464. Michelin-Rated West Midlands Restaurants 2025.

 

  In the wake of the recent overblown Auld Alliance Michelin Awards ceremony in Glasgow at the beginning of February, it’s important (to me at least) to see just where the West Midlands counties stand as 2025 gets under steam. This is because the online Guide can be changed as the year passes by and there is no permanent record, with the demise of the paper edition, of where we stood on the date when a paper edition would have been published - in this case, the evening of 10 February 2025.

  Therefore, for the record, I note that there were 77 West Midlands restaurants finding a place in the guide on that particular evening. The Michelin Guide continues to locate Broadway in Gloucestershire instead of Worcestershire and Gloucestershire’s Moreton in Marsh in Warwickshire  - these are irritating long-term displays of ignorance on the part of the guide’s editor and it all has the air of a Gallic shoulder shrugging exercise in not correcting them but I have done so and my list has everywhere in the right place. And despite the claims by some that Gloucestershire is in the south west region, a glance at a map of England immediately corrects that assertion pinpointing the county in the west of England’s middle region though of course Bristol in the pseudo-county of South Gloucestershire is clearly in the West Country and frankly they’re welcome to it though it does indisputably have some excellent restaurants.

  And so here are the West Midlands restaurants recorded in the 2025 Michelin Great Britain and Ireland Guide -

Gloucestershire - 18 restaurants

Restaurants in Cheltenham - Le Champignon Sauvage ⭐️ , Lumière ⭐️ , Purslane, Memsahib’s Lounge, Prithvi, Bhoomi Kitchen; outside Cheltenham - Horse and Groom (Bib) (Bourton on the Hill); The Halfway at Kineton (Guiting Power); Cowley Manor (Cowley); Daylesford Organic Farm (Daylesford); The Fox (Lower Oddington): Atrium (Upper Slaughter); Buckland Manor (Buckland); Wilder (Nailsworth); Old Butchers (Stow on the Wold); Ox Barn (Southrop); henne (Moreton in Marsh) and 5 North St (Winchcombe).

Herefordshire - 4 restaurants 

33 The Homend (Ledbury); The Bull’s Head (Craswell); Kilpeck Inn (Kilpeck) and The Baiting House (Upper Sapey)

Shropshire - 7 restaurants 

Charlton Arms (Bib), Forelles, Mortimers (all Ludlow); Wild Shropshire (Green⭐️), Docket (both in Whitchurch); The Walrus (Shrewsbury) and The Bear Inn (Hodnet).

Staffordshire - 7 restaurants 

Upstairs by Tom Shepherd ⭐️, The Boat Inn, Larder (all Lichfield); Duncombe Arms (Bib) (Ellastone); Lunar (Stoke on Trent); Little Seeds (Stone); The Flintlock (Cheddleton).

Warwickshire - 9 restaurants 

The Royal Oak ⭐️ (Whatcote); The Cross ⭐️ (Kenilworth); The Howard Arms (Ilmington); Fuzzy Duck (Armscote); Salt, The Woodsman (both in Stratford upon Avon); The Mount (Henley in Arden); The Bower House (Shipston on Stour) and Hem (Warwick). 

West Midlands county - 22 restaurants 

Restaurants in Birmingham - Opheem ⭐️⭐️; Adam’s ⭐️ ;Simpsons ⭐️(Edgbaston); Tropea (Bib) (Harborne); Riverine Rabbit (Bib) (Stirchley); Folium; The Wilderness; Albatross Death Cult; Chakana (Moseley); Land; Plates by Purnell’s; 670 Grams; Asha’s; The Oyster Club by Adam Stokes; Baloci (Edgbaston); Sartori (Moseley); Harborne Kitchen (Harborne); Cuubo (Harborne); outside Birmingham  - Grace and Savour ⭐️ ; Smoke (both in Hampton in Arden; The Mount (Henley in Arden) and Cheal’s (Knowle)

Worcestershire - 8 restaurants 

The Inn at Welland (Bib) (Welland); Native (Green ⭐️) Tenbury Wells; The Butcher’s Arms (Eldersfield); 1919 (Malvern Wells); Eckington Manor (Eckington); Black and Green (Barnt Green); The Back Garden (Broadway) and MO (Broadway).

