505.The Swan Fairfield.

 

  It’s good to explore the countless dining establishments around the area in which one lives and a voucher for 40% off the price of a main course was enough for me to suggest a visit to the Swan in Fairfield near Bromsgrove, a short distance from the excellent Wildmoor Oak at Wildmoor. Fairfield is another tiny and picturesque north east Worcestershire village and the attractive Swan sits opposite one end of Swan Lane there though, like the chicken and the egg conundrum, I’m not sure which came first, the name of the inn or the name of the lane though I expect it would have been the former.

  It’s a very pleasant and spacious inn and on our arrival it was hosting a good number of lunchers who may or may not have been taking advantage of the 40% off the cost of the main course as we were. There is a section where diners accompanied by dogs are accommodated and we were settled there with my still youngish pup who strove to cause as little trouble as a pup may cause if given the opportunity. There was a choice of dining from an à la carte menu or opting for a two course lunch at just £16. I was keen to have dishes which were not on the lunch menu and so we dined à la carte. The dishes on offer were pretty standard pub offerings and I wasn’t entirely sure that these were not dishes prepared and delivered to the Swan and reheated there. 

  I chose the chicken liver and brandy paté which was served in an interesting cylindrical format along with a yellow beetroot piccalilli, peashoots which contributed very little and “toasted focaccia and salted butter”. The butter, however, failed to make an appearance but the amount of paté was generous enough to coat the focaccia which, if it had been toasted, had been subjected to a minimal amount of flame. The dish was quite edible though the paté was a little too bitter for me. My lunch companion chose a starter of “our garlic and cheddar baked mushrooms” - which the menu described as “sautéed button mushrooms in a  cheese sauce, topped with Cheddar cheese, crispy smoked streaky bacon, Mozzarella pearls, chives and toasted focaccia”. My dining companion was very pleased with her starter and had no grumbles about it.

  For my main course I opted to lunch on a very satisfactory beef and Malbec pie served with an equally satisfactory Malbec gravy. The vegetables were far from perfect though I enjoyed the large honey glazed carrot but the mashed potatoes were somewhat claggy as one finds when prepared meals are reheated. On the whole it was quite edible and with the 40% price off offer, one could hardly complain. My companion again very much enjoyed her choice of sausage and mash which was served with “crispy smoked streaky bacon” (strips of distinctly uncrisp bacon as far as I could see) and onion gravy and a generous helping of green beans.

  We rounded off our meals with desserts - my companion once more enjoyed her salted caramel sundae but I found the flavour of vanilla rather difficult to identify in my “classic vanilla cheesecake” although the accompanying cherry compote was not without some pleasure.

  The pub itself is very attractive but the staff that day were too stretched to deliver any feeling of warmth to us and the other customers. The food on offer was standard pub food not rising above the mundane in the main though the pie itself was the highlight for me with very good pastry and a tasty filling. The Swan is just a short distance in geographic terms from the Wildmoor Oak Inn but several hundred miles from it in the standard of food served there. 

Rating:- 🌛🌛

18 August 2025.

504. The Wilderness New Menu.

  As ever, there are changes at The Wilderness. Marius Gedminas has left his role as Head Chef to do some travelling with Turkish-born Ediz Engin leading a new young team, some of whom, I’m sure, will acknowledge Simpsons as their Alma Mater - including recent Masterchef The Professionals contestants, Evan Holliday and Jordan Johnson (see Blog 496) and soon another big change will be announced which will stun and shock. Despite all this, I was visiting the restaurant again because there was a new Control menu (the menu has a new splendidly gothic TW at the top of it) to try out and the chance of a new 6 course meal which is quite enough for me and it is very well priced at £65.

  This was an excellent lunch with Ediz Engin in charge of the kitchen apart from one course which really didn’t do it for me. My dining companion had no reservations at all. We both agreed, as we have many times before, that if this food were being served in a London that restaurant would certainly have a Michelin star.

  We started with a charming croustade, with good crispy pastry. How Indo like my amuses gueulesand then enjoyed

  We found the Raw course of flamed Cornish mackeral to be lovely, the mackerel’s flavour was restrained and for me all the better for being so and it felt all very summery with the scattering of peas and the soothing buttermilk. Then the vegetable course - Greens - which was something of a misnomer as the principle element of the dish’s colour palate was the crimson, where ruby meets amethyst, of beetroot bathed in a joyous ajo blanco, the subtle almond calming the beetroot. A very pretty dish.

