511. Hotel Du Vin, Birmingham.

 

  I attended a dinner at Birmingham’s Hotel du Vin in Church Street, nextdoor neighbour to the Grand Hotel. This was my first visit there although, as reported in several previous blogs, I have dined at the Stratford upon Avon branch on a number of occasions and found the food there to be generally very enjoyable and I had watched a cooking demonstration by the Hotel du Vin’s Group Director, Matt Powell, who prepared a fine looking Mont Blanc at this year’s Colmore Food Festival.

  It has to be said that the entrance area of the hotel, which in a previous life was the Birmingham Eye Hospital, is chic and exciting and has a bit of razzamatazz about it. The dinner was for forty people and those present included the former West Midlands Mayor, Sir Andy Street, and the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mel Stride, interesting people to listen to in this setting when the present government seems to be doing everything in its power to wreck the hospitality industry, miserable visu.

  We started with what was described as a ‘spring vegetable soup’, somewhat displaced in time as autumn is now well advanced. It looked spookily murky and one wondered what lurked beneath the surface but on plunging one’s spoon into the depths what was met was thoroughly enjoyable. There was a brunoise of very nicely cooked vegetables in a light, tasty broth with particularly pleasing bits of fennel and a very nicely judged underlying taste of tarragon. 

Next, for the main, braised ox cheek was served as bouef Bourguignon in luxurious, silky sauce with charming, sweet shallots and button mushrooms. There was also a reasonably successful mash, a little cloying, and some very nicely cooked new potatoes and some almost garishly green beans which were reasonably tender. On the whole this was a satisfactory dish but somewhat unexciting and less than lukewarm. I am pretty tired of ox cheek (I did not choose the menu) but I appreciate that when cooking for forty people, slow cooking cheek like this makes the process pretty simple and it isn’t easy to get forty dishes and keep them as warm as they should be. On the other hand, just because something is not easy it doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be done. If I am going to ear ox cheek repeatedly everytime I attend an organised dinner perhaps chefs could steal an arch from Tom Shepherd and serve it as alive. To annEnglishman the mere word, “pie” has a draw to it.

  

    There was a competent crème brûlée to close - a little ramekin of custard with a crispy top to it will rarely displease anyone unless incompetently handled but this was a crème brûlée not striving to reach the heights (one thinks back to Glynn Purnell’s 10-10-10 egg surprise and is downcast at the demise of Purnell’s). Perhaps chef might have served a neat little sable biscuit to lift this dish up from the level of strictly basic.

  This was standard mass cooking for a large group and was generally quite edible and did what it said on the label (though how much more pleasurable it might have been served warm or even hot and with some extra element to jazz it up a bit.

Rating:- 🌛🌛

26 September 2025.

Former West Midlands Mayor, Andy Street

Shadow chancellor of the Exchequer, Mel Stride.

495. Summer - Albatross Death Cult - Beret, Kimono, Sans Culottes.

 

  Alex Claridge is a master of of Birmingham’s hospitality sector - not for nothing that former West Midlands Mayor Andy Street chose him to be his adviser on the nighttime hospitality sector. And Alex knows just how to reel in the punters both old and knew, especially old regulars (old in both senses of the word). A feature of his business are tempting special events and some of these take the form of tastings of new dishes and the opportunity to give feedback on the dishes before or if they go on the new menus.

   This was one of those evenings. The premature and long summer drew on, there were blue skies and bright, warm sunshine with a hint of mild humidity and the feeling that the summer was going together hotter and more intolerable over the coming days. But inside Albatross Death Cult all was cool, calm and comfortable and familiar old faces were gathering to dine there with some less recognisable or never seen before. The atmosphere was the epitome of relaxed good cheer and Alex Claridge was leading the kitchen with Oliver Grieve in support and Claridge’s partner Rachael Whittle heading up the front of counter alongside sommelier Camilla Bonnannini who has far too many’n’s in her surname but who does a wonderful job with the wines and sakes she has selected.

