A special event at The Wilderness recently saw Alex Claridge in the kitchen cooking a modestly priced menu to be served with accompanying cocktails invented and made by Matt Arnold of Passing Fancies. I enjoyed all the cocktails apart from the last, Short and Stout with Glenmorangie Signet and stout caramel, which was far too sweet and while one might drink a sweet wine with dessert, this rule did not seem to apply to a sweet cocktail. The other cocktails were all very quaffable and the novelty of it all was very enjoyable but perhaps we might learn that wine is the best accompaniment of a fine meal.
As regards the food, the dinner started with a delightful tartlet with a carrot purée and vadouvan (‘French curry’, a ready prepared mixture of spices with added aromatics including shallots and garlic). This worked very well, the pastry of the usual high standard one usually experiences at The Wilderness and the mixture of sweet and spice a great pleasure. This was paired with an appropriate and enjoyable cocktail, elegantly presented, which Arnold had called Rhubarb & Rye (bitter rhubarb, rye whiskey and honey).
Next, a fine and fairly familiar dish to Wilderness/ADC regulars of seared mackeral nicely balanced with apple and sorrel and well matched with Watermelon 75, the ingredients of which were apricot fino sherry, watermelon and champagne.
A course of aliums and wasabi was fairly unmemorable and there then followed a nicely cooked piece of wild turbot (which was added for an extra £15) served with a pink fir potato confection. This was very enjoyable and accompanied by Dinosaur Food, a cocktail made up of rhubarb, rum and palo santo (derived from a Peruvian wood used in the aging of beer and, in Ecuador no less, a palo santo tea).
After there was another dish familiar to regular diners at the restaurant or its sister, scarlet prawn with the happily punchy, hot prawn head sauce but this dish was raised to fabulous new levels by the addition of a bubble of wasabi. Now a truly great dish. It was paired very appropriately with Metric Margarita.
On to the main course of moist quail with barbecued cabbage and tom yum. This was tasty and matched with a cocktail, Adult Ribena, a combination of cognac with blueberry and kumquat.
The dessert took the form of various forms of peach but the flavours were severely suppressed by the excessively powerful vanilla flavour of tonka bean which rendered the dessert somewhat difficult to eat. As mentioned above the accompanying cocktail awas too sweet and did not match well the flavours of the dessert. This was a shame. Generally it had been a fine meal, full of innovation and experimental combination of flavours and the involvement of Passing Fancies had brought an added intriguing aspect to it. The Wilderness with ADC is right at the cutting edge of gastronomy and dining out in the West Midlands. Claridge’s food continues to evolve and wait to see what comes next.
22 August 2024.
News
Under my radar for a while, new Head Chefs/Executive Chefs have been appointed recently or at least in the not too distant past, in a couple of interesting Birmingham dining establishments.
At Adam’s, which I visited recently (see Blog 422), while Adam Stokes remains Executive Chef, the role of Head Chef is now shared by a duet - Adam Wilson and Simil Gurung. Presently it’s hard to find any background information about either of them.
The Grand Hotel has finally appointed a new Executive Chef to replace Adam Brookes who departed there in April. Highlighting its new head of the kitchen on Facebook and Instagram without any particular fanfare that I could see, the Grand Hotel management state that, “Andrei is the mastermind behind the magic in Isaac’s restaurant and in the Grand Hotel kitchen!….”. The posts give no other information about Andrei, not even his surname. Doubtless all will be revealed in due course. For the present at least, the New York-themed menu remains unchanged. Let us hope that the new Executive Chef will come up with something more enticing. What about a Birmingham-themed restaurant, I don’t think anyone’s ever done that.
The Good Food Guide added The Bell At Selsley in Selsley near Stroud in Gloucestershire to its list of recommended restaurants on 16 August 2024. That’s almost as far south in the West Midlands that one get to before crossing over into undisputed West Country territory.
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