Birmingham gourmands, epicures, gourmets, ‘foodies’ - call them what you may - and others will recognise the address 27 Warstone Lane in the Jewellery Quarter as the home of Alex Claridge’s The Wilderness. And those who go back a bit will also know that prior to its current existence, the location had been home to Niki Astley’s Two Cats and before that a succession of mostly notable restaurants stretching back to the turn of the millennium - Veda Sampson’s Big Nanny’s Caribbean Restaurant (2011-14), Choloo Nepalese restaurant (2006-11), Didier Philpott’s Toque D’Or (2003-6) and Paul Gilmore’s Restaurant Gilmore from 1997 to 2003. Some buildings are just meant to play an important role in the history of Birmingham and West Midlands cuisine.
And now, it seems there is another - the location of the recently opened Japanese-style restaurant Satori. This new dining establishment opened in October 2024 in the shop which previously was the home to Carter’s of Moseley at 20C Wake Green Road and on 8 January 2025 Michelin, 44 days after Satori opened, announced that it had added the restaurant to its Guide along with the sister restaurant Baloci (Central Asian cuisine - see Blog 372) in Highfield Road in Edgbaston nest door to Simpsons. The owner, FB Holdings, also include Qavali (Persian cuisine, see Blogs 191) and Mayan (Mexican cuisine, see Blog 334) in its portfolio and all four are characterised by their extravagant, vaguely or perhaps definitely over-the-top decor which makes a good stab at a return to glamorous dining out though the question lurks at the back of one’s mind as to whether or not it’s all somewhat expensively naff. Hence 20C Wake Green Road follows in the footsteps of 27 Warstone Lane as one of those Birmingham locations which historically is home to more than one Michelin-listed restaurant (as well as being painted black).
The Head Chef is Kin Ho Fung aka Jacky and he and his kitchen staff provide a menu which offers an interesting selection of Japanese dishes - maki sushi, nigiri, temaki and sashimi - promisingly wide-ranging. After the meal he came to speak to me and he obviously takes his work very seriously and has previously worked in Singapore and Dubai. I enjoyed my chat with this charming, soft-voiced man and he reflected on how he had to shape his menu around the availability of certain ingredients in this country.
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| Head Chef Kin Ho Fung |
The restaurant, though it has been refurbished, is recognisably the location where Carter’s was homed - it retains its open kitchen, the black walls enhanced now by a golden dragon along one wall (though I wondered if that suggested Chinese rather than Japanese cuisine) and the large, illuminated wine cabinet along one wall. Throughout, the Saturday lunchtime, the number of diners not being large, I was served by Sharath Sundar, Satori’s director, and was again able to have a chat with him as the 10 course tasting menu gradually unfolded. He is man who clearly understands the hospitality industry, and its present grave problems, but clearly he had been uplifted by Michelin’s recent honouring of the restaurant and he was enthusiastic about support from locals and other diners. He was helpful, polite, appropriately friendly and clearly well informed. But these are hard times for hospitality - Starmer’s malign government has ensured that - so we must see how this difficult year will pass. But to the food.
To start there was a slightly underwhelming sakizuke/amuse bouche of two crackers sandwiching various items which did not ring out the words, ‘fine’ and ‘dining’. Still, it was only an amuse bouche you say but often that morsel speaks volumes about what is to come. Look at the magnificent canopés presented at the start of a meal at Opheem - hauntingly memorable - but then again Opheem has two Michelin stars and the tasting menu costs almost one hundred pounds more. You have to start somewhere. As the meal proceeded subsequently I had the feeling that the will was there to move things along to greater heights if, like other restaurants, the oppression of hospitality does not take its toll.
There followed the first course proper, a generously portioned sushi and sashimi platter. The dish lacked the finesse expected when the words “fine” and “dining” with its application to sushi and sashimi are used together in that order and the salmon for sure needed the various condiments to anoint it with any element of flavour but the dish was pleasant enough and virtually a meal in itself.
Then, came a quite tasty miso soup with langoustine and shredded spring onion and tofu which is an ingredient which should never have been allowed to leave the Far East where the diversity of mankind’s tastes allows it to be properly appreciated while an Englishman in preference enjoys roast beef and all the trimmings.
The next dish brought with it ebi (prawns/shrimps) and yasai (vegetables) tempura which looked rather splendid adorned as it was by noodles branched like trees with leaves of rice fixed to them and coated in tempura and deep fried, emerging crispy and crunchy. The tempura was certainly anot light enough to enable one to conjure up a mental picture of elite Japanese fare but again it was all edible enough served with a mooli tempura sauce. Next there was an enjoyable, goodly-sized karaage - Japanese fried chicken - with nice, crispy batter, accurately cooked chicken which retained some moisture and made delicious by the sweet syrup and salty tobiko (flying fish eggs) served with it. A hit! A palpable hit!
I moved on to the next course of grilled plump sea scallop - again nicely cooked to my taste - with the surprising hit of preserved lemon and then on to tasty grilled honey and soy duck - which was cooked pretty much as I should like it to be - with an apt plum sauce, mooli, sesame foam (more decorative than a stimulant of the taste buds) and tenderstem broccoli which was anything but tender-stemmed. The greens around this winter, what few there are - and they’re mostly tenderstem broccoli - are awful. The weather of 2024 has certainly taken its toll on our winter greens. I have not yet seen that among the perils of global warming is our lack of Brussels sprouts for Christmas lunch or the sentence to eat untenderstem broccoli but the world should be told and, to a man, we would all be rushing to turn down our thermostat temperature,
The meal was drawing to a close but there was yet the main main to go - an absolutely delicious grilled pink pepper lamb cutlet served with a yuzu and mint dressing and a somewhat unremarkable carrot. The cutlet would have worked quite well by itself, so enjoyable was it, but the modestly flavoured mint dressing was both apt and pleasing.
The dessert was the restaurant’s version of Baked Alaska - Baked Mount Fuji - briskly flavoured matcha ice cream encased in a coat of pleasantly peaked Italian meringue with Japanese whisky poured over it and flamed to add a sense of enjoyable drama to it all. The ice cream’s flavour balanced the sweetness of the meringue and the result was a dessert of much pleasure though to be honest, I still not fully convinced that when a dessert involves ice cream, it should not be a moderately sweet ice cream.
The restaurant is pleasingly decorated though I’m not sure that the blackness of it, whilst suited to the experimental character of Brad Carter’s restaurant, should not have been replaced to bring more light to what is a naturally dark interior and the service is very good. Some of the dishes are lacking in finesse but this is a dining experience bringing with it a lot of pleasure. Perhaps it would be better to stop using the ‘Fine dining’ label and go for a good honest “Upmarket Japanese-style food” (though plainly some of the dishes, possibly the best ones, are basically European with some Japanese elements). Presently Michelin rates Sartori at the same level as ADC and Folium - this is plainly unreasonable - we can only hope that the grading of the two Jewellery Quarter restaurants is raised in the upcoming Michelin awards.
Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛🌛
25 January 2025.
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