    ‘Oyster’, the eternal old favourite and signature, reported many times before came first and then there was a fine crispy tartlet, fresh and summery, of tartare of sea bass with sorrel and peas - fresh as any breeze which might blow on these hot summer days and pleasingly soothing.

  Next, gorgeously crispy potato terrine topped by potently fishy taramasalata and smoked eel and unobtrusive seaweed. Next, an excellent dish of well flavoured mackerel made exquisite by tiny thin slices of sweetly pickled radish and ajo blanco, the flavour of almond delightfully discernible. My only complaint would be that I should have liked my ajo blanco to be more chilled than it was but it was an excellent dish.

  Next came a small sake cup of punchy prawn head and tomato consommé and then a finely cooked cod in an utterly delicious consommé with a garnish of  tiny shavings of summer truffle.

  Monkfish was next to be served. For me, though apparently not for any of the other diners, it seemed slightly undercooked - I should have liked a little more body to the fish’s texture but I liked the vividly green accompanying jalapeño Hollandaise which had an exciting spicy bite to it. The final fish course was Chalkstream trout for which, to be candid, I’m growing a little tired of but this was very nicely prepared and sat on the plate shaped like the white chocolate ‘hot lips’ petit fours that Claridge had served at The Wilderness in times past. The langoustine bisque served with it was pleasingly tasty.

  There was a thoroughly enjoyable new dessert on offer - a finely cooked tart made up of excellent crispy pastry with a filling of muscovado and katsuobishi (tuna flakes) which had an exciting well-judged sweetness and umami from the katsuobishi. Paired with deliciously and vibrantly-flavoured lime sorbet which cut through the flavour of the tart this made for a very toothsome dessert indeed.

  Finally, I derived great pleasure from the petit four, a very well made macaron with a mild hit odf nori. It had a lovely consistency and the outer part was nicely crispy with the outer part being gorgeously gooey.

  There was nothing left but to pay the bill and to say farewell to staff and one’s dining companions, some more eccentric than others - a red beret placed accurately on the precise spot on the head coupled with a kimono and san culottes certainly makes a statement and the wearer had to be the best-dressed diner in the Jewellery Quarter that evening.

473. Folium.

 

  These are difficult times for the hospitality industry. Starmer’s government’s taxation measures have made things even worse.

   The previous Conservative governments had been more helpful to hospitality businesses than those who ran them chose to accept. In particular, when Chancellor of the Exchequer and during the COVID-19 pandemic, Rishi Sunak had introduced a scheme - furlough - whereby the government paid 80% of a worker’s salary and this greatly enabled businesses to retain their staff during the periods of lockdown thus avoiding mass unemployment and a vast number of businesses collapsing. After the lockdowns he furthmore reduced Value added tax for hospitality businesses for a twelve month period and also introduced an ‘Eat out to help out scheme’ whereby the government subsided the price of  meals when eaten out at restaurants and other dining establishments, all to stimulate the post COVID hospitality industry’s trade. 

  Nevertheless when the government necessarily returned the rate of Value added tax to its prepandemic level, many in the hospitality industry were enraged and felt the maintenance of the lower rate would continue to stimulate their businesses in the face of additional problems which included the rise in energy and commodity prices caused by the war in Ukraine. The Conservative government maintained the higher rate and many in the hospitality industry thought that by voting for a Labour government in the general election held on 4 July 2024 they would get a government more sympathetic to their plight and their wishes.

  They were to be sorely disappointed. Not only did the new Labour government maintain the VAT rate but in a budget delivered on 30 October 2024, the new Labour chancellor of the exchequer, Reeves, announced painful new measures which would add severe added crippling burdens to those trying to run businesses, including restaurateurs. 

