551. Summer Crab And Frites At Wildmoor Oak Inn.

 

   The last day in July and summer’s lease now started to feel as though it indeed had too short a date. I had had an eventful two or three days and I felt like I should reward myself for coping with it all by hailing an uber (not literally obviously) and zooming off to the wonderful pub with the Brontëesque name, the Wildmoor Oak Inn, near Bromsgrove, now very familiar to me and already a location which had given me some happy dining memories. Upmost in my mind was the summer special of crab and frites with aioli which I still had not got to eat but I thought this late afternoon just might be the day to enjoy what sounded like a fabulous repast. And so it proved to be.

  Having been warmly greeted and seated in my favourite corner (I could have had an outside table to make the most of this lovely summer evening but outside dining is fraught with its own challenges though it was perhaps getting a little late in the day for pesky wasps to ply their trade) I chose the summer special cocktail, a strawberry daiquiri, and it proved to be the most deliciously flavoured strawberry thing out of all the strawberry things I had consumed this summer. 

  My starter was excellent, from the sheet of ‘specials’ of the day. It was a most generously sized serving of thick slices of gravad lax with sweet little crayfish, crispy sourdough and ribbons of sweetly pickled cucumber to set it all off. Summer’s lease was bringing great pleasure with it.

  But of course, just as Charity was the greatest of its trinity (Faith, Hope and Charity), so the main course was the greatest of the three courses served that evening. Simple but gorgeous. A feast of dressed crab served in a crab shell, a magnificent burst of intense crabby flavour with every mouthful that had me purring with pleasure. Not a single hint of even the tiniest fragment of crab shell (and that does not happen everywhere) and accompanied by the simple citric contrast to the richness of the dish brought to the plate by a good wedge of lemon. There was as well a triumphantly enjoyable pot of aioli, its garlic flavour sweet and soothing and not stringent nor savage and the frites were very good. 

  After this feast I was replete and could not manage one of the formal desserts but instead I asked for some vanilla ice cream and espresso and put together a happy little affogato which rounded off this fine meal in a very satisfying way.

  Still unrecognised by the Food Guides (which questions their validity), Wildmoor Oak Inn continues to deliver high calibre pub food which brings much happy pleasure to the diner.

Rating:- 🌞

31 July 2026.

546. Wildmoor Oak Inn.

 

  In a recent blog I worried that the Wildmoor Oak Inn was no longer that which it once was. Still I don’t give up easily. I had read that the self-described gastropub - which it may reasonably be described as - was serving an acutely tempting dish of dressed crab and frites (not chips, French fries or anything else) and I felt I this was an offer I could not refuse - who could?

  Alas my ambitions were not achieved. I journeyed there for Friday lunch only to find the crab-frites were not available till the evening. Misere me. The truth was that the dish had been so popular the day before that the gorging masses had wiped out the restaurant’s crab supplies and none was left for Friday lunch. I rallied from the profound disappointment and pulled myself together and my distress lessened as I perused the menu and restored my anticipation. All was not lost.

  I rapidly restored my morale with a twisted vimto from which much pleasure was extracted and then delighted in my starter of a fine tart of “hand-picked” white crab and crayfish served very nicely with shellfish mayonnaise and balanced with slices of radish for texture and chicory to balance the richness of it. The pastry was excellent - thin and beautifully crispy. The flavour of the crab came through very pleasingly. It was served on a prettily decorated china plate which doubtless was once part of a vintage set.

  The main was a triumph of bravely uncomplicated English cooking - nothing was over elaborate - a beautifully cooked and delicious fillet of lemon sole - soothing in its texture and flavour and simply and victoriously served with a fine lemon and parsley beurre noisette and capers along with, for me, the most perfectly cooked tenderstem broccoli- for once the stems were tender and the vegetable had a lovely sweetness to it. I will not forget to mention the accurately cooked new potatoes, boiled admirably and rejoicing in nothing more complicated than the beurre noisette. Chefs - never do anything more to new potatoes than that - don’t roast them or sauté them or find any other way to remove the joy from them.