Of the previous  Michelin star holders, Purnell’s was deleted from the Guide on the grounds that the restaurant had closed (a not unreasonable excuse) but of those on the above list Smoke is to close this week to make way for David Taylor’s new Hampton Manor restaurant, Kynd, which one feels in one’s water may well be in next year’s guide.

One final thought is that all of the 77 West Midlands restaurants surely can not have been inspected in the twelve months prior to the ‘publication’ of the 2025 Guide - several visits to one restaurant I can think of were very disappointing, occasionally verging on the awful and convinced me that it would lose its Michelin star but there it still is and no doubt there will be devoted adherents to the Michelin Guides who will turn up there to dinner based on Michelin’s recommendations and will leave sorely disappointed.

463. Adam’s.

 

  The year moves on. Spring approaches. The Michelin Guide has done its worst for another year. Dining out in the West Midlands survives despite the ever building pressures. Restaurants close. Optimistic, or perhaps foolhardy, restaurateurs open new venues. 

  Hot on the heels of my visit to Simpsons came my first visit of the year to Birmingham’s most delightfully formal restaurant, the always admired one Michelin-starred Adam’s. I was looking forward to the restaurant’s reassuring formality, its smartness, its sense of order and appropriateness. It’s trendy to be casual. Each to their own. I was never one for trendiness for trendiness sake.

  The diners were casual and underdressed. Everyone seems to have lost a sense of style. It’s depressing. The service as is usual with Adam’s was still trying to live up to Adam’s’ established touch of class but lacked warmth and a balance really should be struck. Dishes were slow to come out but when they did, were explained as simply yet clearly as one could hope them to be. We chose the five course lunch which was well-priced at £85. Sadly, a number of the dishes seemed overworked with more ingredients than one really would have liked and brought with them overwrought, punchy flavours which suppressed the flavour of the main element somewhat disastrously. The dishes were universally beautifully presented but the flavours gave the impression that excess was the theme of the day.

  The three amuses gueules were excellent. There was an oyster-based pleasure and a little beignet prettily decorated with little white flowers - rock samphire, I think (the waiter could not identify them for me) and filled with toothsome beef broth which literally exploded with flavour and the accompanying bread was excellent too, including a fine sourdough with a pleasing crispy crust and a delightful sweet brioche. The first course proper, too, was excellent - my lunch companion rated it as “outstanding” and it was hard to disagree. It was a lovely thick disc of Skrei cod, cooked impeccably, served with dulse (seaweed) foam, powerfully flavoured lemon grass and a semolina tuile decorated again with samphire flowers a tiny twiglets of samphire. So far so excellent.

  Then a plate of a very nicely cooked hen of the woods with cep, chestnut, pickled  enoki whicb gave a nice acidic bite to this autumnal and blazing fires sort of dish. Nasturtium leaves were there to look green I suppose to amuse the eyes gazing on this plate of brown. If one must have a vegetarian dish then this was excellent but vegetarian courses always seem so lightweight and I often feel as though my life would not be emptier having not been served one.

  Everything till then had been very tasty but moderately gentle on the tastebuds. Then the storm broke. I was very much looking forward to the lemon sole and indeed it was beautifully panfried and a delight to eat. But Chef seemed on the upswing of a manic-depressive episode as he (or she) unleashed a great vortex of powerfully flavoured wild garlic on to the sole, the flavour of which blown away by the all pervading garlic. This was a great pity, the sweet delicacy of the sole should be enjoyed, in my opinion, by a companion ingredient which likes to hang back in the shadows, stepping forward to give added shine - a little citrus perhaps, or a beurre noisette, but something that knows its place and gives credit to the star sitting on the plate waiting to be adored. But if this was not bad enough, there were blobs of aggressively flavoured dill purée also trying to assault the poor noble fish and in turn to help the wild garlic render the diner’s tastebuds paralysed not just during the course, or even during the meal but effectively for the rest of the day. To add insult to injury, the anya potatoes were mildly undercooked and too al dente for my taste.

