97. West Midlands Mayor Calls For Birmingham To Kick Start Hospitality Industry.

  Diners and food business owners remain full of expectation indulging in optimistic speculation about the imminent reopening of restaurants. Politicians are also keen to see the hospitality industry get restarted given that in the West Midlands alone 135000 jobs are provided by that industry and it contributes £12.6 billion per year to the local economy. Now the Birmingham Post reports that the notable West Midlands mayor, Andy Street, has called on the government to allow the region to become the first area in the country to reopen its public houses and restaurants, “This way, we can lead the way and help strike the right balance between safety and outputs, allowing other regions to follow suit. It’s important for the West Midlands to build on its unique heritage and distinctive strengths and seize the opportunity to reset, rebuild and reinvent our region, and come back even stronger”.

  I have my doubts. Being an old bloke, and much favoured by COVID-19 as potential prey, I don’t really want my first post-lock down fine dining meal to be my last. And COVID certainly has not gone away in these parts and it’s just as nasty and murderous as it was 3 months ago. Some Birmingham restaurants, Craft Dining Rooms and The Wilderness, are making reservations in anticipation of an early July starting gun being fired. They could be right and I have speculatively made bookings at both though for a little while after they open so somebody else can dip their toes in the water before I take the plunge and the table I have reserved at Craft Dining Rooms is outside.
  Craft Dining Rooms has indicated that it will put in a lot of measures to ensure that diners will be as safe as possible when it reopens its doors to them including temperature testing (of the diners not the food) and in the meantime has introduced a takeaway service with a very reasonably priced 2 two course meals for £40.

  Meanwhile Carter’s of Moseley, at the top of trendy people’s favourite Birmingham restaurant list, has been selling extravagant and extravagantly priced ingredients so that the well heeled socialists of Moseley and Harborne and the slightly less well heeled socialists of Kings Heath can cook their own Michelin-starred barbecues. Well done to Brad Carter for his good business sense.

  At The Wilderness Alex Claridge has been offering bespoke 3 hour-long home cooking lessons via the internet and has opened his reservation book to post-Lockdown customer-hopefuls (I’m one of them).

  And Kray Tredwell and Stuart Deeley have been giving a number of interviews about their plans for their new restaurants the openings of which have been necessarily delayed by COVID-19. Kray has a nice byline - Fancy Common Food by Kray Tredwell. Though he also has Modern Abstract Fine Dining from Kray Tredwell which is nicely intriguing.

  Finally we might note a recent Birmingham Post article which reported on an interview with Aktar Islam of the sublime Opheem who gave a gloomy prognosis for the future of Birmingham restaurants as a result of the COVID-19 problem especially as his new Pulperia had only just opened prior to the Lockdown with the result, one assumes, that it was bleeding money. Let’s hope he’s wrong. There are many determined chefs and restaurant owners in the West Midlands whose efforts in the last few weeks may have saved their businesses and our regional Dining scene. This is another chapter in the story of dining out in the West Midlands. Perhaps Andy Street’s intervention may tip the balance in their favour.

Pulperia has recently started a takeaway Sunday lunch service