510. Sāēl At Verbena.

 

  Jonny Mills has met with some delays in opening his much anticipated 8 seater new restaurant, Sāēl, in the Goods Yard at the heart of the Jewellery Quarter and so is continuing to do ‘pop ups’ in various spots including Chancer’s Cafe in restaurant-heavy Stirchley (see Blog 497) and this time, just down the road at tiny Verbena on the corner of the Pershore Road as it serves its role as Stirchley’s High Street and Ivy Road.

  Unusually, rather than serving a tasting menu, the chef chose to present an à la carte traditionalist Sunday lunch in three courses.

  To start I chose a very tasty chicken liver parfait, nicely smooth and not aggressively over-rich with small pieces of perhaps over-crispy duck (though there was a nice crunchinesss about it), more crunch from nuts and a soothing elderberry hoisin which while being nice and sweet succeeded in eliminating any potential problem of excess richness from the parfait.

   The Sunday roast followed. While roast sirloin of beef was temptingly on offer, I opted for Packington porchetta which was served stuffed with a tasty farce, a small and successful Yorkshire pudding and a generous supply of the ‘trimmings’ including the inevitable cauliflower cheese which was very good though, as so often happens the flavour of cauliflower was lost to the sauce, crunchy roast potatoes, sweet slices of roasted onion, very nicely cooked carrot, a small amount of red cabbage and cabbage. The crackling for which Chef had gone to a lot of trouble to prepare was good but some parts of it were too hard and potentially problematical for some dentitions. Overall though, the course was very edible.

  I chose cheese to finish though I may have gone for the panna cotta which usually lures me to order it. This dish was made up of a good slice of Tomme (wheel) du Javernac, from the Charente Limousin region, anointed with honey and served deliciously on a thrilling little slice of malt loaf. The firm white cheese was an interesting choice and made a change from some of the current trendy cheeses on offer in  upmarket restaurants (Baron Bigod comes to mind though I do like it very much especially with honey and crackers).

  This was a very enjoyable Sunday lunch prepared by an enthusiastic - indeed passionate - and talented young chef eaten in a relaxed atmosphere and prepared with care and respectfulness.

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛🌛

21 September 2025