400. Events, Dear Boy, Events.

 

 The four hundredth blog. 

 This seems like an excellent opportunity to highlight the most important Birmingham and West Midlands dining out events of 2024 - what has happened so far and then a rolling diary of what else occurs during 2024 providing a complete West Midlands dining out history of what occurs during the year up to 31 December. New, notable events will be added as 2024 progresses. Already, on 29 April, there is much to record….

5 January - Chef Ash Heeger and Erin Valenzuala-Heeger open the remarkable Rabbit, initially also known as Riverine Rabbit, in Stirchley.

29 January - Michelin announces its 20 new Bib Gourmand restaurants - there are no West Midlands restaurants featured in it.  In the previous year’s list of 116 Bib winners only one West Midlands restaurant was recognised with the award - the Charlton Arms in Ludlow which retained the award in 2024.

30 January - Good Food Guide announces its awards for 2024. Two West Midlands restaurants are rated Exceptional - Grace and Savour and Harborne Kitchen. Very good awards are made to The Wilderness, Purnell’s, Tropea, Opheem, Adam’s, Folium, Smoke, Yikouchi at Chancer’s Cafe, Upstairs by Tom Shepherd, Le Champignon Sauvage and The Walrus (Shrewsbury).

31 January - First episode of the Central region heats of the BBC’s Great British Menu features four chefs who do not work in a Midlands restaurant. There are two West Midlands-born chefs, Sam Ashton-Booth originally from Worcester and who works at Muse restaurant in London, and who is eliminated at the end of the first round and Birmingham-born Adam Smith, Chef Patron at Woven by Adam Smith in Ascot, who eventually goes on to be chosen to cook the fish course at the banquet.

5 February - Aktar Islam’s Opheem is awarded TWO stars at the annual Michelin awards ceremony. Birmingham, as a result, has three ONE Michelin star restaurants - Simpsons, Purnell’s and Adam’s. At the ceremony, Salt in Stratford upon Avon loses its single Michelin star while other West Midlands restaurants - Grace and Savour (Hampton in Arden), Upstairs by Tom Shepherd (Lichfield), Le Champignon Sauvage and Lumiere (both in Cheltenham), The Cross in Kenilworth and The Royal Oak in Whatcote all retain their’s. Hence, at the start of 2024, the West Midlands has 10 Michelin-starred restaurants.

11 February - Chef Brad and partner Holly Carter open their pop-up restaurant Carter’s at 18 on the eighteenth floor of 103 Colmore Row. This is to remain open until the end of April.

27 February - Chef Andrew Sheridan, previously Chef Patron at the now closed Craft and About 8, who reopened the latter in Liverpool in 2023, participates in BBC’s Great British Menu North West regional heats but is eliminated at the end of the first day.

12 March - While retaining his Chef Director role at Smoke Stuart Deeley also takes on the role of Executive Chef at Laghi’s at Five Ways. Patrick Hukins becomes Head Chef at Laghi’s.

15 March - Adam Bateman leaves his post as Executive Chef at the Grand Hotel.

2 April - It is announced that the former Pensons near Tenbury Wells will reopen on 22 May as Native at Pensons with Ivan Tisdall-Downes as Executive Chef.

6 April - Glynn Purnell announces that he has appointed a diarchy of Head Chefs at Purnell’s  - Sam Luck and Tom Blakemore, both with long records of working in the Purnell’s kitchen.

15 April - The Hockley Dining Club serves as host to the West Midlands Mayoral election hustings where the present Mayor, Andy Street, takes on his Labour opponent. Two fast food stalls are serving food - both fried chicken producers.

20 April - The annual Shakespeare Birthday Lunch is held in Stratford upon Avon and celrbrities attending include Dame Vanessa Redgrave, Alexander Armstrong and Dame Floella Benjamin. Dishes served are - burrata and beetroot salad, roast chicken and Wye Valley asparagus and deconstructed Pavlova.

21 April - Chef Rob Palmer announces that his Solihull restaurant Toffs will close on 2 May and relocate to Hogarth’s Hotel in Dorridge.