  Far from favouring hospitality businesses, Reeves was hell bound on squeezing them through a mangle. Reeves’ measures included raising employers’ national insurance contributions by 1.2%, taking it to 15% and lowering the threshold at which it was to be paid from £9100 per annum to £5000 pa (this clearly affected the numbers of staff members restaurant owners could employ thus threatening unemployment in the industry), reduction of the business rates relief for hospitality businesses from 75% to 40% (thus increasing business costs) and raising the minimum wage from £11.41 per hour to £12.21 which again affected the costs of employing staff).

  As these changes only came into effect from 1 April, the potentially calamitous outcomes of Reeves’ budget are yet to unravel themselves and those hospitality industry figures who thought that voting Labour would be a good thing may well experience the same sort of buyer’s remorse as a diner in one of their restaurants who is served something on a tasting menu that they don’t want but which they’re paying for anyway.

  But that is only one side of the coin for potential customers who might be thinking of coming to eat at restaurants may be held back by a simmering cost of living crisis which has manifested itself under the Labour regime. Energy costs are exorbitant and raised artificially because of government measures attached to its green agenda. Transport costs, postal charges, water rates and inflation have all soared since Labour came to power and the result is that only those public sector employees to whom it has given enormous pay rises (junior doctors and train drivers to prevent them striking as well as members of Parliament of course) may be in a position to consider eating out at expensive restaurants. In short, the hospitality industry is tottering on the brink and disaster is just round the corner.

  On 27 April 2023, the then Mayor of the West Midlands, the much admired Andy Street, appointed Alex Claridge, Chef Patron of the Wilderness, to be his Nighttime Economy Advisor in a bid to have an expert in hospitality supporting the local industry in the region and advising the Mayor on how this support could be given. Claridge fitted perfectly into this role and it was particularly useful for the dining out industry to be represented at such a high regional level. Claridge tried to steer clear of party politics though he was not shy to let it be known that Sunak’s Conservative government needed to do more to support hospitality. The government was largely unresponsive to this after its years of going out of its way to see the industry through the COVID-19 crisis. 

  Street lost the Mayoral election to the Labour candidate, Parker, on 2 May 2024 and the Conservative government was heavily defeated by Labour in the general election of 4 July 2024. Those in the hospitality industry who had believed these changes of regime would lead to them receiving a more sympathetic and generous approach to their problems were soon disappraised of this illusion as the new Chancellor, Reeves, delivered her first budget which included the measures noted above and the new West Midlands Mayor revealed himself to be ineffectual and inconsequential. The region’s hospitality industry it seemed, had willingly, even enthusiastically, jumped out of the frying pan into the fire and had now to face the consequences. It has to be noted however that some of the leading chefs in the city had shown their keen support for Andy Street in the run up to the Mayoral election and not everyone in the dining out industry had any enthusiasm for a Labour government.

  And now April 2025 has arrived and the consequences of Reeves’ budget will begin to reveal themselves. Who will survive and who will go under? Or will things turn out to be not quite as bad as one would logically predict? Alex Claridge tweeted on X on 4 April 2025, “Previous Mayoral advisor on hospitality ….” Which was a somewhat opaque phrasing which can be interpreted either as he was the previous advisor or he was the advisor of the previous mayor while still occupying the post under the present Mayor, Parker. There has certainly been no resignation publicised as far as I can see but it is noteworthy that the rest of the tweet says, ”… Labour have created the worst possible environment for all the named uses below and de facto gone to war with the industries they claim to support. The dangerous net inflation of costs to create jobs means opening later is moot”. This was a response to a tweet by the Labour Deputy prime minister, Rayner, saying, “Our pubs, restaurants & live music venues are the beating heart of our cultural life, so it’s vital they’re given every chance to survive and thrive.That’s why new trial powers for London will back the capital’s pubs and clubs - boosting the nighttime economy and driving growth”. 

  Two days later, on 6 April, Alex Claridge again commented on another tweet put out by a government department featuring a video of Rayner’s comments on the nighttime economy industry and the rather underwhelming measures she was taking with the simple message, “Gaslighters”.

