195. Up In Smoke.

  At last a trip to Hampton Manor but not to dine at Peel’s restaurant but to pay a visit to Stuart Deeley’s new restaurant there - Smoke. And (I know I shouldn’t start a sentence with ‘and’ but sometimes it just works for me) indeed it has been a long time coming (though that phrase is relative compared with how long it has been since The Good Food Guide has sounded optimistic about what is happening on the gastronomic scene in Stoke-on-Trent - see below). If anyone’s plans were badly affected by the pandemic (pandemic? What pandemic?) then the former Masterchef The Professionals champion is right up there with the unfortunates. After winning the competition, then leaving his job as Head Chef at The Wilderness, there was talk of him opening his own first restaurant in the Jewellery Quarter, then Edgbaston, he ‘popped up’ at Craft, delivering a joint menu with Andrew Sheridan, and then there were pop ups at Simpsons and a spell of devising and preparing home delivery meals during a ‘lockdown’ period also at Simpsons. Then he appeared at Hampton Manor in the role of Development Chef and now he is Head Chef at Smoke. There must have been many trials and tribulations over the past two years (as there have been for almost everyone in the hospitality business).

  I had hoped to stay at Hampton Manor but it is not dog-friendly so instead I was pleased to be back at the very dog-friendly Grand Hotel in Colmore Row where Lucy The Labrador could snooze away the evening while I headed from New Street Station to Hampton in Arden. The return journey is short with Hampton being the next station on from Birmingham International and it is located just 5 to 10 minutes from the restaurant.

  

Smoke was warm and welcoming on a chilly very late autumn evening and the staff were welcoming and professional. After a version of an Old Fashioned cocktail a delightful collection of nibbles was served in the form of three small pieces of charcuterie, vegetables from the restaurant garden served as mini-crudités - a little section of sweet, sweet carrot, halves of firm radish and a little piece of happily crispy deep fried kale - plus two enjoyable slices of sourdough with supremely delicious Ampersand butter and a tasty nasturtium emulsion which I presume was intended as a dip for the crudités.

  There were two dinner options - a very sensible four course à la carte menu for £70 or a surprise menu which was contained in a box which the diner may or may not have chosen to dine from costing £95. There were enough items on the à la carte menu to convince me that I would dine from it but when I opened the box to see what I would have had if the mystery menu had been my choice I was lured into changing my mind by the presence of a scallop dish and a venison main course.

  That said, the first course - cacklebean egg was not what I would have chosen as my starter - I have never been a lover of poached yolk and so many restaurants seem to be serving it in some form or the other at present (like celeriac it’s very à la mode). But if I had to have egg then this was probably the best on offer. It was a fine dish - the egg perfectly cooked but for me very much playing second fiddle to a powerfully flavoured Jerusalem artichoke velouté and crispy hen of the wood mushrooms. The dish was also visually beautiful as can be seen in the photograph.

  The second course was a supremely delicious scallop shockingly enhanced by a furiously tasty smoked carrot and a sweet carrot soup with the added gustatory victory of hazelnuts. A gem of a dish.

  And so to the excellent venison main course, served in a somewhat deconstructed form.The lusciously flavoured meat finely cooked, the venison and port sauce luxurious and unctuous, the boulangère potatoes crispy with the sweetest caramelised onions, a meaty slice of girolle with nasturtium leaves (what would the modern chef do without nasturtiums?) and girolle purée. The dish is described as ‘Highland venison over smoking pine branches’ - I didn’t catch the pine in honesty but this was still a very fine dish and, coupled with what went before, it was enough to start me calculating when I would be staging a repeat visit to Smoke.

 

 Then a carefully considered cheese course with an aptly blended combination of what was effectively an enjoyably gooey slice of Anglicised tarte tatin and a chunk of deeply saline Mrs Bells Blue cheese washed down by a spectacularly well-matched ice cider. I wondered if the apple tart might have been better with a cheesy-flavoured ice cream if one was destined to have a cheese course with a degree of novelty about it but I surrendered myself to Chef’s imagination and skill.

 

 On to dessert proper. Two slices of accurately poached Mouneyrac pear with elements of chocolate and a garden honey ice cream though I should have liked a stronger honey flavour in the ice cream. Still, a very satisfactory end to a very fine meal. The restaurant needs to get its postprandial coffee situation sorted out and when doing so a couple of petits fours might be pleasing. It’s small and trifling elements such as these which raise restaurants to the stars, if you get my drift.

  Deeley has finally arrived on the West Midlands scene and in style. Smoke, both fine and rustic, further increases the number of notable restaurants to be found in our region. It is remarkable how many younger chefs are coming through with their own remarkable new restaurants to add to the local scene and to lure those who feel they know about good food and dining out, who are even paid to pronounce on their feelings about it, to come to our cities, towns and countryside to see what the West Midlands has to offer.

  Coincidently, the latest Michelin Guide tweet appeared a few hours before my visit to Smoke and featured a visit to Peel’s restaurant and showcased the venison on the menu there. It seems the inspector agreed with me about the ‘wonderful’ local venison being served at the Hampton Manor site.

  However only the day before, to paraphrase the latest Michelin Guide monthly tweet - “Another month has passed, which means it’s time to announce that the MICHELIN inspectors again have found no new restaurants in the West Midlands to be their favourite additions to the MICHELIN Guide Great Britain & Ireland”. What? Not even Upstairs By Tom Shepherd? Has no-one yet visited Smoke? Really? 

  Meanwhile in her latest weekly news update, Elizabeth Carter, editor of the resurrected Good Food Guide, draws attention with a certain degree of undisguised excitement to the opening of Niall Keating’s Lunar at the World of Wedgwood Centre in Stoke-on-Trent. She points out that Stoke has rarely found itself featured on the pages of her publication - she identifies that a Stoke hotel was listed in 1951 and a Thai restaurant in Stoke was mentioned from 1993 to 1994. Good for Stoke. See Blog 189.