  There was a choice of barbecued mussels in Cafe de Paris sauce served on toasted brioche or a fine - well, actually quite fabulous - plump Orkney scallop, perfectly cooked and full of flavour, served with a full bodied, delicious roe sauce and very edible seaweed. Although costing an extra £12, the pleasure the dish brought meant it was worth every extra penny.

  And so to the main course. We both chose lamb rump with anchovy, a courgette espuma and a condiment monsterously powerfully flavoured with lemon which appeared to have been installed on the wrong plate altogether and certainly seemed to me to be the worse possible match for the delicate lamb which itself was beautifully cooked but ended up being grossly assaulted by the lemon. This was a match made in Hell and not in Heaven and needs to be expelled from the menu with all due haste. Yes I know that the acidity of the lemon cuts through the fattiness of lamb but there is more to lemon than acidity and no matter how many chefs may say that this is a classic pairing, I beg to differ. Alas, poor lamb. 

     We were treated to a predessert which restored pleasure to the meal in the form of a play on cheesecake and then a fine seasonally summer dessert employing strawberries, a tonka ice cream and a pretty tuile, coloured and shaped, like a strawberry.

   There’s a new fresh team at The Wilderness. Apart from the unhappy lemon condiment served with the lamb, this was a very fine meal.

Rating:-  🌞🌞

8 August 2025.

The pass at The Wilderness, Ediz Engin & Evan Holliday, August 2025

Farewell to Marius Gedminas, seen here at ADC.

Here is the Submission menu, cost £135 - 

Ediz Engin and Alex Claridge,

503. Levain And Cherry and The Den, Stirchley

 

 The Good Food Guide, after its revival following the withdrawal of support for it by Waitrose, seems to want to be all things to all men (and women and all other genders that we may or may not know about) and is a little confusing. In a dining out guide (I prefer that term to Food Guide) I really want to discover where to go to eat a good meal in pleasant surroundings on comfortable furniture with good service. Presently the Good Food Guide is not necessarily directing one to eat somewhere which fulfills all of those reasonable criteria. Of course it is titled ‘Good Food Guide’ rather than ‘Good Meal Guide’ and so, one may deduce that as long as the food is ‘good’ at the recommended establishment then the guide has carried out its stated goal. It’s all a little iffy if you ask me, and I can see that no-one is asking me, but still I feel that the Good Food Guide is losing its way. 

  I was a little alarmed this weekend by a new addition, not surprisingly located in Bristol, to the Guide which takes the form of a “tiny trailer kitchen on an inner city farm [which is] an idiosyncratic delight” and is described as, “Possibly Bristol’s best kept secret….reached by an overgrown, graffiti-strewn lane with the trains rattling by…a green oasis if ever there was one”. Only in Bristol, I think. And if anyone’s tempted to walk down the over-grown, graffiti-strewn land then the “tiny trailer kitchen” is called Chez Candice (Modern European  Cafe  rated Good). The Good Food Guide appears to be trying to be madder than ever. I really did have to check it wasn’t April Fool’s Day. 

  However I have to thank its editor for recommending an establishment where one indeed can get good food though not a true meal and certainly not dinner and that food being of a very limited range - in short - a French bakery for which I see no reason why the term patisserie should not be used. This was an eating establishment - I remind you, recommended by The Good Food Guide - where I have only one course to report on and that being a single pastry and eaten outside in the fresh air (well, as fresh as the air along the Pershore Road in Stirchley can be).

  The patisserie is Levain and Cherry, the second shop opened by Pascal Bishop, born in Paris of Birmingham mother and French father. He opened his first shop/cafe on Kings Heath High Street at the age of 40 in 2020 having eschewed a course on baking that he was enrolled on as a young man and then travelling internationally to learn his craft. The hipsters of Kings Heath fell over themselves to buy his products and there were half hour or more-long queues to obtain some Levain and Cherry bread or pastry. Bishop expanded his business recently in 2025 by opening the Stirchley branch where once again the local hipsters and others could indulge themselves in good quality boulangerie and patisserie though there were no tables inside the establishment only tables and chairs under an awning which is very nice given the good weather we’ve been having though the traffic noise can be a little hard to bear.

  The business’ name (Levain) derives from the type of sourdough starter used to leaven  bread and ‘Cherry’ alludes to the coffee cherry, the coffee fruit from which the coffee beans are obtained. Bishop obtains his flour from France near from a mill near Paris. Pastry eaters or coffee suppers may sit outside under the awning with their dogs and I took my pup along with me to share the experience and a tiny portion of my chosen edible.

