405. Restaurant Touring In The City.

  What is the worst day of the week to take a tour of Birmingham - or anywhere else for that matter - which aims to introduce the city’s most notable restaurants to the tourist? That’s easy - Monday. Most restaurants have turned Monday into a sabbath, a day of rest. But close behind Monday in the no restaurants open league is Sunday - the difference is that a few restaurants of note may open to serve Sunday lunch. As a footnote it’s worth mentioning that Tuesday is not much better than Monday and even Wednesday is now a day on which some restaurants find no value in opening.

  Presumably then the Dutch company with an office in Highfield Road in Edgbaston, a close neighbour of Baloci and Simpsons, which is indeed offering walking tours of parts of Birmingham to see the gastronomic sights and savour the gastronomic savouries bore this in mind when it decided that these tours, wherein the tourists amble around following a route dictated by an app and without any human guidance, would take place on Sundays..

  I suppose that the idea that several hundred tourists with Tripadviser expectations might drop in to consume a course provided by the restaurant in the course of a Sunday (which ought to be busy as restaurants open that day have very little respectable competition) - rather like a moving food festival - either appeals to a restaurateur or it doesn’t but what would I know? I do know that if I were a punter participating in such an extravaganza I would hope that the tour might enable me to drop in on some of the city’s most famous restaurants or at least those listed by Michelin, Harnden’s or the Good Food Guide as well as taking me past historic culinary sights in the city. I haven’t seen what the app does offer because I haven’t bought one of £79 tickets but the locations of some of the restaurants to be visited on the tours have been revealed in the publicity.

  The publicity promises that the food tourist will “discover the best restaurants”. One is naturally tempted to believe one will be dropping in on Purnell’s, The Wilderness, Adam’s mayhaps or possibly 670 Grams, Simpsons or, the jewel in the crown, Opheem. Alas, it appears that such hopes will be dashed and dreams will be shattered, as none of the food provided will come from these Birmingham culinary holy grails. Perhaps the walking tour will involve walking past them, I don’t know - it seems a bit like rubbing salt into the wound if that were the case - but the tour organisers could then at least justifiably claim that the tourists are being allowed, in one sense of the word at least, to “discover the best restaurants”.

  So where are the tours actually taking the trusting tourist? ‘The City Edition’ tour will take the aspiring gastronomes to three types of restaurant as defined by the organisers’  - Classic and refined (Hotel du Vin and Fazenda in Church Street - hotel restaurant and upmarket steak joint respectively), Cozy and nice (this must be the Dutch spelling of cosy) (Bundobust, The Botanist and Sabai Sabai - Indian street food, cocktail bar and middle range Thai restaurant) and Hip and happening - Riva Blu (Italian chain restaurant). No Michelin restaurants there and minimal walking around a very small geographical area - clearly no intention of showing the tourist the real gastronomic sights of Birmingham. These restaurants generally serve food or a good or reasonable standard but are hardly the city’s ‘best restaurants’.

  Other tours are on offer including The Digbeth Tour - Kilo Zero, Cafe Love Life, Original Patty Men and Baked In Brick (all defined as hip and happening) and Chaophraya and Ba-Ha (both defined as Cozy (with a zee) and Nice). Digbeth therefore offers a collection of ‘Birmingham’s best restaurants’ in the form of a good burger joint, pizza specialist, wine bar and food of various ethnicities. At least this tour should give the tourist a close encounter with The Old Crown in Digbeth said to be the oldest secular building in the city to have hosted a hostelry. What a pity the tour doesn’t offer a dish served in that worthy establishment.

 A tour of the dining establishments of Harborne is proposed as is one embracing the restaurants of Moseley, what few that are left in that declining suburb.

  It will be interesting to see just what happens when this venture gets underway. To be honest, if I’m in town on a Sunday I would rather invest my £79 in the Chateaubriand lunch or perhaps a fine Dover sole at The Oyster Club by Adam Stokes which is open till the evening on Sundays or perhaps I would amble down Newhall Street and indulge in the thali on offer at the splendidly atmospheric Itihaas.

  Perhaps the reader might like to tour the past, present and future Birmingham food scene in a different and much cheaper way - the soon to be published  Dining Out In Birmingham and the West Midlands Then, Now and Next.

404. Simpsons.

 

  In the most recent couple of years or so, my visits to Simpsons, the doyen of Birmingham restaurants, have been several, almost numerous, but usually related to special dining events being held there. In the 20 teens, as I have previously reported, I had had several disappointing meals at Simpsons with near-chaotic service and food which did not reflect the expense of it all. My most recent experiences there have been wholly pleasing however suggesting that Chef Director Luke Tipping has pulled Simpsons through its dark patch and out the other side even though The Good Food Guide, seemingly presently devoted to the levelling up, or perhaps the dumbing down, of dining out continues to fail to recommend it in its hallowed pages (pages obviously less hallowed than those of the Michelin Guide which does still recommend the restaurant and rightly so). 

