421. Back To The Jewellery Quarter (4) Albatross Death Cult.

 

  It would be wrong to say that Alex Claridge’s Albatross Death Cult has not had an impressive effect on me. It is really very, very good (litotes). Head Chef Marius Gedminas was there at the pass (though to be fair the whole set up really works as a pass) and told me that Michelin had been in touch and that the Guide had requested that its photographer been given time to come along and take pictures of this unique-for-Birmingham restaurant. Inclusion in the Guide therefore seems likely in the near future. I believe the restaurant is extraordinarily good and may well do an Upstairs (Tom Shepherd’s gaff) and rapidly advance to a star. We will see.

  On this occasion I was accompanied by a dining companion who has quite marked mobility problems and could not cope with climbing up on to the high stool at the counter but she was kindly and very comfortably accommodated with me at the tables in the antechamber and our food was served there and enjoyed thoroughly. The restaurant goes from strength to strength. Marius informed us that there were some new dishes and others had been tweaked and, as far as I could tell, all to their good. Each dish was impeccable and quite delicious and each showed not only a brilliance in the chef in conjuring up often quite fabulous flavours but they were also remarkable textured. Some of the dishes had a little more spiciness and were none the worse for that - indeed they were improved - and there were some which may already be termed signature dishes which basked in the brilliance of their original state.

 

  After a familiar (but was it previously served in The Wilderness?) oyster based dish - a variant of a brilliant classic start to fine meals of the past - amuses gueules - tasty dainty croustades and tarts with sea bass nicely matched with jalapeño and gorgeous tuna belly partnered by hot strawberry sauce and splendidly crispy cannelloni filled with smoked pike roe and crowned with leaves. Then to close this act, glistening gorgeous Cornish mackerel sashimi and then another croustade filled to the brim with golden smoked trout’s roe. You can tell this was all going very well. And it continued to do so.

  Some old friends made their appearance - sweet crab with apple and sorrel, majestic hamachi textured like a fairy’s pillow and raised to new heights with the flavour of sesame. Then plump, meaty, tender mussels with a smattering of Iberico with a throaty hit of black pepper.

   Scarlet prawn and prawn’s head sauce were acutely deeply flavoursome (not photographed) and the final savoury took the familiar form of beautifully textured Chalk stream trout slapped about a bit with Tom Yum and emerging from it triumphantly.

  A single dessert (for once I should have liked two) - the exquisite dish of sushi rice ice cream with nori crackers. Few desserts will give such pleasure as this. A single petit four put the meal to bed and it slept the sleep of the Good.

  A return visit just a few days after the one reported above but this time for lunch saw the same menu being served and it was as equally pleasurable as the previous visit. Clearly ADC is consistent in what it serves which is what the professional Guide inspectors claim they are looking for. Obviously ADC is soon to make its appearance on the Michelin internet site but the question is whether or not it will earn Alex Claridge his first well-deserved Michelin star come the 2025 Michelin Awards ceremony.

Rating:- 🌞🌞🌞.  7 & 16 August 2024.

400. Events, Dear Boy, Events. 2024 Part 1 January To June.

 

 The four hundredth blog. 

 This seems like an excellent opportunity to highlight the most important Birmingham and West Midlands dining out events of 2024 - what has happened so far and then a rolling diary of what else occurs during 2024 providing a complete West Midlands dining out history of what occurs during the year up to 31 December. New, notable events will be added as 2024 progresses. Already, on 29 April, there is much to record….

5 January - Chef Ash Heeger and Erin Valenzuala-Heeger open the remarkable Rabbit, initially also known as Riverine Rabbit, in Stirchley.

20 January - The Bower House in Shipston on Stour announces that it has appointed Leo Kattou as its new Head Chef. Kattou had previously been Chef st Simpsons in Edgbaston and at Laghi’s at Five Ways In Birmingham.

29 January - Michelin announces its 20 new Bib Gourmand restaurants - there are no West Midlands restaurants featured in it.  In the previous year’s list of 116 Bib winners only one West Midlands restaurant was recognised with the award - the Charlton Arms in Ludlow which retained the award in 2024.

30 January - Good Food Guide announces its awards for 2024. Two West Midlands restaurants are rated Exceptional - Grace and Savour and Harborne Kitchen. Very good awards are made to The Wilderness, Purnell’s, Tropea, Opheem, Adam’s, Folium, Smoke, Yikouchi at Chancer’s Cafe, Upstairs by Tom Shepherd, Le Champignon Sauvage and The Walrus (Shrewsbury).

31 January - First episode of the Central region heats of the BBC’s Great British Menu features four chefs who do not work in a Midlands restaurant. There are two West Midlands-born chefs, Sam Ashton-Booth originally from Worcester and who works at Muse restaurant in London, and who is eliminated at the end of the first round and Birmingham-born Adam Smith, Chef Patron at Woven by Adam Smith in Ascot, who eventually goes on to be chosen to cook the fish course at the banquet.

