462. Sunday Lunch At Simpsons.

 

  After a thrilling and delicious Sunday lunch the previous week at Stirchley’s Eat Vietnam’s collaboration with Dan Lee, I felt I was ready to be a little more sedate and classic at Simpsons which of course has recently been put up for sale by its owner and founder, the doyen of Birmingham and West Midlands dining, Andreas Antona. I had opted for the three course Sunday lunch - I had sirloin pave with Yorkshire pudding on my mind as the alluring beef Wellington was only available for couples to share, misere me.

  Simpsons does very good canapés and those served on this visit were delicious and I ate them alongside a white port and tonic. To be honest, the realisation came to me that I was gobbling them with all the pleasure a little gluttony brings with it. Well, I was sitting in a discrete corner being served, to my great pleasure, by Thomas Moore (not, as far as I know, related to his namesake who so displeased Henry VIII and thereby earned himself a sainthood though it took a few centuries for him to achieve that earthly reward). 

  Thomas had worked at an early stage in his career at the late Purnell’s and had been the chief server at one of my birthday dinners which I liked to hold there every year for close friends to have the opportunity to urge me to run life’s course for another twelve months. Thomas had been very impressive, virtually an infant prodigy in his knowledge and carrying out of his work front-of-house, and had been promoted at Purnell’s and worked there till the restaurant gasped its last breath. By then he was accomplished in the knowledge and service of wines, and as one door closed another opened. As Purnell’s was closing, so Simpsons’ esteemed sommelier, Gian Giancomo Stella, announced he was returning to Italy after seven years in his finely executed role in Edgbaston, and Thomas was appointed to succeed him and work with him as he familiarised himself with the job. 

  I was also pleased to hear about Adrien Garnier who been Restaurant Manager and Sommelier at Purnell’s - he had decided to return to France after Purnell’s closure but had kept in touch with Thomas and during the meal, Thomas texted Adrien to let him know I was dining at Simpsons and Adrien had replied with a message of good wishes. How very charming and kind.

Thomas Moore

Gian Giancomo Stella 

  

Adrien Garnier

The starter proper was a lovely lobster and prawn raviolo - nicely sized and the pasta well made - with tender salsify and robustly flavoured lobster and pepper sauce. This was an excellent dish. I was recently reading some food reviews by Jay Rayner, who eats well like so many metropolitan socialists who enjoy and can afford the good life (Raymond Postgate the founder of the Good Food Guide was also a notable socialist who made sure he ate the best of food), and who is the retiring food critic of The Observer, and a quote from his final missive for the Observer Food Monthly states, “Hyper-expensive foods are never about deliciousness; they are about status. Don’t bother with them”. 

  Well, firstly he does not define at which point ‘expensive’ food becomes ‘hyperexpensive’ food. To a 78 year old pensioner on £13000 per year income who has had their winter fuel allowance grabbed away by the recently elected Starmer Labour government which Rayner enthusiastically endorsed, I suspect that lobster and roast sirloin pavé (at a supplement price of £10 on top of £75 three course meal price) and passion fruit soufflé (further supplement of £10) are all ‘hyper-‘ rather than plain expensive. The champagne socialist may have an alternative definition. Regardless, I believe, that an expensive element which to the people increasingly neglected by the faux socialists now in power, would undoubtedly be ‘hyperexpensive’, lends something to the pleasure of a special meal which is something that one goes to restaurants like Simpsons to enjoy. The lobster was lovely and the sirloin excellent - tender, cooked to exactly my own preference, delicious and generously portioned.

  It’s a rule that one should listen to experts and then remember that they have their own axe to grind. I suppose, in fact I know, that Simpsons’ prices represent wonderfully good value compared with those of the London restaurants wherein Rayner would most often dine. His ‘hyperexpensive’ is not our ‘hyperexpensive’ and though Simpsons’ prices are not cheap, the quality and delightfulness of the dishes Luke Tipping delivers to diners there represents very good value. Long may it continue even after Andreas Antona has sold the business. 

  The slices of sirloin were served with a towering, crispy Yorkshire pudding and the tenderest, most gorgeously cooked and handsome-looking carrots I have been served in many a moon (others no doubt would have liked some bite to their’s but the undercooked carrot people have had their way for far too long and it’s good to see the kitchens of Simpsons leading the fight back). The roast potatoes again were the mostly accurately, perfectly cooked I have been served in recent memory and I enjoyed the shredded cabbage. The weakest element was the cauliflower with cheese sauce which needed more of the sauce, given that sauce was served, to give it more cheesy flavour though I wish there would be some restaurant or the other which would  serve the cauliflower denuded of any such covering so that diners could appreciate the flavour of cauliflower in all its unique naked flavour. The beef sauce was unctuous and delicious but I should have liked more heat in my horseradish sauce.

