308. GULP. Pasqua.

 

  Sometimes dining can become, er, a little repetitive. Of course in London, and I rarely write anything in praise of the place, there are thousands of restaurants and scores of high quality such establishments. In Birmingham, with a much smaller, less well-off population and a fraction of the number of tourists visiting the city, there are far fewer restaurants and about three to four hands worth of high grade dining establishments. So we must make the most of what we’ve got which is, fortunately for us, really very good. 

  But still, even with changing menus based on seasonality, the more variety the better - as long as we are not substituting quantity for quality.

  It’s been notable that since just before and certainly since the pandemic-related lockdowns, events have been popping up everywhere - collaboration, specially themed menus, celebratory events - anything to break up the creeping petty pace of day to day to the last syllable of recorded time. I’ve been to the Queen’s Jubilee lunch at Simpsons, a Tipping-Goodwin Allen collaboration, a Stu Deeley-Andrew Sheridan collaboration, a Purnell-Roux-Kerridge collaboration, a two-handed Purnell-Roux event, a KrayTredwell- Ben Taylor collaboration plus others and then there’s the ones I’ve missed because I have had other commitments in my diary. I’ve been to post-pandemic pop-ups - Low and Slow at The Wilderness for instance. They’ve all been very good fun. Therefore, I conclude, special events involving our fine restaurants and fine chefs add to the pleasure of dining out in the place where, after all, The Good Food Guide has pronounced to be the Most Exciting place to eat in Britain. Excitement on excitement, who could ask for anything more?

  So what about a dining establishment (in the broadest sense of the word) which is based entirely on events? “Events, dear boy, events” as Macmillan once said, only he was talking about politics and not gastronomy?

   The artist, Kaye Winwood, specialises in an art form which embraces texture and, according to Linked In, “Food is central but not definitive to Winwood’s practice. Working with the tools and paraphernalia of cooking and dining the uses food as a pivot that enables a range of discourses to come into focus”. That is very appealing and I was hooked when I read that she and chef/gardener (a new title in Birmingham’s gastronomic history, I think) Matt O’Callaghan were planning a dinner event which would attempt to reproduce the bizarre gastronomy of the Italian Futurists, the subject of which is a Blog itself. So appealing was the prospect of the Italian Futurist’s event that I entered a state of minor depression when I realised that the date of it coincided with me being out of town but all was not lost. The next planned event was Pasqua, an Italian Easter celebration meal, and I rapidly bought my ticket to see just what Winwood and O’Callaghan were putting on.

  Come the night, come the man. The Jewellery Quarter is remarkably quiet and eerie on an early April evening. Kaye Winwood had established herself in an old factory, on the first floor up steep rickety stairs, in Spencer Street. There was no indication of precisely where the event was to take place and my first incursion into the building which seemed to bear the advertised address took me to a functioning factory where a good Brummie worker knowingly directed me to where the event was really taking place. 

  I was the first to arrive. Kaye greeted me; the table was laden with charcuterie, albeit, I suppose, Italian charcuterie. Oh joy, cold continental meats, how I love them. And sparkling wine to boot. Before the other five guests arrived, I was able to ask Kaye about GULP and especially about the previous event featuring Italian Futurist food which at the event was inspired by dishes featured in the cookbook of the Taverna del Santapalato (Inn of the Holy Palate), a restaurant opened in Turin in 1931. The book, La Cucina Futurista, was written by the poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and Luigi Colombo Fillia and I was  delighted and fascinated when Kaye brought a copy of it out to me for me to peruse. After the meal and my expression of deep regret for missing the Holy Palate meal, Matt O’Callaghan suggested that they may hold a first anniversary repeat of the Futurist meal and I delved into my diary to ensure that I would keep that week in 2024 free so I could join the other Brummie Futurist food fans to finally experience it all for myself.

  On with the meal. First, naturally, the antipasto, charcuterie, cheese, sweet peppers, olives. How delightful. For the pasta course O’Callaghan had prepared a splendidly rustic and delicious artichoke and spinach lasagna and the main course was equally rustic and equally excellent - a generous helping of tender and tasty lamb with little hints of mint served very pleasingly with fave beans and finely cooked roast potatoes fragrant with the flavour of rosemary. No espumas, no nasturtiums, no dots of emulsions. What pleasure.

  For dessert, an exquisite, perfectly judged - wobble quotient, flavour, texture - panna cotta, always my dessert of choice and beautifully presented by Matt O’Callaghan who then brought in two original, home-made liquors, one perhaps a little too sweet for my taste, but both were delightful. And at the very end an Easter gift, a Sicilian-style marzipan lamb which it would be a hard thing to eat as in itself it is a piece of culinary art and a tiny little piece of Birmingham’s gastronomic history.

  And finally, an exciting little souvenir to take home with me, a left over menu from the Holy Palate dinner, folded as was intended in the shape of an airplane (aeropitura - aeropainting became an obsession of the second generation of Futurists from the 1939s to 1940). 

  We do not know for sure in which direction English gastronomy and dining out will be travelling in five or ten years time but Events could well play an important part in continuing to mobilise the English public’s love and hopefully increasingly sophisticated appreciation of great cuisine. Winwood’s GULP may well play an important role in developing this aspect of dining out in Birmingham. It looks all very exciting.

Rating:- 🌞🌞