Every time I visit Harborne, it seems to rain - quite heavily. But now, for once, the sky was clear, the sun was bright and the weather dry albeit it had a mild nip in the air. The High Street was busy as I wandered the length of it from the location of the excellent Tropea just around the corner on Lordswood Road, past the shops peppered as they were with rather more food establishments than one might expect or consider to be viable and down, past Michelin-listed Harborne Kitchen, past the post office (well, WH Smith really) and the location of the former Michelin starred Turner’s, where fine fare was served and Richard Turner would come out from the kitchen to glare at his customers and where Ben Tesh worked for a while as he advanced his career towards opening Folium, now a restaurant called Barsana, apparently a vegetarian restaurant with, I deduce from the name, a south Asian element to it,. Not much further on I arrived at my destination- Cuubo which I had visited previously in May 2024 (see Blog 403).
I have mused before on the nature of the inner to middle city suburbs which are homes to some of Birmingham’s finer restaurants. They all tend to have, somehow or the other, added the word ‘Village’ to their name - Edgbaston Village, Moseley Village, Stirchley Village and, in this case, Harborne Village.
Anyone visiting any of these places who does not know them and who is expecting a village green whereon the gentle sound of leather on willow can be heard on Sunday summer afternoons and with a pond where dabbling ducks dream away lazy days or where friendly yokels misdirect American tourists asking the way to the local church, will be sorely disappointed. These are suburbs of an industrial city. They are not all that pretty (perhaps we might admit that Edgbaston’s fine Georgian architecture makes it the exception) and certainly not chocolate box twee as the suffix of ‘Village’ might imply. Harborne has mostly uninteresting architecture from the various eras of Birmingham’s boom and subsequent decline but it has a fair degree of wealth, populated as it is by a largely comfortably-off middle class with spending power which can keep a large number of fine and less fine restaurants afloat at these difficult times when the Starmer government has shocked restaurateurs by not only not lightening their loads but adding to them.
When I last visited Cuubo (for lunch) it was full - there was not an empty table in the house - of well off-looking elderly locals, moderately damp from the downpour going on outside the steamed up windows,. On this my latest visit there was just me. And no-one else. At least for a couple of hours, until just before I departed - a couple who had been delayed at a hospital appointment which says everything about the nation’s problems and there should also have been some ‘ladies who lunch’ who had cancelled at the last minute because one of them had had to stay at home to look after the children who could not go to school because “they had come down with something”. This also says much about the state of the country.
Regardless, my solitary presence was welcomed most professionally on arrival and I was given the choice of all the tables in the restaurant. I chose to sit by the window in the brightness of the lunchtime sun and, though I had preordered the three course à la carte lunch menu, I opted instead for the six course Tasting menu and this, perhaps not surprisingly because of the lack of pressure of work that lunchtime, did not pose a problem for the kitchen.
The meal started with a savoury beignet which was nicely textured though somewhat unremarkable as regards flavour and this was accompanied by a pleasing slice of sourdough with butter.
Then the starter of a beetroot salad in with buttermilk foam and cucumber sauce. The cucumber brought a freshness to it all and the salad was made exceptionally tasty with surprises little hits of horseradish and slivers of fennel. Winter was banished, the sun outside shone even brighter and I was already pleased that I had taken the trouble to head for Hungry Harborne, as it was once known by those more humble Brummies who were amused by the pretensions of Victorian and early 20th century Britain. I suppose Harborne has had the last word - certainly it should not be hungry now.
One of the reasons I had opted for the Tasting Menu was to ensure I could have both the Beetroot salad and the onion soup and I judged it to be a wise decision- the soup was creamy and thick - none of your French onion soup here - it was just sweet enough and instead of a large cheesy crouton, toasted sourdough crumbs were scattered over the soup which gave a clever, crispy texture to it. Not bad at all.
Then came the quite famous Portland crab risotto - this was the dish that the newspaper food critic, Jay Rayner, one of those socialists who likes to live well - had complained about in his otherwise gushing review of Cuubo soon after it opened, claiming that the main problem with it was that the flavour of crab was somewhat undetectable. I visited Cuubo about that time and had to agree that he had a point. Well, there’s no doubt that chef Dan Sweet has certainly now taken notice - the flavour of crab on this visit was very assertive, as one would wish, I enjoyed the texture of the risotto and the little fragments of cauliflower in it gave a perfect texture - little islands of crunch - and the samphire was perfectly tender and I was no longer in an unattractive Birmingham suburb but by the sea with the dog rushing up and down chasing the ball I was throwing for her. Well done, Chef!
And so, to the main event. Unctious, tender braised beef was served with a tasty beef sauce, lovely creamy potato purée, maitake which was cooked to give a slight, pleasing crispiness to its edge - a delighful texture, a mushroom purée, tenderly cooked kale leaves and nasturtium.
The dessert was perhaps the weakest course, being rather an eclectic hotchpotch of unlikely elements. It was basically a rather fine vanilla ice cream served with shards of peanut britttle which was a little too bitter for me in this context, the interesting flavour of candied celery strips which I enjoyed, little cubes of nicely textured rhubarb and, as far I could make out, the absence of rhubarb Bavarois which was in the description on the menu. At least it looked pretty.
I like Cuubo. It reminds me of Folium, one of our finest restaurants in the city. I was pleased to hear that the restaurant had plenty of future bookings and was looking forward to a bumper St Valentine’s Day in a few days’ time. I had, it seemed, chosen a quiet day to lunch there. Restaurants have such days and we used to say that about Tuesdays and then Wednesdays and now, it seems, about Thursdays. Of course, as I made my reservation at short notice I might never have been dining at Cuubo if things had been busier there that day. I was pleased for my sake that I had made my reservation and dined as I have described.
Rating:- 🌞
6 February 2025.
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