  Finally the dessert. I was not able to resist the prospect of the passion fruit soufflé though I longed almost equally to have my first rhubarb of the year which was one of the alternatives. The soufflé was impeccable and the ‘exotic sauce’ was dominated by mango and the chantilly cream innocuous though not really necessary. At the bottom of the dish, when the soufflé had all been scooped away, there was a distinct and not very pleasant bitterness from the sauce that lurked there which I think might have some alcohol element though I could not tell as I disliked it enough not to consume it. This was a pity but it did not ruin what had been a fine meal of a very high standard. I rounded off the meal with a post prandial After Eight cocktail and two delightful mignardises - a delightfully chewy macaron and a Madeleine which was the stuff that dreams are made on and I felt rather pleased with myself. Simpsons marches on. The doyen is still the doyen. 

Rating:-🌞🌞🌞.

16 February 2026.

402. Pre-theatre Dinner At Purnell’s Plates.

 

  For the third time in six days it’s off to the theatre I go. But now, back in Birmingham, this time to the Birmingham Repertory Theatre to see the theatre version of Bruce Robinson’s sublimely comic, excruciatingly enjoyable classic film set in the dying days of the 1960s. Withnail And I. Expectations are high, after all the Royal Shakespeare Company, with its usual license to bowdlerise to the Nth degree, has not been let loose on this gem, worthy of Shakespeare himself and indeed quoting as it does from Hamlet at the very end of it as Withnail is left alone, fated perhaps never to play the Dane.

 But, as I wrote above, expectations are high, anticipation is electric and  a pre-theatre dinner is needed though I have no intention of demanding, to accompany it, the finest wines known to man. It is some time since I have eaten at Purnell’s Plates in Edmund Street, a short walk from the Rep, and it seems like an ideal place to start the evening which, incidentally, is warm, dry and pleasingly seasonal for late spring day. And so to Purnell’s Plates, to be greeted by Adrien Garnier, restaurant manager at Purnell’s, sitting outside in the early evening warmth with, I expect, other staff prior to heading off for Cornwall Street prior to evening service there

  I am shown to my table by the painting of the bull which reminds me of just how many bulls there are in the city. And so to the menu.

     Switching from present to past tense, I ordered four dishes from the menu which proved to be a little more than my advancingly elderly stomach had full room for but my mouth and taste buds felt differently from my stomach and welcomed all-comers. First to arrive at the table was a plate of nicely crispy and robustly flavoured cheese and basil croquetas and I set about demolishing these little gems with pleasurable gusto washed down with a complementary glass of cava and then some Spanish beer.

   Then, along came four beautifully meaty and happily spicy beef and pork albondigas served with a keenly tasty tomato sauce and some patatas bravas which did not have so much heat to them as I would have liked though the finely shaved cheese on top of them gave them added flavour. Finally along came a lovely piece of pan-fried sea bream - its meat nicely cooked and snow-white - with saffron and garlic and a couple of rather insubstantial potatoes and two or three segments of sliced, sweet piquillo peppers. 

  I eschewed the irritating deconstructed crème Catalan which I was surprised to find had hung on to its place on the menu and instead opted for the Basque cheesecake. This was sensibly sized and a fair representation of the dish and, after it, I was ready to amble along to Centenary Square to see the play.

  It took a while to accept that the two very frantic young men on the stage were Withnail and Marwood though they spoke almost the very same lines as Richard E Grant and Paul McGann did in the movie. At times Withnail was more Bertie Wooster than Grant’s far more subtle, more deeply upper crust, viciously cynical rendition of the part and poor Marwood just was not beautiful enough. But the lads did their best and made me laugh at times though that was more to do with the crushingly hilarious script than the acting to be fair. And how could the actor playing Uncle Monty, a fraction of Richard’s Griffith’s scene-filling bulk, ever hope to fully win over a Withnail and I aficionado when a picture of the salacious, predatory film version of Uncle Monty is lodged firmly and eternally in the mind’s eye?

  But it was an entertaining evening with great efforts put into the costumes and the scenery and scene-changing remarkable. The Rep had certainly put in the necessary effort on this one and it showed.

347. Sublime Purnell’s.

 

  Purnell’s. A special evening of champagne and a four course menu for Purnell’s particular fans. Irresistible. An evening of generous quaffing of Piper Heidsiek champagne served by Adrien Garnier and a truly sublime four course meal which, let’s face it, has long been a meal of choice with its accompanying few extras. Extras there were - gorgeous snacks of crab and caviar springs to mind.

   The starter was quite suburb. Purnell par excellence. A combination of cherry and beetroot, matching perfectly - an accurate balance of flavours and textures. As great a starter as you will find anywhere. Feed it me everyday for the rest of my life please. 

