281. Slow ‘N’ Low At The Wilderness.

 

  The highlight of this year’s Ludlow Food Festival (see Blog 264), beyond doubt, was the now traditional Fire and Feast event held inside the castle itself on Saturday evening and the highlight of the event was the mesmerisingly, stupendously delicious truffled beef prepared and served up by Andy Stubbs. As he circulated to talk with the diners he chatted and confirmed that he was close to opening a restaurant in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter after years of running his slow cooking, live fire street food business from a mobile stand at venues such as the Digbeth Dining Club and food festivals. He began his business in 2013 after being made redundant from his previous non-food related employment and eventually successfully crowd-funded the establishment though he said he had had problems along the way.

  But now the restaurant is close to its opening date and to fill in till then Alex Claridge, who told me that he had known Stubbs from the days when he was doing a Nomad ‘pop-up’ himself in Kings Heath’s Garden Cafe, had offered Stubbs the use of The Wilderness facilities on days when the restaurant would not normally be open for service. And that meant that an opportunity existed for a very promising alternative Sunday lunch.

  The menu was made up of small dishes with a couple of larger ones. I kicked off with an unusual and powerfully flavoured Rita From Austin cocktail, the nature of which can be guessed from the list of ingredients - poblano peppers, fresh citrus, jalapeño and  mezcal. If that didn’t set me up in the right frame of mind for what was to come then nothing would.

  After a little debate, I settled on the pair of smoked brisket and ox cheek chilli tacos with cheese, pickled onion and lime. The meat flavour was very robust and the pancake-like tacos on which the meat rested made a comfortable bed for the strong taste sweetened by the little pieces of pickled onion and livened up with lime. This was a dish which announced that Andy Stubbs had arrived, was passionate about what he did and that he was going to assail Birmingham with his style of food. To Birmingham’s benefit of course.

  The other dishes of my order came out together, a stupendous ex-dairy short rib, the meat falling from the bone (well near enough anyway) with fresh and textural ‘kraut slaw’, delicious house smoked sausage served with a sweet and pertinent chilli de Arbol BBQ sauce and cosily Sunday lunch-style pleasing ‘Beef fat spuds’ with crême fraiche and herbs (these are how potatoes are served to the good souls who have led a good life and made it to Heaven).

  It’s rather nice sitting in The Wilderness for Sunday lunch with the friendly, familiar faces of The Wilderness staff bringing one exuberantly tasty, solid, powerfully flavoured, unpretentious food to eat at a comfortable pace. I find I have just written myself into making another reservation for a repeat Sliw ‘n’ Low lunch very soon.