   And my chosen edible was, it has to be said, remarkably delicious - a ‘fruit brioche’ which took the form of a delightful, large crispy-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside pastry encircling a well, filled with perfectly sweet custard and a soft half peach looking like a golden island rising from the centre of a lake. The coffee was very pleasant but the pastry stole the show, so much so that both the dog returned the following day to have another bite of the (Levain and) cherry and indulge quite joyously in the great pleasure of the fruit brioche once more. I also bought two remarkably toothsome large canales to take home with me and wished I had bought four at least as well as a savoury circular, confusingly non-crescent shaped croissant filed with, I think, chunks of blood pudding and a fried egg which was not entirely to my taste (photographs at the bottom of this piece).

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛.

    So, returning to Stirchley the next day, and finding the establishment to be dog friendly, I dropped into The Den on Pershore Road at the heart of the suburb, for breakfast. This was a large establishment with indoor seats and garden seating. Treats and water were available for the dog. I found the service to be pleasant and helpful. I opted for a brunch from the menu and found the prospect offered by the (home-made) corned beef hash with accompaniments to be very enticing. The corned beef was very good though I did not particularly like the spicing of it. The generous amount of crispy potato hash was delicious and certainly did what it said on the menu - that is - it was indeed gorgeously crispy but the rest of it did seem something of a dog’s breakfast (though of course it was a brunch), there being all sorts of elements to it - silver skin onions, fried egg (nicely done), good ‘house’ baked beans, carrot which really did not seem to have a part to play, pickled sliced onion and other elements. The hot-cold combination really did not work for me and this might best be described as ‘interesting’ and a lesson in not going over the top when creating something different.

Rating:- 🌛🌛.

  And so, after The Den, on to Levain and Cherry, as described above where everything was a little more straightforward and very enjoyable.

502. Two Country Pubs - The Fuzzy Duck, Armscote And The Wildmoor Oak Inn, Bromsgrove.

    South of Stratford upon Avon, where Worcestershire red brick is starting to give way to Cotswold stone, there is the Michelin-recommended pub with rooms that goes by the name of The Fuzzy Duck. I have been hoping to get there for some time but bus services are difficult and it’s best to take a car and fortunately I had a friend who was pleased to drive me there and join me for lunch.

  The village in which the pub is located is Armscote in a quiet country lane off the main road between Ilmington, home to the Howard Arms, and Shipston on Stour, where one might dine at The Bower House, where Leo Kattou the former Head Chef at Simpsons and the recently closed Laghi’s, now rules the kitchen. The pub was opened in 2013, having been fully renovated and modernised, by siblings Tania and Adrian Slater and first featured in the Michelin Guide in its 2015 edition. The Guide’s description then stated, “Adrian and Tania … took this place from boarded up boozer to welcoming, fashionably attired dining pub. Seasonal British dishes use great quality local and sustainable ingredients…”.

  I had finally achieved my goal of dining at the Fuzzy Duck and first impressions were very positive. There was a pleasing welcome for myself, my guest and my young dog who behaved not far short of impeccably and we were delighted to find the dining room to be delightfully and relaxingly decorated, brightly lit by the natural light coming through the sizeable windows and spacious to ensure that one felt comfortable and able to talk without being overheard. 

 The table was nicely laid even though there was no table cloth and it was not long before I was embibing a Pink Duck cocktail from the drinks menu which featured at a cute fluffy ducking on its cover, made from Chase Rhubarb and apple gin, strawberry purée, lemon juice and lemonade. It was a pleasingly refreshing choice.

  Neither my companion nor myself were able to resist the lovely twice baked cheese soufflé with truffle sauce as our starter. It had a good punchy, cheesy flavour and was splendidly light and airy. We were already clearly in the rarefied atmosphere of fine and refined pub food and thoroughly enjoying ourselves.

  For my main, I felt the Quack and Chips demanded my attention and very good it was too. The fairly small but very well cooked honey and soy glazed duck leg was delicious, the meat moist and succulent, and the accompanying truffle and Parmesan chips were equally delightful both in their flavour and their texture - very fine chips indeed.mYes, this was an excellent dish and the salad of thin ribbons of carrot with an Asiatic sesame dressing added a soothing coolness to it all.

