Jonny Mills, who had been Director at the Tame Hare in Leamington Spa from March 2016 until the restaurant closed following the COVID-19 pandemic and before that had been Head Chef at the Ebrington Arms from February 2014 to March 2016, Head Chef at Andrea’s Antona’s The Church in Kenilworth and had also worked at Mallory Court near Leamington and the Arden Hotel in Stratford upon Avon, has been making a name for himself over the past one or two years with his pop-up brand, Sael.
These pop ups have sometimes been solo efforts and at other times have taken the form of collaborations with other notable chefs in Birmingham. They are usually very well received and have a keen and enthusiastic band of diners who will go out of their way to attend his appearances in various locations in the city. Given his pedigree this is hardly surprising. Mills has been holding a monthly pop up at Chancer’s Cafe in Stirchley for some time and all this has been a preparation for opening his own restaurant in The Goods Yard, next to the Jewellery Quarter railway station, in the autumn of this year.
I have been unable to attend even a single Sael pop-up thus far but this week the opportunity arose to finally get to find out what Jonny Mills’ cooking is really like when I was able to go to Chancer’s Cafe for dinner.
This was to be a surprise meal with no written menu available to diners prior to being served but it was intended to make the most of seasonal ingredients and, given the startling heat over the previous few days, to try to use some cold dishes to keep the diners cool.
The first course, the amusement gueule I suppose, was a tasty blue cheese gougère which was quite pleasant.
They there was a deeply flavoured broth with a brunoise of seasonal vegetables which gave a pleasing texture. I was disappointed only because, having been promised cold dishes, this was a warm, comfortable soup apt for a dark chilly autumn evening rather than a burning hot midsummer nd of dy. is there no-one out there ready to serve me a zingy, chillingly cold gazpacho to calm me?
There followed a very pleasant savoury scone, light and fresh, made with wholemeal flour and delicious Grove Wood Farm butter. This was excellent.
Following on there was an excellent beef tartare with nicely sized pieces of beef, tender and tasty bound by egg yolk and with onion and walnut. This was a very enjoyable beef tartare.
Next came a dish of summer green vegetables - peas, beans and nasturtium. It would be hard for a dish to be more seasonal.
Sliced green and yellow courgette looked very attractive atop some very pleasingly textured monkfish with the summer addition of gooseberry.
The main was a plate of perfectly cooked retired dairy cow beef served with a variety of brassicas and kohlrabi including little slices of sweet pickled kohlrabi and the same vegetable barbecued. The brassicas did very little for me and I really don’t like to be served stems which are uncuttable and bad for my digestion, all in the cause of ‘wasting nothing’. Some things, I fear, need to be wasted. Nevertheless the beef was as well cooked as one could hope for and enhanced by a fine sauce which used gooseberry to once more remind the diner of summer.
There were two desserts, the first Chef’s take on gooseberry cheesecake and the second another nod to ‘the season of ‘courgettes and strawberries’ and a play on strawberries and cream - a delightful bowl of strawberry jelly, lusciously sweet macerated strawberries topped by a delicious meadowsweet cream which did£ overwhelm the flavour of strawberry, all served with cleverly spicy strawberry ice cream which recalled the great companionship of strawberries with the heat of black pepper. Excellent.
Jonny Mills is a highly experienced chef who has worked in several important West Midlands restaurants as well as the late and greatly lamented Tame Hare. I look forward to enjoying his highly mature, skilled and inventive dishes he will undoubtedly present when he opens Sāēl later this year.
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