  It was time to dine at Simpsons for a meal from its regular menu rather than that of a special event (though it was a special event as it was the Old Bloke’s birthday - not that I was making it public - I can not bear fuss and have reached the stage of my life where endless well-intentioned congratulations are rather wearing).  The day was wet and miserable which did not seem very generous of the weather god but it was to be hoped that his colleague, the goddess of food and abundance, might be feeling a little kinder.

  My two guests arrived at Simpsons at exactly the same time as myself  and, as orphans of the storm, we were pleased to be seated in Simpsons’ comfortable sitting room quaffing glasses of pleasure = mine was white port with tonic - and nibbling on a sign of what was to come - a delicious little cod beignet, crispy-coated with perfectly textured and tasty fish and a pretty, flower decorated crisp with goats cheese mousse. 

  Thence into the bright, spacious dining room, its lengthy window giving a fine view of the garden, with purple rhododendrons in their fully blossomed glory being contemporaneously watered by God’s Almighy Hand, as the rain fell from the heavens.

  The welcome was excellent and the seating comfortable and we prepared to start on our seven course voyage through Simpsons’ current tasting menu (though we also had the choice of a three or five course menu). It was to be a voyage of calm seas and great pleasure.

    First the excellent bread with a cod’s roe spread and wild garlic butter. Already, Chef Luke Tipping was hitting the target with punchy flavours and wonderful textures - the crunchiness of the crust of the bread and the smoky marine flavour of the spread and the carefully judged garlic taste of the butter. 

  

  The first starter was the scintillatingly fresh flavour of Isle of Wight tomatoes with tomato sorbet - multi-textured, gorgeously presented and doing what a starter should do, enticing the diner to anticipate the coming of wonders and imminent great pleasure. Then a second starter bringing tasty white crab with the acidity of blood orange and three dainty and well cooked spears of asparagus under a crispy tuile. 

  If the crab were not enough, more luxury from the sea - this time a pleasingly sized piece of turbot, the best cooked I have had for a while, beautifully presented with a sweet carrot purée and a punchy, but not inappropriately so, bisque.

    The next course was a heritage beetroot dish, which in some restaurants can be rather tiresome, but here the beetroot was served in a number of forms of various textures and sweetnesses and acidity and, as beetroot dishes go, this was up there among the higher echelons of such beasts.

  And then, the star, a very fine dish of supremely perfectly cooked Cornish lamb served with a zinging mint gel (chefs so often fail to appreciate just why ingredients have become locked together by tradition - lamb and mint are a marriage made in culinary heaven) and courgettes, often dull and of little worth but here absolutely on point and sitting on the plate looking all perky and alluring, looking more, at first glance, like figs than chunks of courgette. But the lamb’s the thing. It was gorgeous, it was tender, it tasted of fine sheep meat, it was perfectly cooked, it was immaculately seasoned, it was … perfect. And it was crowned with a sublimely unctious lamb sauce. A great modern British dish. 

  And so, farewell to a great main course and on into the final phase of desserts. First the soothing flavours of peach and the hit of coumarin in woodruff. Finally, a spectacular mango soufflé, risen as high as a block of flats, as lightly textured as a cloud and accompanied by coconut and passion fruit. 

  Simpsons certainly is back up at the peak as well as being at its own peak. A simpatico space to eat in, a happy ambience, good service and extraordinarily good food.

Rating:- 🌞🌞🌞

On 20 May 2024, it was announced that the Chef director of Lunar in Stoke on Trent, Niall Keating, had left his post the previous day by “mutual agreement” with the co-founder, Craig Wilkinson,  Keating will be involved in a new role in a hotel in Manchester. (See Blog 400). Keating’s departure came a few days after the Head Chef at Lunar, Craig Lunn, had left his post at the restaurant.

  Three days after Keating’s departure, it was announced that Carl Riley, previously of The George in Alstonefield which had been recommended in the Michelin Guide from 2011 to 2023 but is not currently featured in the Guide, had been appointed to be the new Head Chef in Lunar.

Niall Keating

Craig Lunn and Niall Keating

403. Cuubo.

 

  On 24 June 2021, as the storm of the COVID-19 pandemic which had raged around both diners and those who served them in the hospitality industry, had at last settled and tentative bright sunlight was once more beginning to peep through the clouds of national anxiety, a young chef, Dan Sweet, who had trained at Birmingham’s University College and subsequently worked for more than three years at Simpsons, where so many careers have taken off to subsequent success, opened a fine dining-style ‘take away’-style establishment in the very well-heeled suburb of Harborne called Qbox. 