January - Baloci, a “Silk Road” cuisine opens in Highfield Road in Edgbaston.

5 February - Aktar Islam’s Opheem is awarded TWO stars at the annual Michelin awards ceremony. Birmingham, as a result, has three ONE Michelin star restaurants - Simpsons, Purnell’s and Adam’s. At the ceremony, Salt in Stratford upon Avon loses its single Michelin star while other West Midlands restaurants - Grace and Savour (Hampton in Arden), Upstairs by Tom Shepherd (Lichfield), Le Champignon Sauvage and Lumiere (both in Cheltenham), The Cross in Kenilworth and The Royal Oak in Whatcote all retain their’s. Hence, at the start of 2024, the West Midlands has 10 Michelin-starred restaurants.

10 February - Dan Sweet opens Cuubo on Harborne High Street at the same location as his former ‘fine dining takeaway’ establishment. 

11 February - Chef Brad and partner Holly Carter open their pop-up restaurant Carter’s at 18 on the eighteenth floor of 103 Colmore Row. This is to remain open until the end of April.

27 February - Chef Andrew Sheridan, previously Chef Patron at the now closed Craft and About 8, who reopened the latter in Liverpool in 2023, participates in BBC’s Great British Menu North West regional heats but is eliminated at the end of the first day.

12 March - While retaining his Chef Director role at Smoke Stuart Deeley also takes on the role of Executive Chef at Laghi’s at Five Ways. Patrick Hukins becomes Head Chef at Laghi’s.

15 March - Adam Bateman leaves his post as Executive Chef at the Grand Hotel. On 15 April 2024 it was announced that Bateman had been appointed Executive Chef at the Pan Pacific London Hotel in Shoreditch.

2 April - It is announced that the former Pensons near Tenbury Wells will reopen on 22 May as Native at Pensons with Ivan Tisdall-Downes as Executive Chef.

6 April - Glynn Purnell announces that he has appointed a diarchy of Head Chefs at Purnell’s  - Sam Luck and Tom Blakemore, both with long records of working in the Purnell’s kitchen.

7 April - The Observer publishes a review by critic Jay Rayner of Cuubo in Harborne. He pronounces that Cuubo is, ‘as exciting a restaurant as I’ve encountered in a long time”.

15 April - The Hockley Dining Club serves as host to the West Midlands Mayoral election hustings where the present Mayor, Andy Street, takes on his Labour opponent. Two fast food stalls are serving food - both fried chicken producers.

20 April - The annual Shakespeare Birthday Lunch is held in Stratford upon Avon and celrbrities attending include Dame Vanessa Redgrave, Alexander Armstrong and Dame Floella Benjamin. Dishes served are - burrata and beetroot salad, roast chicken and Wye Valley asparagus and deconstructed Pavlova.

21 April - Chef Rob Palmer announces that his Solihull restaurant Toffs will close on 2 May and relocate to Hogarth’s Hotel in Dorridge.

25 April - Michelin includes Rabbit in the Michelin Guide.

27 April - Chef Patron Ben Taylor and his partner Zsofia Kisgergely close the much-loved Le Petit Bois in Moseley.

20 May - It is announced that Niall Keating left his role as Chef director of Stoke on Trent’s Lunar on 19 May by “mutual agreement” with Craig Wilkinson, the restaurant’s co-founder. It had previously been announced that Keating would take up a new role in a Manchester hotel in June. A few days previously, Head Chef Craig Lunn had left his post at Lunar.

Craig Lunn & Niall Keating

23 May - It is announced that Carl Riley, formerly Head Chef at the George in Alstonefield, Michelin-listed from 2011 to 2023, has been appointed to a similar role at Lunar.

May - Phil Kerry, Head Chef at Forelles in Ludlow, departs his job there following Fishmore Hotel being taken over by a West Bromwich-based hotel chain which places the emphasis very much on cost cutting. Subsequently, a previously Cayman Islands-based chef, Joshua (Nicky) Hull-Saldhana is appointed Head Chef in June 2024 but is moved to work in the hotel chain’s Droitwich hotel in late June. Two Romanian chefs are appointed to take charge of the kitchens at Forelles.

Nicky Hull-Saldhana

May - Michelin’s May list of newly recommended restaurants includes Cuubo in Harborne. 

15 June -Alex Claridge’s Albatross Death Cult opens to paying customers in Newhall Square.The restaurant serves 14 diners around its wide metallic counter, mostly sea food with a Japanese-style emphasis. 

26 June - Michelin announces its June list of newly recommended restaurants and among the eight named is 1919 at The Cottage in the Woods in Malvern Wells.