    Then a fish course of scallop - who doesn’t love a scallop? - Glynn Purnell really knows his audience. A delicious combination here to bring out the sweetness of that mighty mollusc, cooked to the most perfect degree. With it came maitake, the earthiness an ideal match for the sea of the scallop, enhanced by the xo sauce, and artichoke and potato pressé.

    The main of venison was simple and sublime. Gorgeous, absolutely spot-on venison, as tender as butter, and with it white garlic, very fine red wine salsify and shallot. 

  Finally a blackberry and hazelnut delice -  ‘tis certainly the time o’year for such as dish - and beautifully complemented by the refreshing zing of lemon mascarpone.

  This meal demonstrates that there’s life in the old master yet, how a four course meal can be pleasurable when compared with the survival course of a prolonged tasting menu and how relative simplicity may yet give the greatest satisfaction.

Rating:- 🌞🌞🌞

300. Purnell’s Plates. A New Bull In Town.

 

  When it comes to Mediterranean cuisine, unlike Greek and Italian food which I find to be, respectively, excruciatingly dull and extremely overrated, I do derive great pleasure from being presented with a plate on which almost any Spanish dish is presented. Spanish cuisine in Birmingham has been significantly unrepresented so I was thrilled that the Yummy Brummie had identified a hole in the market and realised that he was the man to fill it. Hence I found myself ambling along Edmund Street on the first day that Purnell’s Plates opened to the public. It was advertised as selling Spanish tapas which for me at least was highly alluring. 

  The interior is mildly claustrophobic, being a narrow ‘L’ shape opening up into a small square place at the rear, The decor is smart and the restaurant is littered with artefacts such as bull’s horns to remind the diner that this is a little piece of Spain in the city where bulls are embraced so enthusiastically. The walls have art which also generally, though not entirely, emphasise the theme of Iberia. The long bar is the first sight to greet the customer as they enter the restaurant and I was pleased to recognise some old faces there including Adrien Garnier, restaurant manager at the mother ship, Purnell’s, who said he was there for a couple of days to keep an eye on the opening.

  Seated comfortably at my table I noted that the opening lunchtime was a a little slow with a total of only six customers, including myself, there during the time I sat and lunched. I asked for a cocktail but the bar was not yet ready to serve them so instead I had a glass of Madri, a Spanish beer which was perfectly drinkable. I was rather excited about delving into the menu and getting on with the pleasing selection of dishes.  First to arrive was my Anchoas en tostada served with a generous helping of delicious pesto which nicely balanced the fish’s salty delightfulness and which I gobbled down with relish while I waited for my other dishes to arrive. 

  Then the main dishes came out, sauntering their way to the table with a self-assuredness that they were going to pleasure the diners who had ordered them in a comforting, full-bodied, rustic sort of way albeit with some sophistication that only came to the fore when the taste buds had got into gear. Naughty, spicy patatas bravas; very nicely cooked cod, bacalao al pil pil, in a pil pil sauce (garlic, paprika, parsley) and the most triumphant of them all, Chorizo al vino tinto, chunky pieces of spicy chorizo raised to a whole new level by the accompanying, remarkably delicious red wine sauce which was dark and shiny and unctious - I would eat that dish anytime.

  What came next was something of a surprise. I thought of finishing off with crema Catalona but what emerged from the kitchen appeared to be a dramatic genetic mutation of the dish I knew, recognised and loved. Perhaps Purnell’s chefs knew more about it than I (and the rest of the world) did. Ah yes! It was a deconstructed crema Catalana, that was it. There was a heavily whipped cream with shards of caramel emerging erect from it. It just didn’t seem right. In fact it seemed rather lazy. It was pleasant enough but my message would be - reconstruct your crema Catalana as soon as possible.

     The crema Catalana apart, this was an enjoyable meal. Reservations have already been made for a return visit. Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛

  The labrador and I have since passed a happy five days in Weston super Mare which gave me opportunity to visit the legendary Papa’s for some truly fine cod and chips, lovely chunks of cod meat in a pleasingly light batter and some very passable chips to accompany it, and The Ginger Pig Kitchen where the crema Catalana is a triumphant model example of what Purnell’s Plates should be turning out (and the accompanying sable pig is a pleasure too).

  Chef Andrew Sheridan has announced the closure of About 8. Perhaps this is wise. It was always a very personal project, just as Black And Green is also. Alas he could not clone himself and therefore divided his time between cooking at About 8 at the weekend and at Black And Green during the week. About 8 was excellent but possibly too self-indulgent and it was hampering what was taking place in Craft which had been divided up by net curtains suggestive of a harem rather than a restaurant and where the food was not  really to the standard it had previously been.

