Folium perhaps more than anywhere is the most simpatico restaurant I have the pleasure to dine at on a fairly regular basis. I like the the way the daylight (when there is any) floods through the window that runs the full length of the front of the restaurant and immediately makes Folium feel bright and cheering and it nicely accentuates the restrained modern decor. It feels just right to me especially when front-of-house Lucy Hanson, relaxed and calm, friendly and appropriate, comes to explain the menu (not that she needs to - I am very familiar with it) and take the orders. And there, in the background is Chef Patron Ben Tesh himself - meticulous, quietly expert, knowing, unnecessarily modest, working away by himself in the open kitchen area.
I’m not the only person who appreciates the nationally underrated restaurant - if it were in London I feel sure it would have a Michelin Star - on the way along Caroline Street to Folium, my lunch companion and I bumped into the former Mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street, whom I know to some degree (he’s a wonderful man who seems to remember everyone whom he has ever met) and when we were asked what we were doing and told him our lunchtime destination, he waxed lyrical about the restaurant. Later Lucy told us that he had been a regular diner at the restaurant and had been a customer whom she enjoyed serving very much.
It was the first day after the Christmas and New Year holiday break that the restaurant had opened and it was all very quiet but we were comfortable, nicely warm and ready for our six course lunch which was a mixture of some new dishes and old, happily familiar, plates from Ben Tesh’s ongoing menus. There was a new amuse bouche in the form of crispy Mayan Gold potato croquette topped by corn gold smoked cod roe - it was delicious - paired with the signature chicken liver parfait in a burnt onion crisp - a miniature gem giving eternal pleasure. There was also the gorgeous home baked bread paired with cultured butter which together form a delightful course in itself.
Much that followed I had eaten before at Folium, always with great pleasure, - the savoury custard with roast chicken broth and winter truffle - a perfect symbiosis of lovely ingredients and then the Cornish cod with a punchy lobster head sauce (there was something of a problem here - the cod was glistening white and translucent, perfectly seasoned and admirable in many ways but it looked as though it had been cooked sous vide and was rather spoiled by being less than lukewarm). Apart from that, it was a fine dish.
Next there was a delightful slice of A5 Wagyu short rib - the texture of butter and perfectly cooked - served with grilled, marinated endive, its natural bitterness calmed by the prolonged marination and the lovely sauce.
Unusually, we decided to eat the optional cheese course and were pleased with the aptly eclectic selection served along with some tasty crab apple jelly, light, crispy homemade crackers and delicious manly loaf full of fruit and fresh as a daisy. Afterwards came the very effectively palate cleansing yuzu cream dotted with marshmallow served in a frozen half yuzu and another new dessert - “yesterday’s sourdough” cake with caramel and cobnuts and cobnut ice cream.
Then there were final bursts of intense pleasure in the form of two familiar petit fours - a light, perfect little madeleine served with Cotswold whisky cream - St Peter probably serves these as a welcoming nibble to all the good souls arriving at and permitted to enter Heaven - and sunflower macaron with cep fudge at its core.
Rating:- 🌞🌞🌞.
10 January 2025.
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