It has been announced by Michelin that as the Michelin Guide is now online, it will now be updated on a monthly basis. This will take place on the last Wednesday of the month and today we have the new additions - seven in all, largely, as we may expect in London but with a representation also in the north, Michelin’s own version of the Johnson government’s levelling up it seems, and also one in Wales (well, you can’t ignore the Celtic fringe can you?) Naturally, as we have also come to expect, there are no new additions anywhere in the whole of the Midlands. I suppose it’s a bit of a bore stopping off in the heart of England when you are dashing between the bleak but worthy-of-being-levelled-up North and the home comforts of London where, for a Michelin inspector, civilisation both begins and ends.
Still it all gives us something to moan about now on a monthly basis while we await our turn for a bit of levelling up action.
Meanwhile better news for Birmingham - three of the city’s leading restaurants have been rated to be in the top 100 restaurants in the United Kingdom in the 2021 Estrella Damm National Restaurant Awards organised by Restaurant magazine. The awards are said to represent “the brilliance and vibrancy of the UK’s eating out scene”. Carter’s of Moseley, much loved by the trendy young, comfortably off socialists of Moseley, Kings Heath, Stirchley and Harborne, was the highest placed of the three at number 45, Aktar Islam’s unimpeachable Opheem was at number 58 and the doyen of Birmingham’s restaurants, Purnell’s, was voted by the panel of 200 ‘experts’ who participated in this selection into the 77th position. Not surprisingly, the visibly failing Simpsons did not get a mention in this list of gastronomic success stories and nor did, rather more surprisingly, the sophisticated and immaculate Adam’s.
The Birmingham Post mentioned that the ‘winning’ restaurant was situated in the levelling-up North - Moor Hall in Aughton in Lancashire - for the second consecutive year. Why are we not surprised that five of the restaurants in the top ten are located in London and the other five in The North? In the numbers 11 to 20 group there are 4 in the North and 4 in London, with one in the south east (Kent) and one in Wales.
This is all very odd and reeks of observer bias although some effort was made to ensure the whole of the country was covered by dividing the UK into 11 regions and having the experts list the top seven restaurants they have dined at in the previous 12 months and weighting the choices according to their order of preference. This explanation is very superficial and all sorts of holes in the method of arriving at the 100 can be picked out without a lot more detail.
It’s good news for some Birmingham restaurants but logically there has to be something amiss when the highest placed Midlands restaurant can manage no higher than number 45. Apart from the Birmingham restaurants the other Midlands restaurants to feature in the list were:- Restaurant Sat Bains (Nottingham)(54), and Alchemilla (Nottinghamshire) (81) with no other West Midlands restaurants being so honoured.
No comments:
Post a Comment