The interior of Qbox

  This proved to be very successful - Dan had wisely chosen the right location and the right audience, those who wanted to go to his culinary theatre as well as being able to afford to buy a metaphorical ticket for it, though, in truth, his food was very fairly priced. By 2023, the pandemic being largely forgotten except as something else to blame the government for, Sweet crowdfunded enough money to enable him to equip a full kitchen and dining room, titled Cuubo. 

  Soon after opening, he was blessed by a visit from a god descending from Olympus  - the socialist restaurant critic Jay Rayner of The Observer - who pronounced that Cuubo was “as exciting a new restaurant as” he had “encountered in a long while” although he had reservations about the crab risotto “Just to prove my critical faculties didn’t completely desert me”. Mildly for him, he stated, “there was a crab risotto that didn’t taste especially of crab” (a fault I find that happens with crab dishes far too often in even expensive and ‘fine’ restaurants. Chefs, use crab in a dish at your peril).

  Thus, trailing in the wake of the good food-loving, fine dining, socialist restaurant critic from the rarified and excruciatingly expensive culinary atmosphere of The Smoke (though to give Rayner his due, he does gird up his loins more often than most others to haul himself to the provinces and notably to Birmingham to report on our fine new restaurants (doubtless he’s champing at the bit to get to Rabbit in Stirchley) and indeed, now close to two decades ago, reported on Glynn Purnell’s first voyage into gastronomic distinction, Jessica’s (ahead of Matthew Fort by a head)), I myself found myself in a rainy Harborne High Street festooned as it is with a near excess of dining and coffee-imbibing establishments and wondering if it always rained in Harborne. The reservation, please note, had been made some time before our well-fed Olympian socialist writer had reported on his visit there.

  But enough of food critics, it’s the food that counts. The restaurant definitely looked smaller on the outside than it did on the inside - a reverse TARDIS effect - and while it’s true that it is quite small, it’s comfortable and the tables are not uncomfortably on top of each other. I had booked lunch for 1PM and the place was full as I arrived - populated mainly by elderly diners taking advantage of a three course lunch for £40. The restaurant was decorated brightly and anonymously, which in itself was not unwelcome as it conveyed newness and freshness and a canvass yet to be fully realised. The two front of house staff knew what they were doing, were appropriately friendly and were not at all perturbed by me changing my prebooked request for the lunch menu to the 7 course tasting menu (£75) although providing the premeal snacks was a problem which bothered me not at all since I was responsible for the last minute changes of heart.

  I was pleasingly sat by the pass and was able to watch Chef and his young sous chef going about their work calmly and smartly. And what a pleasure it all was.i was served some good sourdough bread and then was launched into the menu proper with a fresh, well flavoured dish of tasty heritage tomatoes served on sourdough. Summer was bursting out all over ignoring the ongoing onslaught of rain outside in Hungry Harborne. The dish reminded me that many of the dishes were to nod in the direction of Chef’s partial Italian heritage and the wines, well chosen, were also mainly Italian.

  Then a plate of very well cooked pork belly with crispy skin and mostly melted fat with smooth bacon cream split with nduja oil and accompanied by a fennel salad though it has to be said that the flavour of the fennel was a little too subtle. Pork belly does not rank highly in my list of favourite meat ingredients but this dish was considerably more enjoyable than most pork belly dishes I have been served elsewhere.

  Next, the crab risotto which had disappointed Zeus during his descent from Olympus and it has to be said that the old lightning hurler had a point - the flavour of crab was not as discernible as one would have hoped but the texture of the rice was spot on and the wafer thin slices of cauliflower gave texture to the dish. Still, crab should have been the centrepiece and, as Rayner wrote, it really was not.

 Next the main course - a fine, meaty, plump piece of very nicely cooked chicken with broccoletti (or friarelli) and a supreme sauce and a delicious little pile of mild wild garlic purée and a sliver of Iberico capping the chicken. An excellent dish.

  As an avoider of desserts, I was delighted with the charming vanilla and basil mille feuille paired with a blisteringly tasty strawberry sorbet. Given that Dan Sweet had spent three years between 2013 and 2016 at Birmingham’s University College working on a Diploma of Education in Baking and Pastry Arts and had been a baker and pastry chef it is little wonder perhaps that he was turning out a very admirable dessert.

  So, a very enjoyable lunch in Harborne at Cuubo. I shall have no hesitation in returning. Perhaps I will bump into another member of the Pantheon down from Olympus to see what wonders Dan Sweet is cooking up.

Rating:- 🌞.

402. Pre-theatre Dinner At Purnell’s Plates.

 

  For the third time in six days it’s off to the theatre I go. But now, back in Birmingham, this time to the Birmingham Repertory Theatre to see the theatre version of Bruce Robinson’s sublimely comic, excruciatingly enjoyable classic film set in the dying days of the 1960s. Withnail And I. Expectations are high, after all the Royal Shakespeare Company, with its usual license to bowdlerise to the Nth degree, has not been let loose on this gem, worthy of Shakespeare himself and indeed quoting as it does from Hamlet at the very end of it as Withnail is left alone, fated perhaps never to play the Dane.

