547. The Oyster Club, Where Now I’ve Lost My Sole.

  Having enjoyed my final chateaubriand roast Sunday lunch just a few days before (see Blog 546) at The Oyster Club by Adam Stokes, to give this fine Michelin-listed restaurant its full name, I was determined to enjoy one final seafood meal - the usually splendid Dover sole served for a very reasonable £40 - as the respected restaurant was due to close for good on Saturday 11 June. 

  The outgoing prime minister and his chancellor had achieved nothing good in the two years they were allowed to oversee the nation’s finances but they had done much harm with their policies and that included wilfully destroying the hospitality industry and reigning over the closure of many fine restaurants. Starmer might easily be viewed as Britain’s worse prime minister of recent times and such a view of him would be quite correct. He will be a footnote in English history but a looming black shadow in the social history of dining out.

  Get though behind me, Starmer. Let me return to the joy of sitting in The  Oyster Club.

  And so, for a final time, I descended the stairs to the dining area - as always, stylish and comfortable and soon to have no more customers. But let’s live in the moment and have a Cotswold gin and tonic and tempura king prawns with gochujang. This ‘snack’ which was as bountiful as any ‘starter’ was excellent - the batter excellent though to be honest there was, perhaps, a little too much salt used somewhere in the dish.. The prawns were firm and tasty.

    My much anticipated sole arrived - cooked magnificently - the texture moist but firm - and served in a ‘warm tartare sauce’, clad in samphire and sharp with pickled capers in a silky brown butter with sweet little brown shrimps. This was an excellent dish, alive with the pleasure of fine fish cookery. The opportunity to order it again will be greatly missed. I washed it down, by the way, with a nice glass of white wine Rioja - from Bodegas Muga - and it paired very nicely with the sole.

  For the dessert, not for the first time, vanilla panna cotta, nicely set though not absolutely perfectly wobbly, and a mocktail which though I ordered ‘Bakewell tart’ was rather more like ‘Black Forest gateau’

    I will miss The Oyster Club. Birmingham bad,y needs a fish restaurant of quality. You can say of course that we do have Albatross Death Cult but for many it is too esoteric, too clever, too experimental, too challenging. We need a fine restaurant where fish is cooked as close to perfect as we might hope it to be - baked, fried, roasted, steamed, en papillote and where lobster is as good as that served on Mount Olympus and where crab is exploding with flavour and where nouvelle cuisine never happened and sous vide cooking went undiscovered. Fish, simply cooked, enhanced by the most apt accompaniments. The Oyster Club was a good part of the way there and so I say, Adieu! 

  One final glance back -

10 July 2026

Rating:- 🌞

493. Summer - Colmore Food Festival 2025.

 

   Summer Heat. The Colmore Food Festival (Friday 4 July and Saturday 5 July) was once more up and running and baking in the bright, burning sunshine and it was all looking rather good with a large number of stalls all serving food and drink with the attending crowd was clearly ‘up for it’. I turned up on both days with my new Labrador pup (I had not realised that the day was going to get so hot so quickly but I kept her cool, don’t worry) late morning and the numbers of people in town seemed unprecedented - not only was the Food Festival taking place but there were thousands from home and abroad there to attend the farewell concert of the veteran Birmingham music, Black Sabbath.

  There was no time to lose. It would clearly be too hot to hang around for too long in the heat and so, on the first morning, I did a quick turn around the stalls and decided to sample the wonderful Fish and Chips’ from the Adam’s and Oyster Club stand. This was the best street food I could ever remember eating. There were four supremely well-cooked giant prawns in the lightest of tempura and served with a nicely minted pea purée and string chips. It was delicious. The prawns had a perfect texture and contentment settled on me.

  The dog and I did another turn around the stalls and I eventually alighted at the Isaac’s stall and opted for a whole Yorkshire pudding stuffed with braised beef and garnished with chives. This was not as delicious as I was expecting- the meat was very well cooked and approaching a pleasing unctiousness but the Yorkshire pudding was too dampened by the soft meat. Probably it wasn’t the right dish to choose on such a hot day and that may have cooled my ardour for it.

