392. Comings And Goings.

 

  In a tweet posted on 6 April Glynn Purnell confirmed that he had appointed two new Head Chefs at Purnell’s - the diarchy of Sam Luck and Tom Blakemore, two old stagers at the restaurant, who had worked as a duumvirate since the departure of former Head Chef, Luke Butcher at the end of December 2023.

The triumvirate at Purnell’s or is it a duumvirate?

  Exciting times for the Old Bloke as Dining Out In Birmingham & The West Midlands Then, Now & Next went to the printers yesterday. The book has over 220 pages detailing the relevant history of dining out which brought us to where we are now as diners in Birmingham and the wider area. 

  There’s everything from the Guild of the Holy Cross to Riverine Rabbit with stop offs in the age of Taverns, the French Revolution, the rise of the Clubs, the Escoffier Scandal at The Savoy, Hotel dining in the 19th and 20th centuries, the First and Second World Wars with the era of rationing and Attlee’s Age of Austerity, the rise of fast food, Elizabeth David’s promotion of Mediterranean food and Jane Grigson’s English food fightback, the rise of the modern Michelin Guide, the coming of nouvelle cuisine, gastronomy, gastropubs, food festivals, immigrant cuisine, the birth of Balti, the growing influence of television on dining out, the rise of fine dining in Birmingham and the golden age of Second City Dining as the city is glittered with Michelin stars, the COVID-pandemic and the energy crisis. Everything you need to know about how we got to how we dine out now round these parts.

  A review at the weekend in The Observer by Jay Rayner of the recently opened Cuubo in Harborne has gained a lot of local press attention.

 The twenty seater restaurant was opened in April 2024 by chef Dan Sweet who had previously served ‘fine dining’ takeaway meals from the same shop which was then called Qbox. Rayner expressed the view that the food, “bursts with huge flavours, big ideas and massive ambition” and declared that, “Dinner here was an introduction to a storming talent announcing itself to the world, one clever, delicious, well-priced dish at a time”. Rayner can be very florid in his praise, or otherwise, of a dining establishment and when he’s keen on somewhere, he’s very keen on that place but I have been meaning to make a reservation for Cuubo and Rayner’s molten enthusiasm for Dan Sweet’s cuisine spurred me on to negotiate the irritating reservation site and grab me a place in Cuubo for lunch in the near future.

Photograph of Dan Sweet from Birmingham Live:-

  The West Midlands dining out scene is certainly lively at present and contributing to all the activity is the news that the former Pensons at the Netherwood Estate at Tenbury Wells will reopen as Native at Pensons with Ivan Tisdall-Downes, described as an ethical chef, the new Head Chef partnered with Imogen Davis, whom he met while studying in Brighton. Tisdall-Downes was born in London and after starting off serving street food and staging pop-ups, opened Native with Davis at Neal’s Yard in Covent Garden and then moved to Borough Market and eventually worked at Brown’s in Mayfair.

  The emphasis of the food to be served at Native at Pensons will be a “sustainable, ultra-seasonal menu” and as we might expect will involve a lot of foraging and, less predictably, ‘street food’. Tisdall-Downes is described as having a signature dish of ‘wood pigeon kebab’ which may or may not be appealing depending on one’s taste for the bird. He appeared as a contestant in the 15th season of The Great British Menu.

Ivan Tisdall-Downes

  Finally, it has been announced as shown by this article in The Caterer, that Adam Bateman has left his post of Executive Chef at the Grand Hotel. Whether or not this will lead to a change in direction of the food served in Isaac’s restaurant remains to be seen. I have never felt that the New York-style cuisine really suited the place. It also really needed to raise its game in what was served given the price charged for food there. I wait to see who will be appointed to take over from Bateman.