  And things did not get any better with the main course of delicately flavoured, supremely well cooked Beech Ridge Farm chicken served with a savoury custard-like polenta, well cooked asparagus and another excessively punchy onslaught of wild garlic which eliminated the flavour even of truffle which was alleged to be a witness sitting on the plate to all these goings on.

  The dessert, too, fell victim to excess - it had a Yuletide character to it realised in an excessively, even unpleasantly, over spiced mince pie ice cream which did not in any way enhance the otherwise very tolerable sticky toffee pudding with dulcey.

I have had many fine meals at Adam’s but this was a day when ‘less (flavour) is more’ was certainly needed. I like exciting, punchy new flavours but not those which overwhelm everything with which they are served. A pity but hopefully just an abberation.

  While Adam Stokes remains Executive Chef, the restaurant now has a duumvirate of Head Chefs - Adam Wilson and Simil Gurung. I hope that they can continue with the fine cooking while reining back a little on the power of some of their ingredients and perhaps take a look at getting the food out of the kitchen just  a little quicker.

Adam Wilson (left of picture) with Adam Stokes

Simil Gurung (left of picture) and Adam Wilson

Rating:- 🌞

21 February 2025.

462. Sunday Lunch At Simpsons.

 

  After a thrilling and delicious Sunday lunch the previous week at Stirchley’s Eat Vietnam’s collaboration with Dan Lee, I felt I was ready to be a little more sedate and classic at Simpsons which of course has recently been put up for sale by its owner and founder, the doyen of Birmingham and West Midlands dining, Andreas Antona. I had opted for the three course Sunday lunch - I had sirloin pave with Yorkshire pudding on my mind as the alluring beef Wellington was only available for couples to share, misere me.

  Simpsons does very good canopés and those served on this visit were delicious and I ate them alongside a white port and tonic. To be honest, the realisation came to me that I was gobbling them with all the pleasure a little gluttony brings with it. Well, I was sitting in a discreet corner being served, to my great pleasure, by Thomas Moore (not, as far as I know, related to his namesake who so displeased Henry VIII and thereby earned himself a sainthood though it took a few centuries for him to achieve that earthly reward). 

  Thomas had worked at an early stage in his career at the late Purnell’s and had been the chief server at one of my birthday dinners which I liked to hold there every year for close friends to have the opportunity to urge me to run life’s course for another twelve months. Thomas had been very impressive, virtually an infant prodigy in his knowledge and carrying out of his work front-of-house, and had been promoted at Purnell’s and worked there till the restaurant gasped its last breath. By then he was accomplished in the knowledge and service of wines, and as one door closed another opened. As Purnell’s was closing, so Simpsons’ esteemed sommelier, Gian Giancomo Stella, announced he was returning to Italy after seven years in his finely executed role in Edgbaston, and Thomas was appointed to succeed him and work with him as he familiarised himself with the job. 

  I was also pleased to hear about Adrien Garnier who been Restaurant Manager and Sommelier at Purnell’s - he had decided to return to France after Purnell’s closure but had kept in touch with Thomas and during the meal, Thomas texted Adrien to let him know I was dining at Simpsons and Adrien had replied with a message of good wishes. How very charming and kind.

Thomas Moore

Gian Giancomo Stella 

  

Adrien Garnier

The starter proper was a lovely lobster and prawn raviolo - nicely sized and the pasta well made - with tender salsify and robustly flavoured lobster and pepper sauce. This was an excellent dish. I was recently reading some food reviews by Jay Rayner, who eats well like so many metropolitan socialists who enjoy and can afford the good life (Raymond Postgate the founder of the Good Food Guide was also a notable socialist who made sure he ate the best of food), and who is the retiring food critic of The Observer, and a quote from his final missive for the Observer Food Monthly states, “Hyper-expensive foods are never about deliciousness; they are about status. Don’t bother with them”. 

