458. Albatross Death Cult - For Sake’s Sake.

  If ever there is a restaurant deserving of elevation to join the constellations of the night skies - that is - totally deserving of the Michelin inspectors awarding it one of the Michelin Guide’s much sought after macarons - stars to the likes of you and me - then it is Alex Claridge’s Albatross Death Cult (previously much reported on in various editions of this blog) along with Ben Tesh’s Folium and Stirchley’s not at all well-kept secret, Riverine Rabbit or Rabbit, whichever one prefers. 

  I returned for yet another visit as the first month of the year drew to a close, the early evening being relatively mild and precipitation-free which was a relief as I ambled my way from Victoria Square down the depressing decay of Newhall Street as it trails inexorably to the edge of the Jewellery Quarter. No introductions, just a relaxed, friendly greeting and a “Long-time no see” from Head Chef Piotr Szpak which is his familiar carch phrase though it isn’t necessarily an accurate observation on his part. But it raises a smile as does bumping into a familiar old gourmand acquaintance of mine, a denizen of the Jewellery Quarter, and we sat side by side updating each other on our most recent dining experiences. This particular evening we were both there, with twelve other diners, for a dinner of mostly familiar dishes paired with shots of various types of sake, which Camilla Bonnannini, ADC’s wine manager, had curated following her recent visit to Japan. In the latter part of 2024 Bonnannini had paired with Oliver Grieve, the other principle Chef at ADC, to enter the Gosset Matchmakers competition and had duly won the contest with a dish of quail, nam jim and carrot prepared in three ways as well as a dish prepared from smoked eel caramelised in brown butter and finished with a blow torch both dishes paired with drinks by Bonnannini.

  The evening began with a truly glorious oyster cream served in an oyster shell and paired most perfectly with a delicious Kodakara yuzu liquor (Camilla was already showing her mettle); then familiar and delightful canapés in the form of a perfectly crispy croustade full of tasty trout roe, the popping in the mouth by its little proteinaceous bubbles giving a joyous child-like pleasure of which I felt mildly ashamed and delightedly happy, both at the same time, the pleasure being added to by the bite of wasabi. The equally crispy container of fine salmon with tongue tingling jalapeño and soothing cream cheese was equally pleasurable.

  Next there was the always remarkable and sublime crab and apple dish which I have previously recorded and on this occasion forgot to photograph and this was paired with the hit of the evening - the Tatenokawa ‘Three Peaks’ 33% which was very admirable and brought on a feeling of soothed mellowness and who can ask for anything more?

  Perhaps the best dish of the evening - the Emperor among kings - was the fabulous dish - mussels with black pepper and Iberico. This has been perfected by the inclusion of more Iberico which has raised it to a divine status. Utterly delicious. The mussels were of admirable texture and the meaty salinity was unsurpassed. 

   The mussels were matched with an interesting fugu (pufferfish) sake which had been bottled complete with pufferfish fins rather as one might find cactus in mescal but the next course, the robust flavoured red prawn with prawn head sauce and this time with pumpkin, was accompanied by a limited edition Nigorizake (cloudy rice wine which retains some of the rice particles in it).

  The last of the savoury dishes was again familiar but also immaculate - fine hamachi (yellow fin tuna) with sesame - unendingly delicious. There was nothing to do but bathe my brain’s contentment centre in the fabulous sushi rice ice cream with caramel and nori tuile - a last, friendly umami assault before the last bugle call of the taste blitz rendered by a red grapefruit juice jelly petit four.