  Claridge had long recognised the dangers to his industry which had arisen in the previous five years and not hesitated to speak about them and now he appeared unimpressed by what the new government was doing to help it survive. Is he right to be as worried as he is?

  One of my most favourite restaurants in the city is Ben Tesh’s Folium - it could be the nicest place in Birmingham to relax and eat remarkably delightful food prepared meticulously to look beautiful and to taste perfectly delicious. On 9 April 2025, a tweet was posted saying, “A slow week this week. We would appreciate your support, as always. Thursday - Saturday dinner Friday/Saturday lunch”. Apart from the reason that Folium is such an excellent place to dine, it seemed right that I should also go there to give Ben Tesh and Lucy Hanson my support and so off I trooped to the Jewellery Quarter a couple of days later. 

  It was a bright, sunny mid-spring day,quite warm, and I was happy to walk through the doors again to be warmly greeted by Lucy and seated comfortably but I was sorry to see, and hear that I was to be the only diner that lunchtime though things were looking better that evening. I have reported on my visits several times before and having only recently visited there and the menu being unchanged from that visit, I shall not repeat myself except to say that this was another very fine meal with every dish completely unimpeachable. 

  I chose the shorter tasting menu if only because experience tells me that my digestive tract now has its limitations but I did add in the selection of cheeses which included Baron Bigod and accompanied by a crab apple jelly, home cooked crackers and a slice of Folium’s own delicious fruit bread. Such pleasures.

  As the only diner, I had the opportunity to talk to Lucy and we exchanged little items of news that we had come across since my last visit. This was very pleasant. I learned, among other things, that Aktar Islam is said to be opening a second restaurant in the Jewellery Quarter and there’s a bit of a buzz about chef Jonny Mills’ plans to open his eight-seater Sael in the GoodsYard next to the tram station in the Jewellery Quarter in the autumn. The front of house will be led by Asher Beardsmore who has worked previously at Couch in Stirchley and at Opheem where he was junior sommelier and most recently as bar manager at the Michelin Bib Gourmanded Tropea in Harborne.

Jonny Mills, his Sael is due to open at the Goods Yard in the Jewellery Quarter in the autumn.

Asher Beardsmore, soon to be in charge of front of house at Sael.

   I departed from Folium back into the bright afternoon knowing how much I had enjoyed myself and looking forward to another visit when Ben Tesh may have brought or two new dishes as I am now rather familiar with the splendid dishes he has been serving. I thought about the gloomy situation for restaurants at the moment and hoped all the great dining establishments in this city will keep going through these hard times despite what Reeves and Starmer are throwing at them at the moment. 

  As I walked through St Paul’s Square heading for Newhall Street I stopped to watch a very handsome song thrush indulging in obtaining his preferred form of fine dining - a luscious worm lurking in the soil beneath him. I wished him good luck, took a photo and moved on.

Folium rating:- 🌞🌞🌞.

11 April 2025.

394. Politics, Film Noir And Shakespeare. (Part 1).

 

  A busy week of local politics, another visit to The Wilderness with a twist and ending with the annual Shakespeare Birthday Lunch in Stratford Upon Avon. What exciting lives we old blokes live.

 Monday. My first visit to the Hockley Social Club, the fast food and events venue on the edge of the Jewellery Quarter which replaced the iconic Digbeth Dining Club and is a mothership to Herbert’s Yard in Longbridge. It is altogether more inviting than Herbert’s Yard in that it’s warm and spacious and reasonably comfortable, none of which adjectives can be applied to the large, wooden barn in the south west of the city where I live (well, I suppose Herbert’s Yard is spacious - I must be accurate in my reporting). It’s shabby and struggling to be hipster-chic and, I suppose, cool (I am still not sure if that word continues to be used by those in the know) and seems ideally suited to the local population of comfortably off hipsters who inhabit the overpriced flats in the nearby Jewellery Quarter.