27 June - After the change of ownership of Fishmore Hall and departure of Head Chef Phil Kerry, Forelles restaurant ceases to be included in the Good Food Guide.

370. New Years Day.

 

  With New Zealand celebrating the arrival of 2024 as I write this on New Year’s Eve, I have an excuse to title this piece New Years Day rather than New Years Eve - a looking ahead rather than a looking back. Though there are indeed rather a lot of pleasures to look back on.

  Among the best were - 

The first lunch out of the year at the charming Le Petit Bois, the first dinner at The Wilderness new menu for the new year, lunch at the sublime and soothing Folium, Kray Tredwell pairing with Ben Taylor at Le Petit Bois, the first lunch of the year at Purnell’s which can still deliver the goods, Sonal’s House Party at Atelier, Salt in very fine form, lunch at Cheal’s in its new home in Knowle, lunch at the newly opened Purnell’s Plates, enjoying a fine Chateaubriand Sunday lunch at the Oyster Club, the first trip of the year to Ludlow taking in Forelles, Mortimers and the French Pantry, discovering GULP and experiencing a lifetime of regret at missing its Italian Futurists dinner but being restored by participating in its Pasqua dinner, dinner at Grace & Savour under the direction of Nikita Pathakji (Masterchef The Professionals winner), the annual Shakespeare birthday lunch in Stratford (though more for whom one can spot there rather than the indifferent food, Adam’s 10th anniversary dinner, Marius Gedminas’ superb sushi sessions at Atelier (later known as Counter), the return of Richard Turner in a collaboration at Le Petit Bois, off to Stoke for Niall Keating’s luxurious chef’s table dinners at Lunar (never eat a Mr Whippy ice cream unless it is piled high with good quality caviar, first very pleasing meal at Glynn Purnell’s new bistro in Coventry, dining at 670 Grams where Kray Tredwell proved he hasn’t lost his touch, my second visit of the year to Ludlow with no disappoitments in Mortimers or Forelles, my birthday dinner at Purnell’s, Andy low n’ slow collaboration with Kray Tredwell at 670 Grams , Return visits to Adam’s and The Wilderness, my last ever lunch at Carter’s of Moseley before his departure to Westland’s and decision not to return to Moseley, a great lunch at Harborne Kitchen, a touch of hedonism with The Wilderness crowd in the Rotunda in their pop-up wine-tasting Wines with a view, the first of the three Simpsons collaborations to mark the restaurant’s thirtieth anniversary (the first being with Stuart Deeley of Smoke), a (surely 2 Michelin star-deserving) lunch at Opheem, the first of three summer/autumn stays in Stratford giving the opportunity to dine at Salt and visit the lovely Bower House in Shipston on Stour, the Simpsons/Meat Shack burger collaboration, the delights of the Ludlow Food Festival, Chateaubriand with a view at Orelle, good pub lunches at the Black Bear in Moreton in Marsh, getting the opportunity to  observe Richard Turner at the pass at Opheem, the remarkable collaborative dinner at Simpsons with Tom Shepherd of Upstairs, GULP’s ‘Dogs’ Dinner’, dinner at the Council House in the company of Basil and Sybil Faulty and Manuel, enjoyable collaborations at Simpsons and The Wilderness with wine makers and whisky distillers, dinner at the interesting concept of Six by Nico, possibly the biggest gastronomic event of the year in Birmingham - the opening of Alex Claridge’s A_D_C (I dined there twice in ten days), The Wilderness Christmas Party (with all the trimmings) and then to Ludlow for Christmas where two fine dinners were served in Forelles and Christmas lunch was extravagant and pleasurable.

Well, that wasn’t too bad was it?

But looking forward, as I originally intended to do,  I have spent New Year’s Eve busily tapping away on the keyboard of my I-Pad making reservations. If any restaurant in the city is heading for two Michelin stars in this city, then Opheem is the one I most expect to do so. Hence I have made reservations for January and 9 February (four days after the Michelin Awards ceremony) - if the staff of this remarkable restaurant are in a celebratory mood I want to be there to see it.

  I have a reservation too for Carter’s at 18 as it reopens in its new location though rather worryingly the date is the same as that on which the Michelin reveal ceremony takes place and so one wonders if the Carters will be opening that evening.

  I have also made a reservation to dine at Le Petit Bois in February where Andy Low n’ Slow will be carrying out a pop-up while the Taylors are away. 

  Regrets - I have a few - I still have not managed to eat any food prepared by Dan Lee and I never got to eat at Carter’s at Westlands (getting there by public transport was just too time-consuming and tiresome). I also regret never having visited Penson’s near Tenbury Wells and now it’s closed I never shall. Nevertheless, 2023 was a year to look back on with pleasure and 2024 is a year full of fresh promise for dining out in Birmingham and the West Midlands.