 But, as I wrote above, expectations are high, anticipation is electric and  a pre-theatre dinner is needed though I have no intention of demanding, to accompany it, the finest wines known to man. It is some time since I have eaten at Purnell’s Plates in Edmund Street, a short walk from the Rep, and it seems like an ideal place to start the evening which, incidentally, is warm, dry and pleasingly seasonal for late spring day. And so to Purnell’s Plates, to be greeted by Adrien Garnier, restaurant manager at Purnell’s, sitting outside in the early evening warmth with, I expect, other staff prior to heading off for Cornwall Street prior to evening service there

  I am shown to my table by the painting of the bull which reminds me of just how many bulls there are in the city. And so to the menu.

     Switching from present to past tense, I ordered four dishes from the menu which proved to be a little more than my advancingly elderly stomach had full room for but my mouth and taste buds felt differently from my stomach and welcomed all-comers. First to arrive at the table was a plate of nicely crispy and robustly flavoured cheese and basil croquetas and I set about demolishing these little gems with pleasurable gusto washed down with a complementary glass of cava and then some Spanish beer.

   Then, along came four beautifully meaty and happily spicy beef and pork albondigas served with a keenly tasty tomato sauce and some patatas bravas which did not have so much heat to them as I would have liked though the finely shaved cheese on top of them gave them added flavour. Finally along came a lovely piece of pan-fried sea bream - its meat nicely cooked and snow-white - with saffron and garlic and a couple of rather insubstantial potatoes and two or three segments of sliced, sweet piquillo peppers. 

  I eschewed the irritating deconstructed crème Catalan which I was surprised to find had hung on to its place on the menu and instead opted for the Basque cheesecake. This was sensibly sized and a fair representation of the dish and, after it, I was ready to amble along to Centenary Square to see the play.

  It took a while to accept that the two very frantic young men on the stage were Withnail and Marwood though they spoke almost the very same lines as Richard E Grant and Paul McGann did in the movie. At times Withnail was more Bertie Wooster than Grant’s far more subtle, more deeply upper crust, viciously cynical rendition of the part and poor Marwood just was not beautiful enough. But the lads did their best and made me laugh at times though that was more to do with the crushingly hilarious script than the acting to be fair. And how could the actor playing Uncle Monty, a fraction of Richard’s Griffith’s scene-filling bulk, ever hope to fully win over a Withnail and I aficionado when a picture of the salacious, predatory film version of Uncle Monty is lodged firmly and eternally in the mind’s eye?

  But it was an entertaining evening with great efforts put into the costumes and the scenery and scene-changing remarkable. The Rep had certainly put in the necessary effort on this one and it showed.

401.Pretheatre Dinner At Hotel Du Vin.

 

    I was in Stratford upon Avon to see what degree of mauling the RSC was inflicting on the works of Shakespeare on this particular occasion - the victim being Love’s Labours Lost which the RSC had delivered to its audience so perfectly and memorably ten years before, setting it in a long lost Edwardian England - it’s now remembered as the Downton Abbey version - with the lines being delivered by mature actors who knew how to do it. This time, I had read that the production was to be set on a South Pacific island and the four lords were to be multi-billionaires attending a resort there. Ho hum.

  Clearly I was going to need some food prior to viewing the play. As I was again staying at the Hotel du Vin in Rother street and having previously enjoyed an excellent dinner there, it seemed most convenient and  pleasing to dine there again in its Bistro du Vin. The service was spot on on this occasion having had its ups and downs on my last visit. Wishing not to overindulge prior to an expected ordeal in the theatre I went straight to the main course. This was very well cooked, meaty, tasty hake, with a successfully crispy skin accompanied by a gorgeous velouté riven through with the delicious flavour of tarragon and crispy deep fried capers. The Parmentier potatoes looked a little anaemic but were enjoyable and well cooked all the same.

  I could not resist the opportunity to have tarte tatin for my dessert though I was a little anxious as the fruit used in the ‘tarte tartin of the day’ was billed as being pineapple. Tarte tatin, in my humble opinion, only really works with apple, and pear if you’re lucky. In the end this turned out to be a pineapple tart rather than a tarte tatin - the pastry was light and reasonably successful but the tarte had none of the unctious gooeyness and caramelisation that one would lust after in a triumphant tarte tatin. To make matters worse the chef had opted to place a rather naff demi-Maraschino cherry at the centre of the warm slices of pineapple adding to the impression that the restaurant was not offering sophisticated fare. On the other hand perhaps the tart might have been dreamed up to serve as a witty little joke by the chef though I doubt it.

  Needless to say my love’s labours for the tart were lost as they were for the play itself - this production being best described as ‘energetic’ and left at that.