Sunday, 27 July 2025

501. Opheem Summer Menu.

 



  In between my making a reservation to dine at Aktar Islam’s two Michelin star Opheem, located at the edge of the Jewellery Quarter at the top end of Fleet Street on the parade, the restaurant had appointed and then lost, a new Head Chef - Tony Parkin had left to go to work as Development Chef at the Open Restaurant Group owned by Sam and Emma Morgan and Andrew Sheridan, once of Eight and Craft Dining Rooms at the International Convention Centre and presently owners of Black and Green in Barnt Green and the Bracebridge at Sutton Coldfield. 

  This seemed a pity as I should have liked to have dined there with him in charge of the kitchen on one occasion at least but whoever was in charge at Opheem the evening my dining companion and I ate there. It was running like the most well oiled machine in Britain. The chefs coukd be seen working away in the open kitchen, smartly dressed, collaboratively, industriously, professionally, calmly, effectively. The front of house staff were also perfectly on point in the balance between professional politeness and accurately judged, unobtrusive friendliness. This is a superb restaurant. There is no reason why it should not be judged to be of international standard and eventually raised to the highest level of Michelin’s firmament.The excellence of the dishes served underlines this. The recently introduced summer menu with many new dishes on it proved to be more evidence of Opheem’s ever increasing brilliance. 

  The meal started off as ever in the comfortable and spacious reception lounge - the opening canapés were all familiar and ranged from delicious to extremely delicious and working, as they were intended to do, to tickle up the taste buds for what was to come after we had moved to the main restaurant. To start there was the mock oyster served in an oyster shell and made up of oyster emulsion, chilli broth and coriander oil and then a delicate mango tuile with mango and burnt lettuce gels. The memorable third amuse gueule was a glorious apple macaron with a fine beef tartare enlivened by date and onion and sitting under piped duck liver pâté and nasturtium leaves and flakes of gold leaf.




  It was not yet time to move to the restaurant proper as more canapés were on their way - delightful sea bass with ginger, radish, mango sauce and puffed rice for texture and along with this came my favourite - a perfectly textured mini-crumpet under celestial curried crab. This could not be beaten and it was time to hasten  to the restaurant proper.





   First came a delightfully witty and enjoyable ‘pakora’ - Christmas tree tuiles with a mildly spicy chutney. Ah yes! Christmas in summer. Then came a bowl of sweet Isle of Wight tomatoes with a sweet and spicy South Indian rasam broth full of the happy flavour of tamarind and a Rajasthani chutney topped by a crispy black lotus-shaped tuile.





   Then followed a plump and perfectly cooked, to the most precise moment of timing, Orkney scallop, its surface temptingly scorched to a comforting brown gold and its rich flavour coming through amid apple and mooli and the complimentary texture of almond.



  Moving on, there was the signature dish of aloo tuk, which, unlike Dr Who, gets better with every regeneration and happily showcases tamarind and mango as much as it does the again perfectly cooked pink fir potatoes which are its base. If a man is tired of Opheem’s aloo tuk then he is tired of life, to paraphrase Dr Johnson. 

  Darling little palate cleansers, white chocolate and mango, came out, fresh looking and startlingly brightly coloured, like crab apples lined up on a golden spoon. Such fun. 





  The restaurant demonstrates its full grasp of fish cookery with the elegant Masor tenga, sea bream finely cooked, with summer underlined by courgette and pretty shaped pieces of summer squash to give some texture.



  Then a surprise, I think - the menu said, “Wazwan   Kashmir   Laminated paratha Hogget belly shorba”.  This was excellent. The meaty rib, full of the succulent flavour of sheep accompanied by a bowl of toothsome, spicy slow cooked hogget, gorgeous crispy, lamb fatty and exultingly greasy ‘laminated’ bread with a bowl of deeply spicy shorba, a basic soup passed on to the Indians from Persia and aimed to warm in winter and a lovely accompaniment to drink alongside the sheep and bread. 






 As if this was not enough, the final main course was a plate of pleasingly barbecued duck served with a fine bonbon of the meat from a confit duck leg (the coating was crispy and the meat inside not overcooked), kitcheree - mung beans with rice - and reduced Nihari sauce (a sauce dating back to the Mughals and name from the Arabic word ‘nahar’ meaning ‘daybreak’ which is when the dish was traditionally served having been slow-cooked overnight). This was a fine and refined dish at the conclusion of the midsection of the meal.




And so to the predessert. This was successful at delivering the necessary outcome that a predessert is intended to deliver. It was refreshing - it is always a wise decision to include a lemon sorbet at this stage of the meal - few dishes are more successful at refreshing the diner - and pairing it with lemon chutney, black pepper and the aniseed pleasure of fennel seeds, some in sugary coats, made this a very happy dish indeed.



  While the Mukhwas - the predessert - and all the other preceding dishes on the menu were given as having originated in one part of India or the other, the dessert itself, ‘After Eight’, was reported on the menu as having originated in Stratford Road, Shirley. It was made up from Vahlrona ice cream, not unduly bitter, with a lovely mint ice cream and pleasing shards of chocolate to give it some texture.



  Then the final act, back to the departure lounge for mignardises. I ate my warm and exquisite Madeleine on the premises but took home my very fine canale and three other pleasing gems including a fairly mildly flavoured pate de fruit and a white chocolate containing mango cream. Even the box the petit fours travelled home in had a style and feeling of good taste to it.








Rating:- 🌝🌝🌝🌝. My first four sun rating. Impeccable.

24 July 2025.

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