  Imagine my elation when I discovered that my chosen dessert was as equally simple and, possibly for that reason, equally delicious as my main course. I chose raspberry Bakewell tart with pistachio ice cream. Again, as with the starter, the pastry was excellent, the sponge a good texture and the frangipan not oversweet and there was a distinct flavour of pistachio in the ice cream.

   This had been a delightful meal and I left fully determined next week to have a go of getting my paws on the crab and frites.

19 June 2026

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛🌛

513. The Comfort And Sheer Pleasure Of A Fine Gastropub.

 

  I have great sympathy with the loonie Head Chef, Julian Slowik (played by the supremely creepy Ralph Fiennes) in the masterpiece of cinema, The Menu (2022) when he says to his soon-to-be-slaughtered diners, “But I have to beg of you one thing. It’s just one. Do not eat. Taste. Savour. Relish. Consider every morsel that you place inside your mouth. Be mindful. But do not eat. Our menu is too precious for that.”.

  I find myself not deriving much pleasure in eating. Julian is quite right - the pleasure of dining out emerges from the the tasting, the savouring and the relishing. And also there’s enormous pleasure in just looking at a finely presented dish. But eating - the process which also includes the loading up of the stomach and the alimentary tract downstream of the gastric bag - can be unpleasant especially if the volume of that bag is stretched to its limits by excessive food being loaded into it or, perhaps, the stimulation of the acid of the stomach in aggressive quantities. Eating therefore may also lead to bloating and acidity and there’s not much pleasure in that.

  Thinking about it all, one thing that today’s chefs seem to pay too little attention to is aroma. They stimulate the eyes and the taste buds (and as an unfortunate side effect, the stomach’s acid-secreting cells) but it’s unusual to be in a restaurant and be pleasantly assailed by an enticing smell of gorgeously roasted meat or tantalisingly caramelised onions or freshly baked bread. Perhaps aromas belong only in a south Asian restaurant with its emphasis on aromatic spices - and they are more rare there than they should be - or an old fashioned and rustic setting such as an old pub. Yes, stimulation of the olfactory sense in an alluring way is a much neglected feature of how chefs present their food. 

    Whether or not my first cranial nerve is being stimulated, and it’s nice when it is, I do like to be comfortably seated when I dine. The present obsession with fast food whereby one buys a good quality food item made with love but then is forced to eat it (though of course we should not ‘eat’ as Julian points out and as Margot points out to him when he uses the term) sitting on some uncomfortable wooden and aluminium chair or bench or perched nervously on a backless stool at a dizzying height enough to initiate an acute episode of high anxiety (how many film titles can I fit in this piece?} is all very regrettable and greatly reduces, for me at least, the pleasure of consuming that food (perhaps Julian would like diners ‘to consume’ rather than eat - I may use the verb more often).

  Well there’s none of all that when one dines or lunches at The Wildmoor Oak Inn in Wildmoor near Bromsgrove. It’s such a comfortable, warm place to eat, er, consume. I have written about my previous visits there and I recently returned for more instant pleasure. A pleasing welcome, a comfortable chair (though the tables (necessarily I suppose) are a little too close together) and the gastropub’s autumn menu. What else could an old bloke want?

  I chose a fabulous starter from the ‘specials’ menu, three truly jumbo, superbly devilled red Argentinian prawns, splendidly tender and drenched with flavour, the degree of devilling was as perfect as one might wish - yes, and the aroma of prawn, first cranial nerve satisfied - with little brown shrimps - mini textural masterpieces - served on toast. This was a robustly enjoyable dish and I did indeed taste, savour, relish and consider every morsel that went into my mouth - Julian Slowik. would have been pleased though at the end of all that I did actually eat it all and gained great pleasure from doing so, so perhaps Julian might not have been so happy after all. But I was happy and that was all that mattered.

specials menu

  From the main autumn menu I chose Blythburgh pork chop with bubble and squeak and braised red cabbage as my main course. The pork was pleasingly tender and generously portioned though it may have benefitted from a little more seasoning. The bubble and squeak was not successful in that the outer coating was charred - I assumed this had been Chef’s intention - and not all that pleasant but the interior pieces of potato and cabbage, unmolested by the charring, relived grand old working class English food in a dish. The accompanying sauce was pleasant but I longed for some apple which is such a perfect marriage partner for pork. The red cabbage was excellent with just the right texture and not oversweet. 