  I was very pleasingly satiated and could only manage an affogato served with a shot of amaretto as dessert but it was nicely served and proved to be a nice close to the meal.

  My dining companion (not Lucy The Labrador) gained as much pleasure from her opening cheese soufflé as I had myself and was immensely pleased with her dish of beautifully cooked sea bream and accompaniments along with her rather extravagant dessert of Eton Mess.

  We  departed content and very well fed and with the resolution that the Fuzzy Duck had not seen the last of us.

Rating:- 🌝+

30 July 2025

  The day previous, a dining companion and I revisited the Wildmoor Oak Inn at Wildmoor near Bromsgrove. I have written about this previously but enjoy lunching there so much that I find it hard to stay away for very long. The food served from the kitchen where Peter Jackson, Brad Carter’s brother-in-law, is Head Chef is excellent pub food, delicious and of that standard consistently. as well as being of very good value.

  We were not disappointed on our latest visit. We shared a plate of tasty hummus of good flavour, the amount of garlic in it nicely judged, served with thin slices of beetroot, sweet, softly textured confit garlic cloves and pea shoots, which for once served a real role in the dish rather than being a lazy man’s garnish for everything from breakfast scrambled egg to steak in the evening.

  My plate of haddock and chips was, as ever, excellent. The fish was beautifully cooked with delightful  crispy batter and the chips were about as perfect as chips can be. While I can live without the curry sauce, the mushy peas were delicious - sweet and minty - and the accompanying tartare sauce was a cut above most tartare sauces that one encounters. For dessert I chose the perfectly wobbly vanilla panna cotta which was lovely though the flavour of vanilla might have been stepped up another notch. The pleasingly wobbly panna cotta was accompanied by nicely macerated strawberries and an excellent sable biscuit.

  My lunch companion chose one of the ‘specials of the day’ as her main course - gammon, which though it looked rather overcooked, was judged to be delicious and succulent. This was accompanied by a pot of the much loved chips, peas and a remarkably attractive-looking fried egg. Her dessert was very grand - a magnificent confection made up of a perfectly sweet mango sorbet sitting on a mango and passion fruit pavlova.  No complaints about it were heard.

  The Wildmoor Oak Inn continues to be a very great pleasure to dine at and represents very good value in these times of continually rising ingredients prices.

Rating:- 🌞

29 July 2025.

  Now, a quick mention that I very much enjoyed my pretheatre dinner at Stratford’ s Hotel du Vin where I chose to eat a splendidly sweet and filling bowl of French onion covered by a thick, vigorously tasty cheesy crouton and then, for the second time in two days, a very well cooked, moist and flavourful confit duck, more generously sized than that served at the Fuzzy Duck, and in a rich and highly toothsome sauce. This was excellent and perhaps only held back by being served with a generous helping of sauté potatoes when I rather would have preferred fewer potatoes and some other vegetable to give more contrast to the dish. Nevertheless it was very good. The Stratford Bistro du Vin serves some very good dishes and I especially enjoy the robust, rustic and filling Gallic-style dishes it has on its menu.

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛🌛.

31 July 2025.

  The HdV dinner preceded a trip covering the short distance to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre where a fabulous production of one of the three plays I have never before seen, The Winters Tale, certainly did not give me any indigestion though, the production being so powerful and at times very dark, a stiff post-theatre drink seemed a necessity.

  Finally, during a long walk around Stratford town and along the river bank I spotted two interesting sights relevant to Stratford’s dining out history. Firstly, I espied the ‘floating restaurant’ The Countess which chugs up and down the Avon serving lunch, afternoon tea and dinner. While this is not particularly notable it’s worth noting that in 1978 and 1979 another Stratford floating restaurant, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, was included in the Michelin Guide. 

  Further along the river, by the bridge near the theatre, can be found the site of the former Boathouse restaurant and this too was once included in the Michelin Guide in the 1998 to 2000 editions.

  There was also a sad sign of the times - a notice in the window of the Stratford upon Avon branch of Pizza Express announcing that the dining establishment is to close on 2 August. There are now many empty shops in the town and many of them former restaurants and cafes. There are directly caused by the Labour government’s raised taxes for businesses and aggressive raising of the minimum wage which are wreaking havoc with the hospitality industry which continues to also be hit ever rising food prices. Stratford is now a shadow of its former self and Starmer’s crass Labour government and the actions it is taking are playing a huge role in destroying the town and the industry. So Stratford says Ciao to another popular dining establishment. No doubt, it is not the last.