200. Craft.

 

  As this strange year draws to a close I can not help but muse about the remarkably excellent dishes I have eaten in this end of year period. After recently waxing lyrical about meals at Smoke in Hampton In Arden and in some excellent restaurants in Lichfield (see recent Blogs) I must now celebrate again a truly excellent meal back here in Birmingham at Craft Dining Room prepared by Chef Jake Smith, originally from Herefordshire, along of course with Chef-Patron Andrew Sheridan (see Blog 163).

  Finding our way through a restaurant set up like a motionless dance of the seven veils, see below, my dining companion and I were a little taken aback by the changes to the decor and the seating; the latter now taking the form of backless benches instead of the very attractive gold and silver chairs which made the once spacious restaurant look so very attractive when it was first opened. But Helena, now in charge of front of house it seemed, guided us safely to our benches and low table as though through solid mists which the diaphanous curtains surrounding each table.resembled. We thought the decorations were not too appealing, especially with the dark wall colouring and the absence of normal light. But no matter, it was the food that we were there for.

  We chose the £60 six course meal and the price included a pleasing cherry flavoured cocktail. But the food was what really mattered and each course was an absolute delight. The bread was a very eatable sourdough with a black garlic butter and this was turned into a full first course by serving it with an egg shell containing the elements of a deconstructed Welsh rarebit made from Lincolnshire Poacher cheese served in an egg shell which was clever and very tasty (illustrated above).

  The next course was a delicious goats cheese cream with chive oil, artichoke and artichoke crisps. A delicious dish with a lot of originality and I remarked to my companion how pleasing it was to have a vegetable starter, which are now almost de rigeur, that was not a variation on the carrot theme. Thence to the first main course - a memorable beef tartare with an apt amount of acidity coupled with a tempura coated oyster, hollandaise and lovage oil. I did not really get a lot of flavour from the meaty oyster but it was still a  pleasing dish. 

  Then to the second main course of partridge breast with a very tasty partridge drumstick with parsley oil, pearl barley and partridge sauce with accompanying delightfully crispy tartlets with sweet beetroot and apple. It was apparent, as is usually the case at Craft Dining Room, that Chef had gone the extra mile to produce not just tasty but interesting, exciting and beautiful, often delicate, presentations of the fine, usually local, ingredients used in the meals.  This was a lovely seasonal dish.

  Next, the excellent pre-dessert, an excellent transitional dish, of yogurt cream with a yogurt sorbet and fabulously tasty fennel crumble. A great combination.

  And then to the final pleasure of chocolate mousse in a chocolate mille feuille with a Palma violet-flavoured crunchy element and more Parma violet in the sorbet. Served to those in a state of Bliss who have lead a good life on this Earth, or so it should be.

    What a pleasure it always is to lunch or dine at Craft. The decor and seating may have seemed rather strange to my dining companion and myself - it was mildly claustrophobic being surrounded by the forest of net curtains but the food was very fine and the service attentive and excellent. We admired the efforts put in to put local Midlands food and drink on the menu but such admirable intentions have their weakness - as we found on previous visits long before lockdown, English red wines are just not up to accompanying robust dishes of beef and red meats and the restaurant struggles to provide a dessert wine (I suggested Helena tries Yoxall Ice Dessert Cider which originates from near Lichfield and which I had thoroughly enjoyed on visits to Smoke in Hampton In Arden and Rob Palmer’s pop-up at Thyme Kitchen in Lichfield).

  Apart from the excitement of trying to avoid any possible Minotaur lurking amid the maze of curtains the restaurant’s decor added further interest to dining there by displaying art by the local but Lyons-born artist, Frédéric Daty, obtained from neighbouring Castle Fine Art, including an enjoyable Peaky Blinders piece.

  Food, art and …. literature. On sale in the restaurant. Andrew Sheridan, like a number of other distinguished local chefs has written a beautiful book, not surprisingly perhaps titled 8, which details many of his fine recipes. It is a lavish and richly luxurious book, a literary equivalent of an evening at About 8. A great addition to a library devoted to West Midlands gastronomy. Both Andrew Sheridan and Jake Smith were kind enough to fleetingly leave the kitchen to sign my copy. 

  I was interested to hear that there is a plan for 2022 where Craft will hold a programme of meals, each week the dishes connected to the six counties of the West Midlands (I take it that they will be the traditional counties of Shropshire, Staffordshire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire and will ignore the modern invention of West Midlands County). I think that is very exciting and I hope to visit all six.

Peaky Binders by Frédéric Daty

Signed by Andrew Sheridan and Jake Smith.

  There was disappointing news from the BBC’s Masterchef The Professionals when one of two West Midlands chefs appearing in the programme was eliminated in the quarter finals. Sadly former Chef de Partie at Adam’s restaurant, Yasmine Selwood, failed to get into the semi-finals firstly cooking a paneer curry - paneer cheese cooked in curry oil, chilli curry sauce and peas, green tomatoes, fennel and apricot lime pickle and a cumin flat bread topped with halloumi - as her response to a brief which required a dish showcasing cheese. The judges felt that she could have done more with her dish.

  The next task was to prepare a two course meal for three critics including Jay Rayner and Tracey MacLeod. She prepared an over-simple starter of green and white asparagus with crispy egg finished with Parmesan, truffle and lemon zest but the egg was severely overcooked with the yolk being almost solid and not at all runny.the main coarse was goat loin cooked in spiced butter with curried carrot purrée, Scotch bonnet Jersey royal potatoes, pickled hispi cabbage, grilled grillotte onion and a red wine jus but the judges felt that the curry element of the dish was largely missing and Marcus Wareing felt that the dish was lacking “energy and power”.

  The result was clear and the outcome inevitable but Selwood remained charming and pleasant throughout.

 

  Michelin Guide Tweet watch.

The latest visits of Michelin Guide inspectors indicated by ‘tweets’ are:-

4 December - Prithvi in Cheltenham. The restaurant already has a Michelin Plate.

  I was interested to read that Andrew Birch who was Head Chef at Forelles in Ludlow, then the Wild Rabbit at Kingham, then at Ellenborough Park outside Cheltenham, all of which I am familiar with, has now left his role at Gordon Ramsay’s Savoy Grill where he had a six month contract after moving there from Lainston House in Winchester. He is planning to open a new venue in the new year along with his wife Rachel who is also a chef. Will he return to the West Midlands?