   In previous Blogs I have expressed a lack of enthusiasm for street food. There should be a context for street food. Ideally it should be eaten in the street, be it on a warm, barmy evening in a bustling south east or southern Asian city or as a gratifying scoff at some event here in England, be it a fair or a football match or a concert or somewhere else where crowds meet and are feeling a collective peckishness. Street food is almost by definition not something to be eaten in a heated, dimly lit building with tables and chairs and the paraphernalia of cosy modern British hipster living. Street food should also be reasonably priced and not sold at the bloated prices many of our street food traders charges. The prices alone exclude a lot of the population and reinforce this as a dining scene for negroni-swigging, well-off, self-satisfied hipsters who will not visibly blanch when they receive notice of the massive increase in their council tax charges. Well, everyone is entitled to their own environment and the Hockley Social Club, with its mock working class name, is an ideal venue for the Jewellery Quarter socialist with nothing useful to do.

 The Mayoral hustings debate was fascinating with the sitting candidate and present mayor, Andy Street (only fair therefore that I should eat some street food while there), able to demonstrate everything he had done for the region and his plans for the future in a straight forward way while his socialist opponent with a whining, wheedling, sometimes almost inaudible, voice failed to give a straight answer even once but from time to time would suddenly squeak loudly at something Mr Street was saying and then smirk at a tiny cabal of his supporters to his right though his embarrassing ejaculations were something the Hockey Social Club sound system found alarming and incapable of dealing with without assaulting the audience’s hearing.

  The subject of what the Mayor could do for the local hospitality industry was raised by the founder of the Digbeth Dining Club, Jack Brabant, and neither had much in practical terms that they could seriously put forward at this stage - Mayor Street answered the question honestly and directly while the sheep next to him wittered on for a couple of minutes with no useful result. This was the pattern of the evening and unless one were a socialist fanatic, a fair neutral observer would have scored an overwhelming victory to Mayor Street. It will be interesting to see if the ordinary regional voter, removed from the comforts of the hipster lifestyle, will support Mayor Street. I do hope so - his opponent has the charisma of an over grilled snail (not that there were any escargots on sale at the Hockley Social Club) which enables me to segue into the food.

  Only two stalls were open -  giving a choice of ‘jerk’ fried  chicken and, er, ‘jerk’ fried chicken. It was disappointing that Dan Lee’s east Asian food stall was not selling its wares that evening - I am keen to see just what he has on offer. I chose the ‘Mango box’ from Only Jerkin’ Fried Chicken priced at £14. This offered 4 strips of nicely flavoured, crispy coated, pleasingly moist and well cooked chicken together with a very edible coleslaw and agreeable sweet potato chips which, like the chicken, were well cooked. 

  But this was fried chicken with a mildly spicy taste. Had I missed something? My Caribbean food knowledge is. I’ll be the first to acknowledge, very limited though I think the repertoire needed to present Caribbean-style is fairly limited. But shouldn’t this chicken have some punch to it? Shouldn’t I have been hit by the bite of spice and the tang of smoke? Well, I wasn’t. This was just deep fried chicken, not grilled, not barbecued, cautiously spiced - ideal for the audience it was being served to, I suppose. Where was the adventure in it?

  What else can one say? Fried chicken is everywhere. I eat it rarely and would not go out of my way to do so though Greidy’s fried chicken which I’ve had a couple of times at Herbert’s Yard is particularly enjoyable. As for Only Jerkin, it reminded me of the Labour Mayor candidate - quite nice but otherwise unremarkable.

Rating:- 🌛.