  I have made a reservation to dine again at ADC for the first service after the Michelin Awards ceremony. I can not see why ADC - brilliant and perfect - should not receive a star  If it were in London it certainly would.  For the present at least -

Rating:- 🌞🌞🌞

30 January 2025.

455. Hem, Warwick.

 

  Hem in Warwick’s central Market Place was added to the Michelin Guide in early January 2025. It has an  interesting history being, as it is, the heir to Tailors in the same location which was included in the guide from 2014 to 2023 when it closed suddenly and rather unexpectedly. Tailors opened in 2007 and was owned by chefs Dan Cavell and Mark Fry who worked together until the closure in 2003 after agreeing to go their separate ways. They had given the restaurant its name from the tailor’s shop which had been in the location prior to them opening the restaurant - in its checkered past it is said to have also been a fishmonger’s, a butcher’s and, improbably, a casino though clearly not of Las Vegas proportions. 

  In the final paper edition of the Michelin Guide, that of 2020, it reported that Tailors served “Modern cuisine” and was “intimate” and noted that it was run by “two ambitious chefs who offer good value modern lunches, and elaborate dinners which feature unusual flavour combinations”. A 2023 Tasting menu costing £80 featured the following dishes - “Snack, crispy duck, hoisin, cucumber, spring onion; Bread and butter; ‘Carrot’ feta, pomegranate mint, labneh; ‘Celeriac’, salt baked celeriac, grape fruit, honey, fennel coppa; ‘Salmon’, creme fraiche, shrenckil caviar, beetroot, mirin; ‘Beef’ sirloin, burger flavours; ‘Fro yo’ Greek yogurt, lemon, pine nuts, chocolate, dill; ‘Wal-not-whip’ Dark chocolate, walnut, marshmallow; Sweet treat”. Shortly after serving this menu, Cavell and Fry announced the closure of Tailors on 20 June 2023.

Mark Fry, former joint Chef Patron of Tailors

Dan Cavell, Chef.

  I had long intended to dine at Tailors but only got round to planning my visit just at the moment when Fry and Cavell announced the restaurant’s closure. The building was put up for sale but an old friend of the two chefs, Sebastian Hargreaves, approached Dan Cavell about starting a new restaurant venture in the same location and consequently they opened Hem in February 2023.

  On 8 January 2025, ahead of Michelin’s awards ceremony to be held the following month, the Guide announced that Hem was one of four West Midlands restaurants to be newly included in the Guide’s hallowed pages (the others being Horse and Groom in Bourton on the Hill, Balochi in Edgbaston (next door to Simpsons in Highfield Road) and Sartori in Moseley (opened just six weeks previous and located in the building previously occupied by Carter’s of Moseley). It was clearly time for me to finally pull my socks up and buy a train ticket to Warwick.

Sebastian Hargreaves, front of house.

  And so off I went and finally made it to the little restaurant - “intimate” as the Michelin Guide had put it - sited on Warwick’s historic market square. And worth the journey it was.

  A lot of the West Midlands’ fine and successful restaurants have qualified to be described using the adjective ‘intimate’ - think of the former Turner’s in Harborne or Kray Tredwell’s 670 Grams in Digbeth (before it was extended) or Tropea in Harborne (even though it has been extended) - and I must confirm that Hem joins that collection of admirable restaurants to be reasonably described using that particular adjective. But pretty well perfectly formed. I was greeted by Seb Hargreaves who knows how to make a diner feel comfortable and had my own little table next to the window where I felt very much at home. There was a charming miniature bouquet as a sort of table garnish made up of twigs of dried flowers and corn placed rustically welcomingly on the table, a little touch which seemed appropriate and sensitively joyous. I had by then already warmed to Hem.

  The meal being served was the Saturday Express Menu which started with a slice of remarkably pleasing soda bread which had all the pleasing characteristics of malt loaf plus salted butter and which then moved on to starter and main all for £22 but with the option of adding other courses at a not unreasonable cost.

  The starter was very good - ‘Beetroot’ - slices of sweet beetroot, soothing beetroot labneh, a tasty spinach pesto, blue cheese,  the perfect crunch of hazelnuts and - at additional cost - a slice of Cobble Lane coppa which nicely matched the rest of the dish. I was purring with the pleasure of the first course - on the plate it looked simple but it showed nicely the clever abilities of an inspired chef - a knowing combination of spot on flavours and varying textures. 