  It was clearly by then too hot to expect Lucy to tolerate any more of it so we headed back home and returned at much the same time to find the crowds even bigger and keen to sample the fare. Firstly, to the Asha’s stand where I enjoyed very much a gorgeously lamb kebab with soothing mint sauce and a lovely fresh salad of various leaves. A very fine dish.

  Afterwards to the Pasture stand. This is a well thought of steak restaurant at the end of Colmore Row. I had not yet got around to dining there but clearly I must. I chose the ‘Pastureburger’ which as burgers go was very good and that coming from someone who is not top of the list of burger lovers. This was nicely cooked, the meat succulent and well seasoned. There was a good slice of cheese and it was a burger I would happily eat again and especially when seated in a comfortable, smart, spacious restaurant as Pasture appears to be.

  It was again becoming too hot to expect the dog to hang around in the full glare of the sun raining down on Victoria Square but I did want to see a couple of food demonstrations so we walked the short distance to Chamberlain Square and Lucy seemed happy enough in this location. A mobile kitchen served as a demonstration stand and Glynn Purnell was already speaking demonstrating in his usual and easy style the preparation of pan-fried stone bass on an ajo blanco topped with buttered grapes, butter beans and rocket and then moving on to a dish of crispy aubergine in a spiced tempura batter with a honey-truffle soy dressing. Lucy and I sat on the steps to listen and found ourselves next to a mildly grumpy, very tiny chihuahua in the company of a woman who introduced us to both the dog and to herself, she being Glynn Purnell’s partner and we had a nice chat about the upcoming opening of Purnell’s new restaurant at Snow Hill as well as having the chance to sample the excellent tempura dish. I also managed to eat most of my Pastureburger though it was eventually seized by my lusting canine and she got her first taste of that particular form of beef. She too seemed to be be impressed.

  Purnell was followed by Matt Powell, the Group Director of Hotel du Vin hotels including Birmingham’s branch of the upmarket chain, and he gave an excellent demonstration of how to prepare a Mont Blanc soufflé with a Parmesan sauce and Rich Juragel.

  Back in Victoria Square, Lucy and I paused to listen to a wonderful three man trombone band, Keep Off the Grass, and I visited the Alchemist stand and self-indulgently ordered myself a second Red Zombie. By then there were hundreds of people in Victoria Square and Birminghamseemed to be having its very best day in quite a long time.

The remaining demonstrations were:-

  Finally, it’s worth mentioning that visitors to the Festival were handed a free ‘Colmore Cookbook’ which was very nicely produced and certainly on my part, received with gratitude as a splendid souvenir of a memorable event. The book included recipes from chefs at La Bellezza in Chamberlain Square (giant raviolo carbonara), Dishoom in Chamberlain Square (‘The Kejriwal’ - cheese and egg, spiced up, on toast), Hotel du VIn in Church Street (Côte de porc - pork chop, creamed cabbage and red wine jus), Orelle Colmore Row (Strawberry gazpacho and Cucumber and Granny Smith apple granita with basil), recently opened Regina’s in Newhall Street where Purnell’s Bistro and The Asquith were once located (Saltimbocca monkfish roulade) and Tiger Bites Pig in Church Street (Beef shin with chilli and black vinegar). The cover is depicted at the head of this Blog.

463. Adam’s.

 

  The year moves on. Spring approaches. The Michelin Guide has done its worst for another year. Dining out in the West Midlands survives despite the ever building pressures. Restaurants close. Optimistic, or perhaps foolhardy, restaurateurs open new venues. 

  Hot on the heels of my visit to Simpsons came my first visit of the year to Birmingham’s most delightfully formal restaurant, the always admired one Michelin-starred Adam’s. I was looking forward to the restaurant’s reassuring formality, its smartness, its sense of order and appropriateness. It’s trendy to be casual. Each to their own. I was never one for trendiness for trendiness sake.

  The diners were casual and underdressed. Everyone seems to have lost a sense of style. It’s depressing. The service as is usual with Adam’s was still trying to live up to Adam’s’ established touch of class but lacked warmth and a balance really should be struck. Dishes were slow to come out but when they did, were explained as simply yet clearly as one could hope them to be. We chose the five course lunch which was well-priced at £85. Sadly, a number of the dishes seemed overworked with more ingredients than one really would have liked and brought with them overwrought, punchy flavours which suppressed the flavour of the main element somewhat disastrously. The dishes were universally beautifully presented but the flavours gave the impression that excess was the theme of the day.

