253. Upstairs.

 

  After my last visit to Upstairs by Tom Shepherd, happily sited in old and lovely Lichfield, (Blogs 188 and 194), I wrote the above. 

  And so it came to pass, Michelin did award the restaurant a star only a few months after it opened. To be fair it wasn’t all that difficult to predict but I did not miss the opportunity to make the prediction. And then of course the inevitable happened and the bookings poured in and it became impossible to make a reservation for months ahead. They tell me they’re now fully booked until Christmas. Nevertheless there I was out to dinner at Upstairs having previously had lunch twice there in October and November. 

  The welcome and service by the front of house staff was, as before, immaculate. 

  And so to the food. The amuses gueules - the little tart and stupendous red cabbage gazpacho with horseradish ice cream - appeared at the table like dear old friends revisited. 

  Then the first starter of finely cooked Orkney scallops with peanut satay, very enjoyable but was a contrast to the sweet scallops needed in place of the sweet peanut flavour? Food for thought. Then, after a wonderful, freshly baked brioche-like Parker House roll was served with herb and Marmite butters, there came a beautiful slice of cod, cooked sous-vide and then finished in the pan with an excellent crust, a dreamy champagne velouté with mussels, samphire, caviar and celeriac tagliatelle. An unimpeachable dish if ever there were one.

  The next dish was veal sweetbreads well-cooked with goat curd and various pea elements. Peas can be so exhausting to eat in anything like a polite manner and this was my least favourite dish though it was finely executed and presented as prettily as sweetbreads could be. 

  The main course of Herdwick hogget with lamb neck and morel and turnip purée brought deeply tasty meat to the table. The neck meat, served in a little bowl exuded a pleasingly powerful flavour. Again the cooking was immaculate but I found the overall flavour to be profoundly earthy, almost autumnal, and without a contrasting element in it to really bring it to life. Not for nothing has sheep meat been served with mint for many years.

  There was an excellent predessert where mango was the main element (the signature ‘Thai green curry’) and then the dessert proper where white chocolate parfait was paired with strawberry, an unnecessary and flavourless tuile, and slivers of marigold leaf. A pleasant and highly seasonal ending to the meal though not a top rank dessert I think.

  Tom Shepherd has established his restaurant as a place to seek out fine food and he is not unwilling to challenge his diners with classic combinations with 2020s twists. All tables were full which is quite an achievement considering, as I walked back to Lichfield station, I passed several restaurants at about 9.45PM, not one of which had a single diner in them. I fear a restaurant cataclysm is drawing close as the day to day challenges of pandemic, post-pandemic, manpower and Ukraine war-related economic factors weigh increasingly heavily and many diners feel unable or unwilling to go out to dine. The comfortably well off, like the poor, will be with us always and they will sustain high quality restaurants such as Upstairs through these economic calamities but many others may well be lost. In many ways the highly upmarket restaurant probably represents the genre most likely to survive and even flourish in these upcoming times but  the restaurant has to be in sited in the right place, has to be prepared to serve luxury ingredients with flair and charge high but not ridiculous prices (we’re not London) and has to have a great chef. And Birmingham city centre which the city’s council is making a determined effort to ruin is no longer the place to locate such a restaurant - better to wander a little distance across the borders to the surrounding towns and countryside. The flight from Birmingham centre could well be the next stage in the history of Birmingham food.