  I was rather disappointed by the dessert which again was one of the specials. I was lured into choosing it by the mention of the Worcestershire apples used in it (it would have been nice to see them making an appearance with my pork chop) but it was a sort of poor man’s tarte tatin - delicious nicely cooked pommes, heightened by caramelisation, sitting on a few sheets of filo. This seemed like a lazy way to present fine local produce - the filo was nice and crispy but in the presence of the apples, lightweight and lacking in ambition. These apples deserved to be served in fine pastry as the principle element of a great apple pie.

  Nevertheless, putting my apple moans to one side, I derived great pleasure from my lunch in the cosy comfort of the Wildmoor Oak Inn and already feel the need to return there to again enjoy myself.

Rating:- 🌞

18 October 2025.

  Jumbo prawns also gave me considerable pleasure as a starter when I had lunch at The Oyster Club by Adam Stokes a few days earlier. Again I was comfortably seated and warmly welcomed and feeling thoroughly happy even before my prawns with accompanying aioli had been delivered to my downstairs table. The prawns were very nicely textured and tasty and, yes, had discernible prawn aroma to them, so again cranial nerve one was satisfied.

  For my main I chose, as I often do, Dover sole with a little shoal of perfectly textured brown prawns and samphire scattered over it like magical marine fairy dust. This dish is one of Birmingham’s most noble main courses and the consuming of it represents a few minutes well spent. 

  The dessert was rather disappointing, sadly. This is the case with desserts all over the country. Pastry chefs are so vital and so thin on the ground. My message to restaurateurs woukd be to invest in one and make a big thing about it. An accomplished one will raise your restaurant to new heights. This dessert was edible enough - a tasty, icy strawberry parfait with undoubtedly unseasonal strawberries between wafers. Well, who goes to a fish restaurant for the dessert?

Rating:- 🌞

9 October 2025.

  Why, you may ask yourself, did Julian Slowik feature so heavily in this edition? Simply because Channel 4 is presently streaming the movie and I saw it again for the first time since I viewed it when it had its first cinema release. Like a fine meal as with this ultimate gourmand’s film, you remember the pleasure of it but not necessarily all the details and it was delightful to relive all those forgotten memories again.

  My other favourite foodie film is of course Ratatouille, probably the greatest dining out movie of all. In it once more there is a sinister figure, this time not a chef but a diner, Anton Ego the restaurant critic, After years of dining on the sophisticated cuisine of fine dining Paris he eventually finds gastronomic peace in the comforting food of his childhood, a plate of perfectly cooked ratatouille. Isn’t that the way we’d all like to exit the stage? Though in my case substituting the ratatouille with a perfectly cooked plate of battered cod and chips. Yes please. Thank you very much.

Anton Ego, gastronomic paradise in a plate of ratatouille

505.The Swan Fairfield.

 

  It’s good to explore the countless dining establishments around the area in which one lives and a voucher for 40% off the price of a main course was enough for me to suggest a visit to the Swan in Fairfield near Bromsgrove, a short distance from the excellent Wildmoor Oak at Wildmoor. Fairfield is another tiny and picturesque north east Worcestershire village and the attractive Swan sits opposite one end of Swan Lane there though, like the chicken and the egg conundrum, I’m not sure which came first, the name of the inn or the name of the lane though I expect it would have been the former.

  It’s a very pleasant and spacious inn and on our arrival it was hosting a good number of lunchers who may or may not have been taking advantage of the 40% off the cost of the main course as we were. There is a section where diners accompanied by dogs are accommodated and we were settled there with my still youngish pup who strove to cause as little trouble as a pup may cause if given the opportunity. There was a choice of dining from an à la carte menu or opting for a two course lunch at just £16. I was keen to have dishes which were not on the lunch menu and so we dined à la carte. The dishes on offer were pretty standard pub offerings and I wasn’t entirely sure that these were not dishes prepared and delivered to the Swan and reheated there. 