25 April - Michelin includes Rabbit in the Michelin Guide.

27 April - Chef Patron Ben Taylor and his partner Zsofia Kisgergely close the much-loved Le Petit Bois in Moseley.

398. Sublime Wilderness x Nyetimber Collaboration; Michelin Recognises Rabbit; Toffs Moving On.

 

  I like collaborations. They tend to bring out the best in chefs. And when it comes to “the best”, Chef Marius Gedminas at The Wilderness is a very regular achiever of the concept just as Sonal Clare is a very great achiever of “the best” when it comes to hosting an event. I also enjoy English wine. It gets better as the annual temperatures rise in this island. Nyetimber was the first English wine company to make its mark and good stuff it is too.

  But to get back to basics, this blog is centred on the food encountered when dining out and so I will not stray into the field of oenology, there are those who know quite well what that are talking about while my skill is enjoying the moment when a good wine is brought forth and not getting too wound up about all the details of it. Still, even at this late age, my nose can spot a bouquet when it needs to do so and my taste buds also still function quite successfully. And so to the food served at this immaculate dinner.

  To start off this cascade of pleasures - a toothsome, profoundly flavoured smoked trout belly tart, delightful by itself but embellished with the taste of XO and ginger. The thin, crispy tart pastry was a pleasure in itself. This was served lavishly with the delicious Classic cuvée served from a magnum.Then on to one of the great dishes of the year which had the diners fainting with the gorgeousness of it a bed of white crab delightfully citricised with lime under a a fine espuma with wonderful smoked mussels, the hit and texture of almonds and white asparagus and a burst of flavour from an oyster leaf. This was accompanied by a very drinkable glass of Blanca de Blanc 2016.

   Then came perhaps the most perfectly cooked veal sweetbreads I can remember having been served to me, with peas and asparagus with a perfect bite to it and a chlorophyll Hollandaise. The rise that accompanied caused great surprise - so good was it - and proved to be the hit of the evening from the drinks point of view. Spring on a plate.

   Then the luxury of excellent barbecued turbot - cooked perfectly and bursting with flavour and escorted handsomely by a chicken sauce and crispy capers among other ingredients. Afterwards, and sadly I forgot to photograph it, a fine Orkney scallop, cooked precisely with a Thai green sauce - this time, unlike that I had been served a few days before, pleasingly rife with the flavours of south-east Asia. This was accompanied by a highly lavish glass of 1086 by Nyetimber (the date is the year of the Domesday Book relevant to the estate) 2013. “Ambassador, you are spoiling us”.

  It just remained to enjoy a familiar but not unwelcome dessert of green pear, finely diced, with a bay leaf ice cream and accompanied by a very happy glass of cuvée cherie - and why not!

  A memorable evening of very fine food and highly pleasurable wine.

Rating:- 🌞🌞

  Good news emerged from Michelin on 25 April when it published its April list of new additions to the Michelin Guide. Of the eight new additions, the much admired Rabbit in Stirchley has been allocated its place in the Michelin pantheon (the other seven were mostly in places favoured by the Michelin inspectors, because of their trendiness or ease to travel to - two in London (of course) and one each in Bristol and Edinburgh and three in the Newcastle Upon Tyne area). I have previously written that the opening  Stirchley’s now first ever Michelin-listed restaurant was probably the most important Birmingham dining out event of the year and as spring moves on, I’m sure that remains true. The restaurant owned and run by Ash Heeger and Erin Valenzuala Heeger now has a long waiting period to secure a reservation and is presently booming. This is all very reminiscent of Upstairs by Tom Shepherd. Perhaps the BBC have spotted Ash as a potential competitor on The Great British Menu.

  News from Solihull where Rob Palmer has announced that he is to close Toff’s and begin to work at the Hogarth Hotel in Dorridge which I previously visited during the limited time when the Butchers Social Club was based at the Forest Hotel. After settling in at the Hogarth overhauling the menu of the brasserie there during the summer, he plans to open Toffs at Hogarth in September 2024.