   Then to the main course - tender, pink, moist, perfectly cooked slices of pork fillet served with a mildly soggy ‘crouton’ of fried bread overlaid by tasty ‘bacon jam’ and alongside wilted baby gem dressed with a Caesar-style dressing and, importantly, shards of Parmesan. I am not a lover of lettuce as an accompaniment to hot food - I think God designed good robust cabbage, a fine Savoy for instance, or perhaps the much neglected but far from humble cauliflower,  to carry out that role, but this was an interesting and finally executed dish if not entirely to my taste in the greens department.

  Dessert was an additional £8 and took the form of a lovely, finely textured, subtly flavoured 54% dark chocolate crémieux with interesting ingredients such as marmalade, caramelised bread, the always welcome hit of sea salt and a delightfully flavoured tonka bean ice cream. My only regret about this dish was that I forgot to photograph it.

  Coffee was accompanied by an enjoyable ‘sweet treat’ in the form of a homemade gold painted dark and milk chocolate trufffle. 

Fine food is still around and at reasonable prices. Full marks to Michelin for adding Hem to its guide.

Rating:- 🌞

18 January 2025.

And here’s a look at Warwick - 

454. The Wildmoor Oak Inn.

  Living close to the south west edge of Birmingham, visits to Bromsgrove and north east Worcestershire ought to be easy and, true, there’s a train to Bromsgrove or Redditch via Barnt Green and Alvechurch but if one wishes to visit the villages some distance from the stations and one is not driving a car then things become more problematical because public transport is very poor and local taxi services do not necessarily respond to one’s needs in any convenient way.

 That is why I had not yet visited Wildmoor Oak Inn located between Catshill and Fairfield located along a country lane off the road to Stourbridge. Fortunately I had a friend who wished to join me for lunch and who was prepared to drive me there and so my opportunity to eat at this self-declared gastropub was seized upon with much positive anticipation. The Head Chef there is Peter Jackson, brother of Holly Jackson, partner of Brad Carter, who was Head Chef of Carter’s of Moseley before Carter decamped from Moseley (the restaurant is now home to Sartori, listed by the Michelin Guide just six weeks after opening and serving Japanese-style cuisine - a report to follow shortly). 

  Peter Jackson had studied at University College and his training had included stages at Purnell’s and Simpsons and Bank and a period at the Hotel Intercontinental Hotel Dieu in Marseilles under Lionel Levy before going to work firstly at the Fat Cat in Solihull and then with Brad Carter when he opened the Moseley restaurant in 2010.

  The Wildmoor Oak was reopened on 20 May 2024 after an eighteen month refurbishment carried out by its new owners, Bex Wilkins and her wife, Sarah Robinson, who had both previously worked at Peach Pubs which runs a number of gastropubs in the West Midlands region including The Highfield  in Edgbaston, The One Elm in Stratford upon Avon and The Rose and Crown in the Marketplace in Warwick, and further afield.

Peter Jackson, Head Chef, Wildmoor Oak Inn.

Wildmoor Oak Inn

A pub with a postbox, what could be better?

  There’s little doubt that The Wildmoor Oak is charming, located as it is at the end of a country lane so typical of this corner of north west Worcestershire. A tiny babbling brook runs through its grounds and the large car park has a public footpath running through it and walkers can have a pleasing walk across the lovely, green, rolling Worcestershire countryside before settling in at the delightfully warm and cosy inn. And the inn has been designed accurately to bring a homeliness to it - glowing fires, print covered walls, patterned banquettes, comfortable, non-shabby, old furniture, even an eclectic range of traditional style plates and ceramics from which to eat. 

  The welcome was fine and my lunch companion and I were shown to our table. This was a crowded part of the room and some of the lunchers already there had loud voices and a tendency to shreek or cackle when laughing which one or two did quite frequently and so we requested a slightly more isolated table where we could enjoy the atmosphere without being persecuted by gaggling - this was duly allocated to us.