  Well, firstly he does not define at which point ‘expensive’ food becomes ‘hyperexpensive’ food. To a 78 year old pensioner on £13000 per year income who has had their winter fuel allowance grabbed away by the recently elected Starmer Labour government which Rayner enthusiastically endorsed, I suspect that lobster and roast sirloin pavé (at a supplement price of £10 on top of £75 three course meal price) and passion fruit soufflé (further supplement of £10) are all ‘hyper-‘ rather than plain expensive. The champagne socialist may have an alternative definition. Regardless, I believe, that an expensive element which to the people increasingly neglected by the faux socialists now in power, would undoubtedly be ‘hyperexpensive’, lends something to the pleasure of a special meal which is something that one goes to restaurants like Simpsons to enjoy. The lobster was lovely and the sirloin excellent - tender, cooked to exactly my own preference, delicious and generously portioned.

  It’s a rule that one should listen to experts and then remember that they have their own axe to grind. I suppose, in fact I know, that Simpsons’ prices represent wonderfully good value compared with those of the London restaurants wherein Rayner would most often dine. His ‘hyperexpensive’ is not our ‘hyperexpensive’ and though Simpsons’ prices are not cheap, the quality and delightfulness of the dishes Luke Tipping delivers to diners there represents very good value. Long may it continue even after Andreas Antona has sold the business. 

  The slices of sirloin were served with a towering, crispy Yorkshire pudding and the tenderest, most gorgeously cooked and handsome-looking carrots I have been served in many a moon (others no doubt would have liked some bite to their’s but the undercooked carrot people have had their way for far too long and it’s good to see the kitchens of Simpsons leading the fight back). The roast potatoes again were the mostly accurately, perfectly cooked I have been served in recent memory and I enjoyed the shredded cabbage. The weakest element was the cauliflower with cheese sauce which needed more of the sauce, given that sauce was served, to give it more cheesy flavour though I wish there would be some restaurant or the other which would  serve the cauliflower denuded of any such covering so that diners could appreciate the flavour of cauliflower in all its unique naked flavour. The beef sauce was unctuous and delicious but I should have liked more heat in my horseradish sauce.

  Finally the dessert. I was not able to resist the prospect of the passion fruit soufflé though I longed almost equally to have my first rhubarb of the year which was one of the alternatives. The soufflé was impeccable and the ‘exotic sauce’ was dominated by mango and the chantilly cream innocuous though not really necessary. At the bottom of the dish, when the soufflé had all been scooped away, there was a distinct and not very pleasant bitterness from the sauce that lurked there which I think might have some alcohol element though I could not tell as I disliked it enough not to consume it. This was a pity but it did not ruin what had been a fine meal of a very high standard. I rounded off the meal with a post prandial After Eight cocktail and two delightful mignardises - a delightfully chewy macaron and a Madeleine which was the stuff that dreams are made on and I felt rather pleased with myself. Simpsons marches on. The doyen is still the doyen. 

Rating:-🌞🌞🌞.

16 February 2026.

461. Return To Albatross Death Cult; 2025 Michelin Awards Ceremony.

 

  I had very real expectations that Alex Claridge’s Albatross Death Cult would be awarded a Michelin Star in the 2025 Awards Ceremony held in Glasgow on 10 February and so, in anticipation of being present at the first service after a notable recognition, I reserved a table at ADC to scent the sweet smell of success at first hand. It was not to be, unlike last year when I had reserved a table at Opheem the first service after the award of two stars to Aktar Islam’s very fine restaurant. Alas, Michelin is a law onto itself and one should never assume that one knows what they are thinking. 

  Not that the news was all bad. The wonderful Ash Valenzuela-Heeger of Riverine Rabbit almost opened the proceedings by being awarded the Young Chef Award and her and Erin, her partner’s, restaurant was deservedly awarded a Bib Gourmand, the first seen in the city in many a year (though Rabbit was joined by Tropea in receiving the Bib).

  And further afield in the West Midlands, both Native in Tenbury Wells and Wild Shropshire in Whitchurch were awarded Green Michelin stars.

  Regardless of what did or did not come to pass, I was back at Albatross Death Cult, seated at the shiny counter and not sorry to be there. I was happy to chat to my neighbours - one on a visit to Birmingham from Chicago, interested very much in dining out especially at seafood restaurants and drawn to the ADC by its sphinxian full name. He felt that people dressed more nicely to go out and eat in England than back home in Chicago but then he hadn’t visited a Weatherspoons so he wasn’t fully in possession of the facts. My other neighbour was a young woman who had settled in Birmingham and now had more time to go out and visit our fine eateries and was gradually working her way through the Birmingham section of the Michelin Guide. She was enjoying herself and, like our visitor from the Windy City, was very impressed by ADC and all the dishes as they came out.

