I have great sympathy with the loonie Head Chef, Julian Slowik (played by the supremely creepy Ralph Fiennes) in the masterpiece of cinema, The Menu (2022) when he says to his soon-to-be-slaughtered diners, “But I have to beg of you one thing. It’s just one. Do not eat. Taste. Savour. Relish. Consider every morsel that you place inside your mouth. Be mindful. But do not eat. Our menu is too precious for that.”.
I find myself not deriving much pleasure in eating. Julian is quite right - the pleasure of dining out emerges from the the tasting, the savouring and the relishing. And also there’s enormous pleasure in just looking at a finely presented dish. But eating - the process which also includes the loading up of the stomach and the alimentary tract downstream of the gastric bag - can be unpleasant especially if the volume of that bag is stretched to its limits by excessive food being loaded into it or, perhaps, the stimulation of the acid of the stomach in aggressive quantities. Eating therefore may also lead to bloating and acidity and there’s not much pleasure in that.
Thinking about it all, one thing that today’s chefs seem to pay too little attention to is aroma. They stimulate the eyes and the taste buds (and as an unfortunate side effect, the stomach’s acid-secreting cells) but it’s unusual to be in a restaurant and be pleasantly assailed by an enticing smell of gorgeously roasted meat or tantalisingly caramelised onions or freshly baked bread. Perhaps aromas belong only in a south Asian restaurant with its emphasis on aromatic spices - and they are more rare there than they should be - or an old fashioned and rustic setting such as an old pub. Yes, stimulation of the olfactory sense in an alluring way is a much neglected feature of how chefs present their food.
Whether or not my first cranial nerve is being stimulated, and it’s nice when it is, I do like to be comfortably seated when I dine. The present obsession with fast food whereby one buys a good quality food item made with love but then is forced to eat it (though of course we should not ‘eat’ as Julian points out and as Margot points out to him when he uses the term) sitting on some uncomfortable wooden and aluminium chair or bench or perched nervously on a backless stool at a dizzying height enough to initiate an acute episode of high anxiety (how many film titles can I fit in this piece?} is all very regrettable and greatly reduces, for me at least, the pleasure of consuming that food (perhaps Julian would like diners ‘to consume’ rather than eat - I may use the verb more often).
Well there’s none of all that when one dines or lunches at The Wildmoor Oak Inn in Wildmoor near Bromsgrove. It’s such a comfortable, warm place to eat, er, consume. I have written about my previous visits there and I recently returned for more instant pleasure. A pleasing welcome, a comfortable chair (though the tables (necessarily I suppose) are a little too close together) and the gastropub’s autumn menu. What else could an old bloke want?
I chose a fabulous starter from the ‘specials’ menu, three truly jumbo, superbly devilled red Argentinian prawns, splendidly tender and drenched with flavour, the degree of devilling was as perfect as one might wish - yes, and the aroma of prawn, first cranial nerve satisfied - with little brown shrimps - mini textural masterpieces - served on toast. This was a robustly enjoyable dish and I did indeed taste, savour, relish and consider every morsel that went into my mouth - Julian Slowik. would have been pleased though at the end of all that I did actually eat it all and gained great pleasure from doing so, so perhaps Julian might not have been so happy after all. But I was happy and that was all that mattered.
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| specials menu |
From the main autumn menu I chose Blythburgh pork chop with bubble and squeak and braised red cabbage as my main course. The pork was pleasingly tender and generously portioned though it may have benefitted from a little more seasoning. The bubble and squeak was not successful in that the outer coating was charred - I assumed this had been Chef’s intention - and not all that pleasant but the interior pieces of potato and cabbage, unmolested by the charring, relived grand old working class English food in a dish. The accompanying sauce was pleasant but I longed for some apple which is such a perfect marriage partner for pork. The red cabbage was excellent with just the right texture and not oversweet.
I was rather disappointed by the dessert which again was one of the specials. I was lured into choosing it by the mention of the Worcestershire apples used in it (it would have been nice to see them making an appearance with my pork chop) but it was a sort of poor man’s tarte tatin - delicious nicely cooked pommes, heightened by caramelisation, sitting on a few sheets of filo. This seemed like a lazy way to present fine local produce - the filo was nice and crispy but in the presence of the apples, lightweight and lacking in ambition. These apples deserved to be served in fine pastry as the principle element of a great apple pie.
Nevertheless, putting my apple moans to one side, I derived great pleasure from my lunch in the cosy comfort of the Wildmoor Oak Inn and already feel the need to return there to again enjoy myself.
Rating:- 🌞
18 October 2025.
Jumbo prawns also gave me considerable pleasure as a starter when I had lunch at The Oyster Club by Adam Stokes a few days earlier. Again I was comfortably seated and warmly welcomed and feeling thoroughly happy even before my prawns with accompanying aioli had been delivered to my downstairs table. The prawns were very nicely textured and tasty and, yes, had discernible prawn aroma to them, so again cranial nerve one was satisfied.
For my main I chose, as I often do, Dover sole with a little shoal of perfectly textured brown prawns and samphire scattered over it like magical marine fairy dust. This dish is one of Birmingham’s most noble main courses and the consuming of it represents a few minutes well spent.
The dessert was rather disappointing, sadly. This is the case with desserts all over the country. Pastry chefs are so vital and so thin on the ground. My message to restaurateurs woukd be to invest in one and make a big thing about it. An accomplished one will raise your restaurant to new heights. This dessert was edible enough - a tasty, icy strawberry parfait with undoubtedly unseasonal strawberries between wafers. Well, who goes to a fish restaurant for the dessert?
Rating:- 🌞
9 October 2025.
Why, you may ask yourself, did Julian Slowik feature so heavily in this edition? Simply because Channel 4 is presently streaming the movie and I saw it again for the first time since I viewed it when it had its first cinema release. Like a fine meal as with this ultimate gourmand’s film, you remember the pleasure of it but not necessarily all the details and it was delightful to relive all those forgotten memories again.
My other favourite foodie film is of course Ratatouille, probably the greatest dining out movie of all. In it once more there is a sinister figure, this time not a chef but a diner, Anton Ego the restaurant critic, After years of dining on the sophisticated cuisine of fine dining Paris he eventually finds gastronomic peace in the comforting food of his childhood, a plate of perfectly cooked ratatouille. Isn’t that the way we’d all like to exit the stage? Though in my case substituting the ratatouille with a perfectly cooked plate of battered cod and chips. Yes please. Thank you very much.
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| Anton Ego, gastronomic paradise in a plate of ratatouille |
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