  

120. Birmingham Restauranteurs Fight Back The Tiers.

“Shouldn’t we be drinking this with a substantial meal?“

  Before the second ‘Lockdown’ the Labour leader of Birmingham City Council, Councillor Ward, had been broadcasting how much he thought that Birmingham should be in a 4 week-long national lockdown (regardless of its consequent dire effects on the hospitality industry) and his Director of Public Health was clearly an ardent supporter of the Labour administration’s point of view and from recent statements his views clearly have not changed. With just a day to go till the government allocates the various areas of Britain to the three COVID-19 tiers - Tier 3 meaning that restaurants must remain closed except for takeaway meals - some Birmingham restaurants, though hardly any of the leading restaurants are among them,  have written to the Conservative West Midlands Mayor demanding that he lobbies the government to prevent Birmingham entering Tier 3, a view with which I sympathise  naturally. 

Cllr Ward supports Tier 3 and Lockdowns

 

 

However what is irritating about this message is the fact, probably due to political motivations of some, that the message has been sent to the Mayor rather than Birmingham’s Labour City Council leader and his Public Health specialist who have been the most ardent of supporters for stringent measures in the city against the hospitality industry. The present fanatical Labour Council is setting about destroying the city centre with its “clean air zone” which will charge motorists exorbitant amounts of money to drive into the city and other measures which will ensure Birmingham remains a ghost city long after the COVID-19 crisis is over. I suggest that the signatories of this letter drop a line to former driving instructor Mr Ward and his friends as well as that they have already sent to Andrew Street the Mayor and try to convince them of the damage they are doing to Birmingham’s distinguished city restaurants. Finally it might be remembered by all of Birmingham’s restauranteurs that it’s not the government that spreads the virus, it’s the people who don’t follow the rules.

 

Finally - this could only happen in London:-

Personally, I don’t even like burgers that much. But you have to admit it, he’s a lad isn’t he?

98. London Restaurants Feeling The Heat Of COVID-19.

  As statues of 18th century slave owners which have stood for 200 years across Britain begin to disappear in the swell of the tide of protests against racism, one not necessarily foreseen outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic, so other symbols of privilege - ludicrously overpriced London restaurants are beginning to feel the heat. Much loved by London-centric Michelin, but already dumped by the 2019 The Fifty Best Restaurants in the World List, formerly prestigious London restaurants, previously delighted to squeeze wealthy international travellers and gastrotourists and the wealthy Londoner elite (now hiding away in their second or third or fourth or fifth home somewhere in Scotland or Cornwall or the Cotswolds) for every £50 note they can, are facing the end of their glory days.
  Thus the two Michelin-starred The Ledbury is now closed indefinitely as its Chef patron, Brett Graham, declared that it was impossible to keep the restaurant open because of the government’s social distancing measures and he has fired all his staff but is holding on to the lease for the present. the Ledbury hah held its two Michelin stars longer than any other restaurant in London apart from Le Gavroche and first opened about 15 years ago.
  Quite simply, London now has far, far too many restaurants. With international travel suspended it is clear that there are not enough local inhabitants to keep the thousands of restaurants in the capital alive over the next couple of years. And with the prices in so many of them being exorbitant the numbers of their potential clientele is minuscule. Furthermore those in the know are already ditching London in a big way. The latest Fifty Best Restaurants In The World list gave London the elbow when it placed only two of the city’s restaurants in the legendary Fifty - both in Shoreditch (The Clove Club and Lyle’s) with a taste for ‘Modern British’ cuisine, with Spanish or Nordic or Far Eastern influences rather than being derivative of the sort of stuff the French have long presented to the world as the (dubious) peak of gastronomy. Thus the likes of Dinner by Heston Blumenthal and The Ledbury were pitched from their top fifty places with the latter down to no. 68.