  Head Chef Piotr Szpak was in reassuringly good form with a slightly revised coiffure and an opening gambit of his familiar greeting, “Long time no see” although it had only been a couple of weeks since my last visit. It was also a pleasure to see the remarkably talented young senior sous chef, Oliver Grieve, back at his station and to have my drinks needs admirably addressed by sommelier Camilla Bonnannini.

  I have detailed a number of the dishes which were presented this evening and which were familiar from previous visits and I will not cover old ground save to say that each dish was as immaculate as ever and as deserving of a Michelin star as ever. The usual little snacks which started off the meal were gems in miniature of the culinary art in themselves - I have described them in previous Blogs - and then came a top rate dish of delicious smoked trout roe mousse with the orange pearls of trout roe and the joyous kick of wasabi. A real star, beyond a doubt.

 The tuna nigiri was beautifully textured and had all the characteristics of a beignet topped by tuna though of course it was rice rather than dough - delicious. Then came another dish to me - finally cut sea bass with umami tare sauce which could not help but be riven through with flavour. The apple with crab is a familiar favourite - the crab shone through which, elsewhere, is not always the case and the apple provides a perfect companion to it. Then accurately cooked opalescent cod wrapped in nori with the sun-gold yolk of a quail’s egg - again absolutely spot on cooking with the yolk still runny inside. Such delicacy of preparation - the cheerfulness and lightheartedness of the chefs does not prepare the diner for the precision and obsessional care with which they prepare the dishes.

  The mussel-black pepper-Iberico must be one of the very best dishes on offer in the region at the moment - the mussels tender and pepper-spicy and the Iberico adds an almost overwhelming saltiness as well as little spicules of comforting texture. But there were still jewels to come - the red prawn with its punchy prawn head sauce and then the delicious hamachi with the bracing flavour of sesame.

   There was just the divine pleasure of the sushi rice ice cream to come and a happy petit four jelly and it was time to go. Star or no star - ADC remains truly remarkable. I have little doubt that if it had been located in London and only been a fraction as good as it is, then Albatross Death Cult would have been celebrating the award of a star. But, Michelin is a law onto itself though, as Mr Bumble is quoted as saying, “The law is an ass”.

Rating:- 🌞🌞🌞

  Back to the Michelin Awards ceremony - it was overblown, preposterous, pretentious, arrogant, full of hubris and really quite silly. It had a big organ, a piper, a plethora of overwrought Scottish politicians, a Frenchman with an ‘Allo ‘Allo accent in charge of it all and long drawn out promotions of its sponsors including the repeated and time consuming disrobing of the award winning chefs in order that they may put on chefs’ jackets produced by one of the ceremony’s sponsors. A video promoting the advance of women in the restaurant industry was shown and included appearances by Ash and Erin Valenzuela-Heeger filmed inside a rather poorly lit Riverine Rabbit but Michelin’s presumably well-intentioned presentation brought more criticism than praise afterwards. 

  Perhaps it would be best if Michelin allowed the British to stage their own version of the Awards ceremony in future years without too much interference from France. After all, the French are hardly known for being able to put on a good show, at least not since the days of Toulouse-Lautrec and Fin de Siècle Montmartre and the Moulin Rouge and the Folies Bergère  and all that sort of stuff. The Michelin Awards ceremonies, since they commenced in recent times have always been, at best, discomforting and, at worst , toe-curlingly embarrassing but every year that goes by, they are taking longer and longer to do what they are there for - that is - present awards to a tip-of-the-iceberg selection of some of Britain’s best chefs and thereby devolving into a tedious two hours lost from one’s life that one will never recover. No matter, it’s good to see our accomplished chefs rewarded for making dining out a pleasure, even if it’s not always affordable.

  At the end of it all, the West Midlands region now has 75 restaurants mentioned in the Michelin Guide which is far too few but an increase on this time last year.