs 59 and 81). It wasn’t busy and I was given a table. The decor style looks as chic as it did on my visit there last year but the choice of carpet colour was plainly disastrous as it shows up the multiple marks of a wet and muddy winter and leaves the poor carpet screaming, “Clean me!”. The lunchtime menu represents very good value and gives a remarkably good amount of choice.

  It’s easy to take the bread for granted but I loved the little sweetish beer and malt loaf with yeast butter. It went down very nicely with my Hendricks and Schweppes tonic. There’s nothing wrong with Schweppes’ products even though Fever Tree has risen to trendy popularity for the present.

  To the starter. I chose ‘pork, langoustine, ginger’. A pleasing dish was served - well-cooked pork belly (I know I never miss the opportunity to complain about being served yet another dish of pork belly but this was tasty and nicely coloured and completely lacking the anaemic pallor that is bestowed on anything that’s been lying around in a water bath for an hour or two) with some tasty little langoustines and an excellent bisque with some apt slices of leek.The spices placed it all in south east Asia which is never a bad place for food to hail from.

  The main course was an amiable piece of halibut tasting just as it should on a bed of puy lentils which are usually pretty horrible things but here worked very well, little tasty florets of grilled cauliflower and a champagne sauce. A fine little dish.

  Finally to the dessert of a crispy wafer-thin pastry with balls of apple, apple ice cream, little dots of a parsnip-flavoured cream (very good) and underneath it all Calvados-soaked golden raisins adding to the pleasure of the dish.

  It is 6 months or so since the young Head Chef, Harvey Perttola, took over the reins of Maribal from  the hoary, now-retired Richard Turner and he has established a good solid menu of pleasing well-cooked food. Maribel is not the best-situated quality restaurant in the city centre area. It’s a distance from the main hub of the city though now that the tram travels up to Centenary Square it is more easily arrived at by public transport. There’s a lot of competition in the immediate area with a number of chain restaurants and the pending opening of Pulperia places another quality restaurant within a few yards of it. Also on the way back to the tram stop there’s the lure of Craft Dining Room. 

  Everywhere you look there’s growing competition for quality restaurants in Birmingham and we may be on the point of seeing people stop going out to dine as the Coronavirus epidemic starts to bite. Spring is just starting. I wonder which restaurants will be around when autumn is drawing to a close here in Birmingham and the West Midlands. The Michelin Star 2021 revelation ceremony will take place on 19 October 2020 at the Camden Roundhouse (in London naturally) (there will also be a separate Bib Gourmand ceremony for the first time at a venue yet to be announced) and one wonders which of the 2020 winners will still be in business if the virus outbreak really takes grip. We must wait and see.

  On the way to the tram stop from my lunch at Maribel I did indeed pass Craft Dining Room and took the opportunity to photograph its dining pods. Interesting I think. 

85. In The Wilderness But Not Wandering.

  In the past I have described Alex Claridge as a genius. Lunch at The Wilderness today has not made me change my mind.

  A multi-course lunch of exceptional dishes for just £40. Not just genius but a philanthropist.

  Heading through the unending drizzle from St Paul’s tram station to Warstone Lane in the heart of the Jewellery Quarter I was pleased to see the restaurant’s black (naturally) sign hanging at the entrance to a passageway above that of the fine little 24 Carat Bistro which is a grand little place. At the other end of the passageway were the entrances to the two restaurants with that of the The Wilderness rather unexpectedly bookended by two plants with flaming red leaves - a surprising splash of intense colour opening up to the famously black-dominated decor of the restaurant’s interior. Clever.

  On entering, the first person I bumped into was the very familiar face of the new General Manager - Sonal Clare who had been General Manager at Purnell’s for several years but who was now looking very much at home and comfortable in his new environment and dressed rather more ‘smart casual’. Nice jacket. It was also delightful to be greeted by Loubie Goldie who has been restaurant manager and marvellous front of house lead certainly since Nomad became The Wilderness, then with its moss-covered walls, in Dudley Street and whose welcoming charm beautifully complemented the exciting food that has been coming out of the kitchen since those early days. 

  The menu revealed the delights to come. Well to a certain extent anyway. Obviously the menu did not give precise details and left a bit of mystery for the diner to be properly surprised, always for the right reasons, every time a dish appeared. 

  I can’t go into detail because there’s too many details for any normal human brain to have remembered but nothing - absolutely nothing - disappointed. Pictured below are the spicy little saag-filled beignet with a nice, spicy bite, the excruciatingly fabulous Big Mac steak tartare, the piercingly tasty yuzu ponzu trout - the prettiest, most colourful dish in Birmingham - with its exquisite little  doll’s house mushrooms and mushroom dashi, the most perfect lamb with a pistachio crust and the mild bite of mustard with a little piece of lamb’s tongue and a sweetly pickled taste of some Roscoff onion and the uniting delicious lamb sauce around it all, the wondrous ‘milk and cookies’ followed by a light and very happy final course of Yorkshire rhubarb, with rhubarb ice cream, toasted fragments of crunchy corn flakes and yogurt on top like the snow at the top of the mountain you have just climbed. Not that it was a hard and difficult climb, more a gentle ascent through the most pleasant of pastures to the most picturesque of uplands. The Wilderness, not A Wilderness.

  Of course there was one last little gem to be had - the trademark chocolate skull, this time very pleasingly made from sweet white chocolate. I held it in my hand and mentally spoke the words, “Alas poor Yorick, I knew him Horatio ....” and then sank my teeth into it! 

Alas poor Yorick, I knew him Horatio ....

  The Wilderness’ departure from the Jewellery Quarter is expected any week now - probably April - and it will resurrect itself in the restaurant on Bennett’s Hill, off New Street, where Adam’s had its first pop-up version before moving to Waterloo Street and where subsequently Claridge’s own Nocturnal Animals was located for the short period of its existence. It looks as exciting as you would expect, with zebra-striped furniture rather than the total blackness of the present incarnation. I asked Loubie Goldie if she would miss the present location and she said she would - I think they’d all grown rather attached to it - but the current location probably was not as good for ensuring every table would be fully booked compared with a more central location. 

  Heaven knows what effects the coming weeks of potential virus-induced self isolations will do for the restaurant trade here in Birmingham and in the wider West Midlands. Restaurants in cities and towns such as Hereford, Shrewsbury and Ironbridge have already been badly hit by the floods that followed the record rains of recent weeks (February 2020 was the wettest February in recorded history) and here in Birmingham unprecedented numbers of high range restaurants are opening so competition for custom  is growing almost weekly. A hit from a Coronavirus epidemic could be very damaging to the future of some our remarkable restaurants. So I intend to make the most of them while we’ve got them just in case some of them disappear during 2020.

  One final note - The Wilderness has been nominated, along with Aktar Islam’s Opheem, as Best Restaurant in the British GQ Food and Drink Awards 2020 (also nominated are The Lecture Room and Library at Sketch, London, Midsummer House Cambridge, Ynyshir Powis and Mana Manchester).  Michelin Star-less The Wilderness is certainly in good company in that group. Aktar Islam has also been nominated for the Best Chef award. 

At the pass.

The Wilderness - Now.

The Wilderness - Things to come.