  The three amuses gueules were excellent. There was an oyster-based pleasure and a little beignet prettily decorated with little white flowers - rock samphire, I think (the waiter could not identify them for me) and filled with toothsome beef broth which literally exploded with flavour and the accompanying bread was excellent too, including a fine sourdough with a pleasing crispy crust and a delightful sweet brioche. The first course proper, too, was excellent - my lunch companion rated it as “outstanding” and it was hard to disagree. It was a lovely thick disc of Skrei cod, cooked impeccably, served with dulse (seaweed) foam, powerfully flavoured lemon grass and a semolina tuile decorated again with samphire flowers a tiny twiglets of samphire. So far so excellent.

  Then a plate of a very nicely cooked hen of the woods with cep, chestnut, pickled  enoki whicb gave a nice acidic bite to this autumnal and blazing fires sort of dish. Nasturtium leaves were there to look green I suppose to amuse the eyes gazing on this plate of brown. If one must have a vegetarian dish then this was excellent but vegetarian courses always seem so lightweight and I often feel as though my life would not be emptier having not been served one.

  Everything till then had been very tasty but moderately gentle on the tastebuds. Then the storm broke. I was very much looking forward to the lemon sole and indeed it was beautifully panfried and a delight to eat. But Chef seemed on the upswing of a manic-depressive episode as he (or she) unleashed a great vortex of powerfully flavoured wild garlic on to the sole, the flavour of which blown away by the all pervading garlic. This was a great pity, the sweet delicacy of the sole should be enjoyed, in my opinion, by a companion ingredient which likes to hang back in the shadows, stepping forward to give added shine - a little citrus perhaps, or a beurre noisette, but something that knows its place and gives credit to the star sitting on the plate waiting to be adored. But if this was not bad enough, there were blobs of aggressively flavoured dill purée also trying to assault the poor noble fish and in turn to help the wild garlic render the diner’s tastebuds paralysed not just during the course, or even during the meal but effectively for the rest of the day. To add insult to injury, the anya potatoes were mildly undercooked and too al dente for my taste.

  And things did not get any better with the main course of delicately flavoured, supremely well cooked Beech Ridge Farm chicken served with a savoury custard-like polenta, well cooked asparagus and another excessively punchy onslaught of wild garlic which eliminated the flavour even of truffle which was alleged to be a witness sitting on the plate to all these goings on.

  The dessert, too, fell victim to excess - it had a Yuletide character to it realised in an excessively, even unpleasantly, over spiced mince pie ice cream which did not in any way enhance the otherwise very tolerable sticky toffee pudding with dulcey.

I have had many fine meals at Adam’s but this was a day when ‘less (flavour) is more’ was certainly needed. I like exciting, punchy new flavours but not those which overwhelm everything with which they are served. A pity but hopefully just an abberation.

  While Adam Stokes remains Executive Chef, the restaurant now has a duumvirate of Head Chefs - Adam Wilson and Simil Gurung. I hope that they can continue with the fine cooking while reining back a little on the power of some of their ingredients and perhaps take a look at getting the food out of the kitchen just  a little quicker.

Adam Wilson (left of picture) with Adam Stokes

Simil Gurung (left of picture) and Adam Wilson

Rating:- 🌞

21 February 2025.

422. Lunch At Adam’s.

  The year has passed so quickly and I realised that I had not visited Adam’s. I seemed to have spent most of my dining out time this year sitting at a table (or a counter) somewhere in the Jewellery Quarter. Since I last visit it, Adam’s had acquired a duo of Head Chefs - Adam Wilson and Simil Gurung with Adam Stokes remaining the Executive Chef. So, Adam’s it was.

  I arrived purposely early so I could relax (all by myself) in the comfortable and characterful bar area imbibing a Monkey 47 and tonic. The bar area has the modern chicness and smartness of the rest of the restaurant but is relatively small, bright and relaxing. Somehow it’s seems just right and I have resolved that when dining at Adam’s, for full satisfaction and the opportunity to dissolve the cares of the outside world and prepare one for the fine food to come, it is virtually de rigeur to start off in the calmness of the bar.

