There was summer weather, a floundering new government, dreadful violence in some towns and rioting. Normal for France I suppose but there was no French-style restaurant to dine in where I was. Still, the Jewellery Quarter was quiet enough that evening even if August was shaping up to be a fiery last month of summer. And it was the first evening of the new menu at The Wilderness. How could I resist being there? The menu came in four parts or perhaps four acts each with their own individual scenes. Certainly the sets were more ambitious and satisfying than most of the plays put on at Stratford in recent years but had the director given us a satisfactory production and were the actors - the dishes - delivering their culinary lines as perfectly as we might hope from a class act?
The first Act was made up of the amuses gueules and the opening scene brought us a fine performance from a dainty little tart and and an equally dainty crostini with an appetiser centred on beetroot and taramasalata and crowned with a pretty beetroot jelly and the other rendering on to its audience pleasant, fresh summer green peas encased in nori and looking very pretty indeed.
Next, now into Act 2, a 2024 edition of the delicious beef tartare dish playfully called the Big Mac and then an almost inevitable mackerel dish, the fish soothed pleasingly with apple and sorrel. Next came the visually magnificent beetroot and ajo blanco - the beetroot in its several forms was enjoyable and the ajo blanco was just the thing for a summer evening. Think the Plaza Mayor and sitting out under the sky of the gathering night, the Madrileños and turistas, all milling around and preparing to dine at their own pace till 1AM.
The vision passes and here I am in a smallish restaurant with 80s music pumping out in the historic Jewellery Quarter which is probably as romantic as Birmingham can get (and it is indeed).
After a successful course titled Carrot (served as a piece of very good steak) which I forgot to photograph I then found myself dining from a plate with the inscription, The tigers have found me and I do not care and putting in no effort at all to muse on the meaning of the statement. I marvelled at the natty little combination of courgette slices with the flavour of lemon verbena and a roof of nasturtium leaves.
Undoubtedly the least successful dish was that titled Aliums and wasabi which when viewed on the menu has one sitting up sweating in the suspenseful anticipation of a mega-flavour bomb only to be rewarded with what sadly, really did seem to be a damp squib. I wanted intensity, possibly painful, I wanted the dish to lift me up, turn me upside down, swing me around by my feet, slap me about a bit and thrash me with the powerful bullying of onion, garlic and horseradish and instead my body sat firmly in my seat, subdued by the hurt of disappointment.
Joy returned in the form of a magnificent scarlet prawn with the very, very prawny-flavoured sauce made from the unfortunate creatures’ heads. They did not die in vain as they provided a memorable accompaniment to the tender sweet crustacean. Nicely cooked too was the subsequent meaty monkfish with a cauliflower purée and a coffee sauce.
This impressive meal was not done yet though I was starting to feel comfortably full. There came along nicely cooked quail with BBQ cabbage which did its job though it could hardly be described as exhilarating and which did no harm.
The curtain rose on Act III - unusual dill, lime and yoghurt refreshed in its own way and the peach with tonka was light and pleasing. Act IV brought a successful curtain down with a very pleasing and admirable canale and a mignardise of blackberry and ginger.
The Wilderness continues to evolve and innovate, never standing still, often thrilling, always providing food with authentic passion combining talent - even genius - with flair and inventiveness. One never knows what is coming next. A pride of Birmingham.
Rating:- 🌞🌞. 1 August 2024.
The following day, still in the Jewellery Quarter, somewhere a little calmer, reassuring, steady, comfortable, more relaxing - lunch at Folium, somewhere I had only recently visited but a place I frequently need to dine at for the sheer pleasure of it. Lunch with an old friend who is also a Folium enthusiast.
The menu was unchanged from my recent previous visit. Each dish was as exemplary as before. Lucy’s service was perfectly, quietly, calmly delivered and Chef could be watched meticulously preparing and presenting the dishes. The dishes are detailed in Blog 417 and there is no need to go over the details of the all round brilliance of the meal again. I merely add a photograph this time of the gorgeous sourdough bread, freshly baked every morning on site, served at the restaurant which must be my favourite bread served in any restaurant I have visited over a long time. The crust so crispy and the centre soft and tastebud-tinglingly flavoursome. Chefs - if you’re going to serve bread, make it magnificent and if you are uncertain, Ben Tesh will show you how.
Rating:- 🌞🌞🌞. 2 August 2024.
It was good to see celebrities choosing to dine at Folium while they’re in town, At Folium that lunchtime was Thomas Plant aka Thomas Forester, who has featured for many years as one of the experts in the programme on antiques, the BBC’s Bargain Hunt. Clearly a man with good taste in food as well as good taste in antiques.
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