  The closeness of neighbouring tables was probably the only problem we encountered during our visit to the Wildmoor Oak. Bex Wilkins and Sarah Robinson clearly learned a lot during their time with Peach Pubs and have put their experience to good use in the way they have paid attention to every detail in setting up the excellent gastropub. But what about the gastro- part of it all?

  Carter’s it isn’t. This is extravagantly rustic English fayre prepared with intense care and humorously clever quirks of deliciousness. This is not just delicious, comforting English food but it’s all that but prepared by a top chef. This is irresistible top of the range pub food at a sensible price which leaves one not only more than satiated but glowing with intense pleasure. We made a good fist of the menu. For starters, I chose brown onion soup with cheese on toast. I had visions of thin brown soup heavily populated by shreds of sweet onion and a massive cheesy crouton à la Française but my expectations could not have been more wrong. Peter Jackson was clearly making no concessions to Frankish tastes - this was a bowl of thick, warming, perhaps not so brown, potage and the crouton was good old cheese on toast served separately and none the worse for that. Jane Grigson would have admired this fine serving of English - and not European - food which shouted out that culinary Brexit was indeed a reality!

 

  As her starter, my lunch companion chose to order from the list of snacks - ‘pigs not in blankets with Paxo mayo’. This was exactly what the menu said - three fine English sausages (not encased in bacon), well cooked and humorously enhanced by the Paxo mayonnaise - all the flavours of that grand old English packet dried stuffing mix. We both felt we wanted to rush out and buy a packet of Paxo and add it to some mayonnaise and serve it to friends and pretend we invented it.  Great stuff! I had rather expected these to be short cocktail sausages but these were the real thing that would under other circumstances make fine hot dogs (I much more prefer hot dogs using good English sausages over frankfurters to which I am not very partial).

  Neither of us could resist the lure of the haddock and chips served with mushy peas and curry sauce. We have both lived through decades of fish and chips and while peas are always the perfect accompaniment neither of us feel the need to add curry though we appreciate that may not be the case with the young and the less experienced (in my time I ate battered ‘hard’ cod’s roe out of tins - and loved it (but I was quite young), ate battered haggis when the local chip shop tried putting it on the menu (I was still quite young), gratefully accepted the bags of batter bits which chip shop owners were happy to give away (I was still quite young) and always had a giant pickled onion to accompany my cod, chips and bread and butter (or sometimes pickled red cabbage or pickled sliced beetroot - oh, those were the days but curry sauce was never on my horizon). But full marks to Peter Jackson for moving with the times.

  The haddock and chips were perfect, they were fabulous, they were divine. Harry Ramsden could have taken lessons from Peter Jackson, The batter was crispy and gorgeously golden and not too thick and the haddock was divine - white, meaty, delicious. The chips were perfect - unimpeachable. The peas were a little bit of an afterthought and the curry sauce was not too exciting but there was a very good tartare sauce. Again, just fish and chips, you might think, but English culinary artistry at its best.

  We were both too full for desserts but we had one anyway. My companion wanted a light dessert and the meringue with winter fruits seemed to fit the bill - it did, though when it turned up it looked generously portioned by any stretch of the imagination - but she thought the meringue was excellent and of a pleasing consistency and nicely balanced by the berries. I had seen the apple and pear crumble with custard on the menu and formed an irresistible urge to try it. It was very good - the crumble light and infiltrated by clever occasional bursts of sea salt which seemed to me very innovative and successful and the custard was made beautifully - again, light and suffused with as much vanilla as one would hope for.

  We departed feeling mellow and well fed. This had been top flight pub food in an excellent setting. ‘Pub food’ does not do it justice but as I say, it was not Carter’s - but it didn’t need to be.

  Rating:- 🌞 

16 January 2025.