   Then one is led into the familiar spacious, elegant dining room, the smartly dressed front of house staff, attending to one’s needs and intentions with politeness mixed with an optimal amount of informal small talk. Adam’s gets the balance right. It’s impossible not to know that one is dining in the right place. There’s a good range of menus - a three course lunch alongside either five or seven course tasting menus. 

  Canopés arrive - a mischievous sphere containing ‘beef casserole’ which is thunderously delicious and deeply flavoured even though I didn’t get to taste all of it as it exploded as I put it in my mouth and my pullover took the full force. A salmon canopé was also enjoyable and there followed a bowl of BBQ sweetcorn miso custard with sweet corn and camomile. This was a very appealing dish. The excellent bread - slices of crusty white and brown sourdough and ginger and bovril flavoured brioche where the ginger was discernible just to the right degree - was served with two pleasing types of butter and is obtained by Adam’s from nearby Medicine Bakery towards the top of New Street (this has a large cafe and dining room an£ is very trendy with in-the-know middle class Birmingham denizens).

  And so to the first course - Orkney scallop which was pleasingly flavoured but I would have liked a firmer texture to it - paired with variations of the use of peach, This worked very well and gave me much satisfaction. Next there was a piece of rabbit ballotine which was tender and tasty and pleasingly moist and it was accompanied by a langoustine which I thought needed a little more bite to it and delicious champagne and wasabi espuma with the wasabi scoring inoffensive and enjoyable little hits of heat from time to time on my throat. Among all this too was pak choi, which I usually find to have the lowest esteem and least charisma of all the inhabitants  of the vegetable cupboard, a sort of culinary Keir Starmer, but here it was really very good. Adam’s has clearly found the way to get me to eat all my pak choi - something I have never managed to do before.

  The third course brought lovely pan fried duck liver to the table - rich and creamy - with a ‘spice sauce’ and figs in their various forms as well as toasted hazelnuts for flavour and texture though  thought their contribution was not as great as one would have hoped. This was luxurious and for a moment I felt I was a late Victorian diner, dear old Nathaniel Newnham-Davis for example, bathing in rich and extravagant dishes as one should when one gets the chance. Such pleasure.

   Halibut, finely cooked and presented, was served with an orange and saffron sauce and a delightful helping of white crab meat, tasty crab sauce and courgette which lent some texture to the dish but was entirely lacking in flavour. Fish and orange, at least to me, sounds somewhat unusual but this certainly worked well and gave great pleasure. Then the main meat course was presented in the form of aged beef from Herefordshire with an excellent rich Bordelaise sauce. The accompanying aliums were less successful particularly the charred leek which was too inconsequential in size and too charred to enable any pleasure to be derived from it. A larger amount of good, soft sweet onion would have been a better route to go and woukd have really drawn out the flavour of the tender beef.

  The end approached but before the finale there was a very successful intermediate course to be enjoyed - lovely Zerbinati melon nicely balanced with a truly refreshing lime granita and the very apt presence of young basil leaves. I asked what a Zerbinati melon was precisely, the waitress wasn’t sure but the power of the Internet informed me that the melon is the produce of Oscar Zerbinati, a third generation farmer of these fruits, located in Sermide, Mantua; the plot the produce comes from having previously been the site of an overflow reservoir from the river Po. No matter the intermediate dish did its job and lead in nicely to the full blown dessert of sweet, tasty strawberries, lovely light sponge cake which soaked up the pleasing strawberry sauce, admirable strawberry icecream, happy aerated white chocolate and Marigold leaves, which for once I could actually taste and appreciate their fleeting but noticeable contribution.

  The meal ended, two little Mignardises were presented to take home - a gooey salted caramel truffle and a passion fruit chocolate. It’s the little touches that matter. 

  I noted while eating that unlike many restaurants with their bespoke artisan ceramics, Adam’s has opted to serve its food on clean-looking, shining white ceramics. This results in Adam’s being a restaurant where the food is the talking point and not the crockery.

Rating:- 🌞🌞.  14 August 2024.