373. The Wilderness 2024 - Birmingham’s First £200+ Menu?

 

  A lunch companion and I were somewhat taken aback when, at the beginning of our first lunch of 2024 at The Wilderness, we were offered the choice of three menus - the six course for £100, the eight course for £125 to which truffle could be added for a supplement of £22 and a Luxe menu which added two new courses of tempting ‘XXL Scottish langoustine with a squash and citrus ponzu’ (I would have liked to see just how extra extra large the langoustine was) and the opportunity to partake of A5 Japanese (not British, note) Wagyu enhanced even more so, doubtlessly, by the genius of Head Chef, Marius Gedminas, by serving it with smoked aubergine and oxtail. The luxe menu also included an appropriate use of truffle on one of the dishes. What really took our breath away, and our gasps were audible, however was the price - £205 - which is certainly the first £200+ menu I have seen being offered in Birmingham and the West Midlands (apart from special occasion menus).

  I suppose we were bound to get there sooner or later. A meal in a fairly exclusive Japanese restaurant in London recently achieved a new British record by offering a £700+ menu and menus costing £300 or more are becoming more and more familiar in the capital. But to see a £200 menu here in Birmingham albeit with an emphasis on luxury ingredients comes as a bit of a shock though realists will recognise that it was only a matter of time before a Birmingham restaurant bit the bullet and embraced the £200 menu, took it in its stride and marched on regardless. Whether or not this is going to work in down-to-earth Birmingham is a question only time will tell. Interestingly there were only six people lunching in The Wilderness on what used to be a busy Friday so one might question whether these new high prices are putting off the diners. I’ve long held the opinion that fine dining restaurants should aim to address the dining needs of the well-off by ensuring they serve luxury ingredients as the well heeled will always return to dine there providing the restaurant does a good job in using those ingredients. 

  But it’s not just a matter of having luxury ingredients. Novelty is everything and truffles and Wagyu seem to have been served everywhere in the past year or so and frankly, I’m rather bored with them. And what is the point of offering a diner a condiment, which is how we may see £22’s worth of truffle added to a dish not as a vital item for its success decided upon by the chef, but on the whim (or size of pocket) of the diner? It’s rather like a fine dining restaurant placing containers of pepper and salt on the table to be sprinkled willy-nilly by the diner over the meticulously prepared dish rather than accurate seasoning being part of the dish added by the chef as one of the absolutely de rigeur skills of a chef.

  Regardless, wishing neither truffle nor Wagyu (though admittedly lusting after the langoustine), we both settled for the £125 menu and were mostly not disappointed.

  The amuse gueule of a little cheesy croustade, the pastry crisp and the smooth creamy contents delicious, was followed by a dish broadly familiar from my two visits to A_ D _ C  at the end of 2023 - the absolutely gorgeous chatoro sashimi with the heat of jalapeño and the robustness of rare olive

  Next, perfectly textured Pink Fir potatoes, in dashi with Parmesan, overwhelming umami of intense pleasure and then veal sweetbreads, a little too firm, with a spot-on lemongrass curry sauce. Overall, very good.

  The highlight of the meal has to be the dish of walnut butter poached halibut, excruciatingly accurately cooked, gleaming white, and with it smoked mussels.

    The main meat course - ‘BBQ Cull Yaw (hogget) with seaweed, shiso and wild leeks’ with a side dish off crumpet/pastry - was very problematical. Though on paper the elements all seemed synchronous and apt, they did not make for an overall pleasant sheep dish. The Cull Yaw hogget was nicely cooked, tender with a subtle flavour but with far too much fat. The seaweed was far too robust and bitter and the crumpet or pastry - it is hard to say which term best describes it - was a horrible texture. This was undoubtedly one of the least enjoyable dishes I have been served at The Wilderness and it do not go down well with my dining companion either.

   Pleasure returned with the first dessert of little cubes of Riesling-poached pear under a Bay leaf icecream and then there was a second, just-as-pleasing though perhaps not quite accurately named dark chocolate entremet served with a hazelnut icecream.

  A pleasing first visit of 2024 to the Jewellery Quarter but it will be interesting to see where prices are heading elsewhere in the city during 2024.

Rating:- 🌞🌞