  Now Craft is being converted into a brasserie and reincluding the space previously occupied by About 8. At the same time the dining pods in the ‘garden area’, which I always thought looked rather tacky, though they did help to see Craft through the COVID-19 lockdown crisis, have been removed. It seems Craft is going upmarket in image at the very least and hopefully the food served there will return to its previous heights in parallel with the look. About 8 is relocating to Liverpool from where Sheridan originated and it is not clear in Sheridan’s announcement whether he himself is planning to return there which would obviously, even if unintentionally, affect the personality of the food served at Black And Green. Sheridan is also planning to open a new restaurant, Severn and Wye, at Newent in Gloucestershire, south of Malvern as well as opening a gastropub in Newent.

251. Take Three Chefs.

 

  A one off. Purnell’s hosting a rather promising evening of three courses (each cooked by a celebrity chef - Tom Kerridge (starter), Michel Roux Jr (main) and Glynn Purnell himself (dessert) with a range of ‘snacks’ to start provided by all three chefs. Actually it was not really a one off as a similar evening took place last year (Kerridge, Angela Hartnett and Purnell) and doubtless, from the clamour for a ticket and the adoring approval at the end, more will take place in the future.

  It was very soothing sitting amongst a group of really rather nice people all united by their love of, and knowledge of, fine food. It was rather like being a member of a secret society, exclusive of the gastronomically unwashed, all of us admittedly rather self-satisfied and mildly smug but when spending £250 on a three course meal such gratifying self-appreciation is very understandable and perhaps acceptable. “Good company maketh a meal” (Old Bloke, 2022).

  The cost included a Purnell’s original cocktail - a pleasing Rhubarb cocktail (rhubarb vodka) and some excellent wines, selected by Purnell’s’ sommelier, Adrien Garnier. Purnell’s’ triumphant pain de campagne always With the snacks came a very quaffable rare champagne (2008). The snacks were a delight - along with Glynn Purnell’s own faux black canary potatoes (presumably inspired by a temporally distant holiday in Tenerife) and his black charcoal, which is more puzzling to the uninitiated than the riddle of the Sphinx, there was Michel Roux’s exceptional tarte pissaladière (which even though I have what I believe to be a rather good French accent I find to be a single word tongue twister which despite hours of practice I have failed to conquer) and the ferociously delicious contribution by Tom Kerridge of black truffle sausage roll which is luxurious and comforting both at the same time.

 And Kerridge scored again with his starter of red mullet with deeply flavoured bouillabaisse glowing with saffron and tickled up with a mustard aïoli and a herb cracker which just maybe I might not have needed.

  And Roux lived up to his heritage by bringing to Birmingham his skills which brought to the table a generously portioned, fabulously tender and flavoured piece of Wagyu, cooked - as we might expect - to perfection and precisely, almost painfully perfectly, seasoned along with a delicious, crispy pomme Anna and a gorgeous Béarnaise sauce. 

  Meantime, the sommelier had been doing his work uncompromisingly satisfactorily- with the fish he had served Cloudy Bay 2020 and the pleasing Lirac 2016 with the beef course which it matched with very happily.

    Purnell served up a very fine dessert of chocolate parfait covered by a layer of passion fruit jelly served alongside a dark chocolate and cardamom sorbet with a cocoa meringue and a brightly shining mango coulée glowing like an egg yoke on the plate. The dish found a good companion in a glass of South African sweet red wine.

  Afterwards it was Question and Answer time when the three wise chefs faced their adoring audience and told anecdotes and quipped hilariously as we might have expected them to do with Glynn Purnell as the ringleader of this merry band. Roux was more serious but joined in with the air of general merriment. A good time was had by all.

  And so to bed at The Grand Hotel, a couple of minutes’ walk away from Purnell’s. I had been kindly upgraded to a suite on the special occasion of the dog’s 11th birthday. The hotel staff had all signed a birthday card for her and gifts in the form of packets of chews and a toy were awaiting her when we arrived in our bedroom. As I wrote, a good time was had by all.

 

  Apart from the luxury of it all, I naturally enjoyed the view looking down on the cathedral and St Phillip’s Square but I also derived pleasure from the little pieces of art in the room including a clever little collage depicting a view at Gas Street Basin and another showing The Floozie out of her jacuzzi and luxuriating instead in an old bubble-filled tin bath which is pleasingly ironic given how disastrous it was given that just in the last week or two a joker emptied detergent into the real ‘jacuzzi’ outside the Council House and wrecked at great expense the mechanism which allows the water to flow in the fountain. The Council called it ‘vandalism’ though it is no worse than what they have just allowed to be done to the nearby statue of Queen Victoria by some ‘artist’ they’ve found somewhere or the other who wants to harp on again about the evil British Empire. It was all I could do to stop my gastronomic dog who also has delicate artistic sensibilities from cocking her keg and micturating on it. Birmingham - more than great restaurants.