490. Cuubo.

 

My visit for lunch in February was generally enthusiastic and I awarded it one 🌞 which is equal to a mention in the Michelin Guide which is something that happened subsequently. It’s a lovely bright place and everything that goes on there speaks the words, “Fine Dining”. Indeed Cuubo is very much a representation of fine dining eating for the first fifth of the 21st century. The dishes come out clean and elegantly poised and of course it’s all served as a tasting menu and it all looks lovely and is well cooked and presented.

  But is chef Dan Sweet living in the, admittedly recent, past? Is Tropea at the other end of Harborne, 

more at the cutting edge of quality dining in the city? Do we want more rusticity asthe second quarter of this century approaches. Perhaps we want something more aggressively down to earth - a good, man-sized dish of aubergine parmigiana rather than a rectangle of sea bream with pretty sauces and emulsions ad creams. Or perhaps we don’t. What we do want if we are sticking with fine dining and paying high prices for the artistry rather than the ingredients is precision of cooking. My dining companion and I both felt that a couple of dishes presented to us on this lunchtime visit to Cuubo were, while being good, not quite as precisely cooked as we might have wished.

  The slick front of house manager served us first with some pleasing sourdough and truffled butter and then there was a satisfying dish of reasonably tasty tomatoes with a cold tasty tomato tea which all seemed very apt for a hot summer lunchtime.

  Next there was a very pleasing pea gazpacho. This had a hint of mint and was as refreshing as I hoped it would be. A well judged dish.

   Next, chunks of crispy pork belly which were indeed beautifully crispy, very moreish, but the meat itself was a little dry and mildly cloying and, we suspected, a little overcooked. It was a tasty dish however served as it was with a bacon cream, the mild heat of chilli and chicory salad which worked well with the main element. The next dish was also very colourful but here the panfried sea bream was definitely a little over though the skin was nice and crispy. The dish included sweet dattarini tomatoes, sea herbs and nduja cream and would have been excellent save for the cooking of the fish. 

  The final savoury course was made up of three small slices of beautifully cooked chicken breast. The meat was moist and delicious and enhanced by guanciale (cured pork jowl) cream and at the risk of turning this main course into a sort of Sunday roast, nicely and simply cooked Jersey Royals and green beans were sevednalongside and much appreciated they were. I’ve noticed that guanciale is one of Dan Sweet’s more favourite ingredients and the flavour came through very nicely to add to the pleasure of the dish.

 

  The single dessert was not particularly awesome being as it was, a deconstructed Eton Mess (well, I suppose you can’t really deconstruct an Eton Mess but if you could then this is what would look like) but it was an apt dish for a hot day and the accompanying raspberry sorbet was toothsome enough.

  We came away agreeing that it had been a “nice meal but not a great one”.

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛🌛.

26 June 2025.