578. The Wilderness.

Eleven years have passed since Alex Claridge first opened Nomad, soon after to be called The Wilderness, in Dudley Street after a series of pop-ups. As we know, he moved his set up to a temporary spot down an alley way off Warstone Lane in the Jewellery Quarter in 2018 and has been there ever since.

The address itself has a firm spot in Birmingham dining out history having previously been home to Nick Astley’s Two Cats, Veda Sampson’s Big Nanny’s Caribbean Restaurant, the Nepalese restaurant Choolo, Didier Philpott’s Toque D’Or, Paul Gilmore’s Gilmore (1997 - 2003) and the Vale family’s Silverside restaurant (which was run by Nigel Bishop the son of Michelle Vale who founded the notable La Copper Kettle and Michelle’s in Harborne in 1970 and 1978 respectively).

And so, Alex had managed to open his restaurant in a place of note and he rose to it by transforming the old factory with stained glass windows into a dark brooding, noisy, gothic hallucination of a place where he cooked rather good food, worked to ensure his business survived the pandemic and then everything else this decade has thrown at him and eventually, at the eleventh hour when he was about to sell up and move to Leeds to open an unintimidating small bistro (or so he says) where he could eke out his days quietly away from the current horrors of the hospitality industry and without the thrill that is The Wilderness, he was awarded a Michelin Star.

More than that, on the very day I had my reservation to revisit The Wilderness, the BBC featured Alex as the guest chef judge in the 2026 series of Masterchef The Professionals. Here he was a respected - indeed Marcus Waring almost looked in awe of him - Michelin chef setting a difficult task for the aspiring cooks to perform and then judging them - not unkindy but firmly. This was a long way from his own unsuccessful appearance in The Great British Menu where he was sent home by Paul Ainsworth at the end of the first day of competition having somewhat bemused the comedienne host with ingredients such as grasshoppers and mealworms.

Claridge will have an 11th birthday dinner party at The Wilderness for twelve diners all sitting together at a large table later this month but unfortunately I have a ticket for a Bellowhead concert at Symphony Hall (booked a year ago to make sure of a very good seat) and will be unable to attend. Excellent events are like buses, you wait for ages and then two come along together. A shame but we must live with our disappointments.

And so to my latest visit to The Wilderness. There was a choice of two Tasting Menus - one with six courses at £145 and the other with two additional courses at a robust £175. I felt that paying an extra £30 for a tuna sashimi and another fish dish, both I’m sure, excellent was somewhat strong and so I opted to dine from the cheaper menu. This proved to be an excellent move as I was more than satiated by the end of the meal and retrospectively two more dishes would have been too much for me.

There was an excellent start with some delicious and clever amuses gueules. Oyster served with rivetingly sweet nashi pear and the texture and pleasingly infiltrating flavours of walnuts and celery was very good. So too was the umami orgy of celeriac, compressed apple, and chicken skin blanketed with katsuobushi and the fabulous third amuse bouche of crab with a Brunoise of sweet, sweet apple and kohlrabi and a remarkable sorrel and jalapeno sorbet. What a start!

Next came a delicious course of very nicely textured Chalkstream trout in a gorgeous, silky langoustine bisque with cubes of peppery daikon combined with popping balls of trout roe and the tongue tingling heat of XO on top - another great dish of immense flavour and pleasing textures.

More admirable fish followed on in the form of perfectly cooked John Dory. Ah! Gorgeous. The accompanying mussels were equally perfectly textured and sweet and brought with them to this epicurean party a splendidly toothsome mussel and fennel sauce with a kick of chilli, striking in its viridity patterned with individual raw samphire leaves and bejewelled with tiny fennel flowers and made particularly delightful by dabs of sweet orange gel and bursts of the aniseed flavour of fennel. As I write this, I lust to eat the dish again.

Though not a pigeon lover, the next course of Anjou pigeon was again cooked perfectly. The milder pigeon meat was as enjoyable as a pigeon unenthusiast could ever hope to find it. The grilled hispi cabbage was very successful and flavoursome and while the walnut and fig added very pleasing texture the sweet fig chutney brought a darling sweetness to balance the pigeon.

And as for the predessert - well, what can one say? There was the potent hit of the taste of plum in the sorbet, the colour of which was as vibrant as the flavour was. The nest of cream cheese snow underlined that the dish was Chef’s play on a cheesecake, as it was described to me. There was pistachio, the flavour of which was discernible and then there was nori which almost brutally moved this plate of pleasure from being a happy dessert to an innovative and striking intermediate. Such fun!

How lovely it is to dine in a restaurant in this present day and age where the pastry chef presents the diner with, er …. pastry. The dessert was just that - a slice of fine tart made of delicious crispy pastry and dulce chocolate and brooding bay leaf with a full-bodied blood orange sorbet - well, it’s coming up to Christmas and chocolate orange is probably just what we want. Again, an excellent dish. Mesmerising.

And then, with a parting coffee and petit four, time to pay the bill, enuberise, head home and reflect that it was all made possible by the timing of the Michelin star award or else Alex might now be running some little bistro in Leeds, I would never have eaten this triumphant meal and someone else - who, I wonder, might be serving food at historic number 27 Warstone Lane.