399. Le Petit Bois Adieu!

  In Blog 391 I reported, with a heavy heart, that the delightful Moseley restaurant, Le Petit Bois, was to close on 27 April. It’s a lovely place and I was determined to have one more throw of the dice in this comfortable, bright, perfectly sized French-style culinary establishment, more like dining in someone’s cosy home with its perfectly judged front of house service than a restaurant. Everyone else who had ever known the place, and some who had not, had clearly got the same idea and the diners kept coming on this penultimate evening of service. What an atmosphere and the opportunity to greet one or two diners I had met there before, all wanting to wish good luck to Chef Ben Taylor, Zsofia Kisgergely and their fine staff, made this an evening to look back on with a warm feeling and a smile.

  And so to the food - a pleasing and sensibly limited à la carte menu chalked up on a blackboard, all very tempting and at a very affordable price. 

  From the Specials menu, mounted on the wall opposite the main menu, I chose the warm salmon with a beetroot salad. This was one of the loveliest salmon dishes I can recall eating - at first glance simple and pleasingly uncomplicated - but this was the most toothsome of salmons, the beetroots were nicely cooked and a perfect foil for the salmon and there were little bursts of horseradish working along with the beet. What a great pleasure.

  For the main, I thoroughly enjoyed the, again, beautifully cooked fillet of cod served with an extremely tasty lobster bisque - the dish shouted lobster - and four plump mussels with a side of haricots verts to give some bite to it all.

  Finally, a magnificent - in size and quality - crème brûlée served with a delightful walnut biscuit. This was an exceptional dessert. Undoubtedly Chef Ben Taylor and Le Petit Bois was going out on a high.

Ben Taylor

Zsofia Kisgergely 

  And so Adieu! to Le Petit Bois. We shall not see its like again though we hope we will. 

395. Politics, Film Noir and Shakespeare (Part 2).

 

  I am not someone who particularly likes being photographed nor do I wear black clothes but I still went ahead and made a reservation to dine at The Wilderness on the evening filming was taking place there and the dress code was “all black”. The experience was named Film Noir and a short film was being produced by a company titled Made by Brum. The documentary was described as a “love letter to Birmingham’s alt scene” which is hardly my bag but well, anyway, in for a penny, in for a pound. 

  And so, yet again, off to The Wilderness I did go. Fortunately, I was of no interest to the filmmakers and so I had all the pleasure of dining off a remarkably excellent menu without the discomfort of making a screen appearance, so to speak.

  Several of the items on the menu were familiar but there were one or two new dishes to bring the freshness of spring to the Jewellery Quarter.

  As ever, the canopés were delightful - robust, punchy flavours, thin, crispy pastry, hidden in there a chomping good tartare with the sweetness of little blobs of mango purée. Such little pleasures are paradise made of.

  The first course was by now familiar to me but familiarity, with this gem, does not breed contempt. Chutoro tuna, gorgeous  with the tang of jalapeño bursting around the fish more like a bang of wasabi, and thin slices of fine olive. A dish now established as something great.

  ‘Tis the asparagus season and a fine, bruiser of a Wye Valley spear was next to be delivered to the table. With plenty of bite to it, it basked on the plate before me, and was happily accompanied by tasty pieces of smoked eel but the prettyThai green curry sauce was lacking in any heat and was not as exciting as it might have been. Perhaps it did not need to be, asparagus, it seems to me, should stand alone relatively unadorned and untroubled by anything going on around it.

  Then an irreproachable dish of Chalkstream trout with a delicious yuzu butter ponzu sauce and the tang of XO sauce. Then, another familiar member of the menu’s ensemble - BQ Cull Yaw lamb, cooked exquisitely, with seaweed, shiso and wild leeks served with remarkably slowly cooked and robustly flavoured lamb on a muffin; the latter is the element, as I have previously remarked, which gives me least pleasure. The highlight of the dish was the gorgeously unctious lamb sauce.

  And then a thrill for dessert - a sorbet of acutely flavoured Amalfi lemon sorbet with a grating of Buddha’s fingers fruit as well as of the lemon itself. What fun to have the fruit itself presented at the table. The sorbet was served with a crunchy buckwheat cracker and marigold.

  I thoroughly enjoyed the second dessert made up of little cubes of delightful and perfectly textured Riesling poached pear with bay leaf and the not-overbearing flavour of cinnamon. To end, The Wilderness’ white chocolate skull was served as a petit four.

  The restaurant was buzzing with its sable clothed diners and the film makers homed in on what was happening at the pass. It had been yet another happy evening in The Wilderness.