529. Folium New Menu In 2026. Then It Snowed.

 

  Ben Tesh’s Folium remains my favourite restaurant in Birmingham. Somehow it seems like a refuge. A refuge from the madding crowd. A refuge where I feel like I am among friends and where the food served is not bettered anywhere else in Birmingham. A restaurant which is included in the Michelin Guide but which has so far been denied a macaron - a star - which says more about the Michelin inspectors than it does about Folium. Ben Tesh’s cooking is meticulous and inventive and totally consistent and Lucy Hanson’s front of house management is deceptively relaxed but as spot on as the number of knives, forks and spoons nestled in the wooden utensil holder.

  A good friend who had recently moved from the fleshpots of Birmingham (well, Four Oaks actually) to the elysium of Saffron Walden, already nostalgically panting for a good curry and a fine dining meal, had returned for a two day stay at The Grand Hotel where myself and the dog were also taking up residence for a couple of nights. His, and therefore my, timing was not good. As the day of our reunion drew near, growing threats of one of those tiresomely named storms, and then the increasingly menacing neologism of a ‘snow bomb’, featured more and more in the weather reports for Birmingham. And the snow bomb landed as we enjoyed our very fine dinner at Folium.

  New year, new Folium. Ben Tesh had changed his menu to make it somewhat more affordable - to some extent - and introduced new, interesting, even exciting, new dishes while retaining a few old friends which never fail to give the greatest pleasure.

  There was a new amuse gueule - a supremely crispy and delicious Pink Fir potato rosti with three delightful tiny blobs of smoked cod roe sitting on it. Also new was a tartlet of spot on Marie Rose acting as a little home to lobster and of course, to my great relief, retained and still there, the signature chicken liver parfait served in a burnt onion pastry which must be what is served to those chosen few who have just arrived in Heaven, having bypassed Purgatory, their earthbound gastronomic life at an end.

  And so to the starters on this new menu. Tesh’s uniquely admirable homemade sourdough with his cultured butter was served first. Again this would be what is served in Paradise on one’s arrival there. Give us this day our daily Ben Tesh sourdough bread, O Lord. Then a bowl of toothsome noodles made from biodynamic grain in a gorgeous broth prepared using aged beef fat and mushroom with nice firm textures provided by Merit mushrooms (Merit is a brand of mushroom suppliers not a species of fungus) and puffed grains with added flavour from mildly pickled shitake followed by possibly my least favourite dish (on the grounds that I do not like poached egg rather than because of any failure on chef’s part), slow cooked hen’s egg in sauerkraut beurre blanc with textures provided by pickled kohlrabi, chicken skin and a range of dehydrated winter brassicas which were rather good and made a case that in the hands of a talented chef, brassicas can indeed be something rather special.

  Next came exquisitely and excruciatingly accurately prepared smoked trout with an alluring brown crab butter and then to a dish of fine salt marsh lamb, rich with a full flavour of lamb which for a while seemed to be lost to us but which has now come bursting back in great restaurant such as Folium. This was served with a delightful lamb sauce and well cooked grilled chicory which brought with it contrasts of sweetness and bitterness to work successfully with the rich lamb. A lovely dish.

  And then, already, we had arrived at the predessert and the dessert. I rather fancied the cheese selection but my friend did not and in retrospect perhaps that was just as well as the snow started to come down in earnest and smother the city and paralysed transport and if we had dined any longer a half hour’s walk on treacherously slippery pavements would have been necessary, all Uber drivers having wisely headed for home.

  The pre- and definitive desserts brought much pleasure with them - precisely cooked Yorkshire rhubarb with preserved  cherry blossom and slow cooked cox apple with a toasted hay cream (I first encountered dishes using toasted hay at Winteringham Fields in north-east Lincolnshire where Ben Tesh once worked and he usually manages to incorporate the flavour in a dish whenever a new menu comes along) and wafers - a hit a palpable hit!

  As the snow fell, we enjoyed our mignardises, a salted caramel and seed crisp and a cep tart.We thanked Lucy for her as always wonderful service, thanked Chef for his food, thanked God that we had managed to bag ourselves a Uber and with some and sliding, made it back to the Grand Hotel in one piece.

Rating:- 🌞🌞🌞.

8 January 2026