  Here in Birmingham the number of true Fine Dining restaurants, mostly serving exceptional food at realistic prices but undervalued by the London-loving Michelin, can be counted on the fingers of less than two hands. There should be enough local diners around wishing to enjoy the pleasures of Birmingham’s very special restaurants to enable the restaurants not only to reopen but to thrive and flourish. We have some exciting new chefs just waiting for the current crisis to finish to open their new restaurants and of course there are Birmingham’s great already well-established restaurants on the scene which their regular diners are just itching to get back to. Perhaps some of the promising young Midlands chefs who thought their future lay in a career in London will think of coming back to the West Midlands as the London restaurant scene begins to sink.
  It’s been an awful time and bad things aren’t over yet, but the Birmingham food scene could emerge enriched and hopefully better appreciated than it ever has been before. Giles Coren, who claims to have given up being a food critic, may after all find peace among the “One eyes” who enjoy West Midlands gastronomy. And the likely collapse of the London dining food scene gives impetus to the campaign of the quite excellent and pleasingly influential West Midlands mayor, Andy Street, to make the region the place where the hospitality industry kickstarts the economy again.

97. West Midlands Mayor Calls For Birmingham To Kick Start Hospitality Industry.

  Diners and food business owners remain full of expectation indulging in optimistic speculation about the imminent reopening of restaurants. Politicians are also keen to see the hospitality industry get restarted given that in the West Midlands alone 135000 jobs are provided by that industry and it contributes £12.6 billion per year to the local economy. Now the Birmingham Post reports that the notable West Midlands mayor, Andy Street, has called on the government to allow the region to become the first area in the country to reopen its public houses and restaurants, “This way, we can lead the way and help strike the right balance between safety and outputs, allowing other regions to follow suit. It’s important for the West Midlands to build on its unique heritage and distinctive strengths and seize the opportunity to reset, rebuild and reinvent our region, and come back even stronger”.

  I have my doubts. Being an old bloke, and much favoured by COVID-19 as potential prey, I don’t really want my first post-lock down fine dining meal to be my last. And COVID certainly has not gone away in these parts and it’s just as nasty and murderous as it was 3 months ago. Some Birmingham restaurants, Craft Dining Rooms and The Wilderness, are making reservations in anticipation of an early July starting gun being fired. They could be right and I have speculatively made bookings at both though for a little while after they open so somebody else can dip their toes in the water before I take the plunge and the table I have reserved at Craft Dining Rooms is outside.
  Craft Dining Rooms has indicated that it will put in a lot of measures to ensure that diners will be as safe as possible when it reopens its doors to them including temperature testing (of the diners not the food) and in the meantime has introduced a takeaway service with a very reasonably priced 2 two course meals for £40.

  Meanwhile Carter’s of Moseley, at the top of trendy people’s favourite Birmingham restaurant list, has been selling extravagant and extravagantly priced ingredients so that the well heeled socialists of Moseley and Harborne and the slightly less well heeled socialists of Kings Heath can cook their own Michelin-starred barbecues. Well done to Brad Carter for his good business sense.

  At The Wilderness Alex Claridge has been offering bespoke 3 hour-long home cooking lessons via the internet and has opened his reservation book to post-Lockdown customer-hopefuls (I’m one of them).

  And Kray Tredwell and Stuart Deeley have been giving a number of interviews about their plans for their new restaurants the openings of which have been necessarily delayed by COVID-19. Kray has a nice byline - Fancy Common Food by Kray Tredwell. Though he also has Modern Abstract Fine Dining from Kray Tredwell which is nicely intriguing.

  Finally we might note a recent Birmingham Post article which reported on an interview with Aktar Islam of the sublime Opheem who gave a gloomy prognosis for the future of Birmingham restaurants as a result of the COVID-19 problem especially as his new Pulperia had only just opened prior to the Lockdown with the result, one assumes, that it was bleeding money. Let’s hope he’s wrong. There are many determined chefs and restaurant owners in the West Midlands whose efforts in the last few weeks may have saved their businesses and our regional Dining scene. This is another chapter in the story of dining out in the West Midlands. Perhaps Andy Street’s intervention may tip the balance in their favour.

Pulperia has recently started a takeaway Sunday lunch service