297. Purnell’s In 2023; Sonal Clare - A Legend In His Own Lifetime.

 

  Think of Food Personalities/Celebrities in Birmingham, well, anywhere really, and you think of chefs and chefs and chefs - here we have Glynn Purnell obviously but there’s also Brad Carter, Alex Claridge, Kray Tredwell and others - they have all appeared on popular television programmes at some time or the other and each has there own distinctive personality. 

  But the restaurant business also has another side to it - apart from the kitchen where stars are born and emerge to prominence, there is also front of house. One hundred and twenty years ago or so, Birmingham could boast of its own celebrity Maître D’Hotel (Maître d’/restaurant manager in modern terms) - M Joseph, born in Birmingham of French parents in the 1860s but mostly brought up in France where his skills as Maître d’ were so admired that he was approached by Richard D’Oyley Carte in 1898 to restore the fortunes of the Savoy in the wake of the fraud scandal involving Escoffier, Ritz and Echenard. As recounted in Blog 146, M. Joseph did indeed take up D’Oyle Carte’s offer of employment and for a short time was the main draw for the hotel to customers choosing to dine there but he became homesick for France whither he returned after a relatively short time at The Savoy and died shortly afterwards.

  The popular media in general, and television in particular, especially the BBC, may centre its interest on the celebrity chefs but behind many a notable chef including those here in Birmingham there has to be an accomplished restaurant manager. Most stay in the background but know how to deal with their diners in ways professional but friendly and welcoming and chat to their customers with the appropriate and welcome degree of schmoozing which their diners will appreciate. Then there are some who are personalities in their own right though the media has largely not recognised this yet. One of Birmingham’s outstanding Maître d’s is Sonal Clare who works with Alex Claridge at The Wilderness where he employs his particular sommelier expertise which he sharpened up during his time as restaurant manager at Purnell’s. I will return to Mr Clare shortly, but on the subject of Purnell’s, I was delighted, a couple of days ago, to lunch at Birmingham’s doyen restaurant.

  While all the attention is on the brilliant new or newish West Midlands restaurants of the new high achievers such as David Taylor, Dan Lee and  Alex Claridge, Purnell’s is there continuing to serve up very fine food beautifully and artistically presented. This is food as art. True, sometimes one feels that there are rather more longtime dishes being served still after all these years even if they are presented in new formats and still with a great degree of wit but it is hard to find dishes there which have not been skilfully and artfully prepared. 

  Thus there was a new twist on the long-established cheese and pineapple amuse gueule otherwise known in a previous life as Emotions of Soixante dix as part of the Gifts From the Kitchen - as well as a glass of cheese and pineapple steaming with liquid carbon dioxide this time additionally there was a very pleasing gougère alongside cubes of grilled pineapple on sticks. This new version of an old favourite proved that Purnell, who sometimes does rather make a parody of himself, can still put a broad smile on his customers’ faces.

  The starter of ruby beetroot with grains, orange gel and leaves was excellent, served as it was with a little spiced brioche. Then came a thoroughly enjoyable dish of Cornish crab served on a bed of crushed almond and invigorated by sweetly pickled sea vegetables, mainly samphire, three happy little piles of caviar and a rather delicious lobster bisque which could only be bettered by having more of it. I liked this dish very much.

  How pleasing to see that the lunch menu was serving up poached cod rather than the skate that was being served on the very much more expensive tasting menu. The fish was exalted by the pickled hispi cabbage it was sitting on and the accompanying smoked eel Velouté was delicious punctuated by caviar and trout roe which made the dish very pretty.

  Fine too was the slow cooked daube, extremely tasty and tender, embellished with a duxelle, parsley gel and crispy shallots - winter confronted and put to flight by this very enjoyable dish. The meal closed with a thin slice of Gypsy tart, a malt-flavoured custard on extremely thin pastry which might have been a little crispier though it was such a pleasure to have real patisserie than yet more crumble scattered across the plate which is often the fashion elsewhere. A lesson to head chefs - if you’ve got a good pastry chef, hold on to them at all costs. The tart, by the way, was nicely balanced by frozen yogurt and date.

  Purnell’s continues to keep the punters coming with perfectly judged service and consistently admirable food. Soon to have notched up its sixteenth year Purnell’s continues to pass the test of time.

Rating:- 🌞🌞

  And so back to its former Maître d’, Sonal Clare. With Robert Wood away for a short time from his specialist Atelier cocktail establishment, Sonal used the time and space wisely by enjoyably holding several Sonal’s House Parties at Atelier which gave him an opportunity to get out his turntable and play some music, pleasingly unobtrusively, while his paying guests sat back in the comfortable chairs or at the serving counter, and quaffed in the most relaxed way, five wines of his choosing which were eclectic and pleasing.

  I went along in the evening after the lunch at Purnell’s earlier that day as recounted above. It was an excellent example of what Birmingham has to offer to those prepared to take up those offers presented to them by some of the city’s great culinary and drinks experts. Of course the experience was also enhanced by the best of hosts circulating around his guests and talking to them, without any oppressive or desperately intense gravity, about his choice of wines which he was presenting to them. It seemed quite apt that he rounded off the evening with a bottle of wine from Georgia, where wine in Europe began.