  I chose the chicken liver and brandy paté which was served in an interesting cylindrical format along with a yellow beetroot piccalilli, peashoots which contributed very little and “toasted focaccia and salted butter”. The butter, however, failed to make an appearance but the amount of paté was generous enough to coat the focaccia which, if it had been toasted, had been subjected to a minimal amount of flame. The dish was quite edible though the paté was a little too bitter for me. My lunch companion chose a starter of “our garlic and cheddar baked mushrooms” - which the menu described as “sautéed button mushrooms in a  cheese sauce, topped with Cheddar cheese, crispy smoked streaky bacon, Mozzarella pearls, chives and toasted focaccia”. My dining companion was very pleased with her starter and had no grumbles about it.

  For my main course I opted to lunch on a very satisfactory beef and Malbec pie served with an equally satisfactory Malbec gravy. The vegetables were far from perfect though I enjoyed the large honey glazed carrot but the mashed potatoes were somewhat claggy as one finds when prepared meals are reheated. On the whole it was quite edible and with the 40% price off offer, one could hardly complain. My companion again very much enjoyed her choice of sausage and mash which was served with “crispy smoked streaky bacon” (strips of distinctly uncrisp bacon as far as I could see) and onion gravy and a generous helping of green beans.

  We rounded off our meals with desserts - my companion once more enjoyed her salted caramel sundae but I found the flavour of vanilla rather difficult to identify in my “classic vanilla cheesecake” although the accompanying cherry compote was not without some pleasure.

  The pub itself is very attractive but the staff that day were too stretched to deliver any feeling of warmth to us and the other customers. The food on offer was standard pub food not rising above the mundane in the main though the pie itself was the highlight for me with very good pastry and a tasty filling. The Swan is just a short distance in geographic terms from the Wildmoor Oak Inn but several hundred miles from it in the standard of food served there. 

Rating:- 🌛🌛

18 August 2025.

502. Two Country Pubs - The Fuzzy Duck, Armscote And The Wildmoor Oak Inn, Bromsgrove.

    South of Stratford upon Avon, where Worcestershire red brick is starting to give way to Cotswold stone, there is the Michelin-recommended pub with rooms that goes by the name of The Fuzzy Duck. I have been hoping to get there for some time but bus services are difficult and it’s best to take a car and fortunately I had a friend who was pleased to drive me there and join me for lunch.

  The village in which the pub is located is Armscote in a quiet country lane off the main road between Ilmington, home to the Howard Arms, and Shipston on Stour, where one might dine at The Bower House, where Leo Kattou the former Head Chef at Simpsons and the recently closed Laghi’s, now rules the kitchen. The pub was opened in 2013, having been fully renovated and modernised, by siblings Tania and Adrian Slater and first featured in the Michelin Guide in its 2015 edition. The Guide’s description then stated, “Adrian and Tania … took this place from boarded up boozer to welcoming, fashionably attired dining pub. Seasonal British dishes use great quality local and sustainable ingredients…”.

  I had finally achieved my goal of dining at the Fuzzy Duck and first impressions were very positive. There was a pleasing welcome for myself, my guest and my young dog who behaved not far short of impeccably and we were delighted to find the dining room to be delightfully and relaxingly decorated, brightly lit by the natural light coming through the sizeable windows and spacious to ensure that one felt comfortable and able to talk without being overheard. 

 The table was nicely laid even though there was no table cloth and it was not long before I was embibing a Pink Duck cocktail from the drinks menu which featured at a cute fluffy ducking on its cover, made from Chase Rhubarb and apple gin, strawberry purée, lemon juice and lemonade. It was a pleasingly refreshing choice.

  Neither my companion nor myself were able to resist the lovely twice baked cheese soufflé with truffle sauce as our starter. It had a good punchy, cheesy flavour and was splendidly light and airy. We were already clearly in the rarefied atmosphere of fine and refined pub food and thoroughly enjoying ourselves.

  For my main, I felt the Quack and Chips demanded my attention and very good it was too. The fairly small but very well cooked honey and soy glazed duck leg was delicious, the meat moist and succulent, and the accompanying truffle and Parmesan chips were equally delightful both in their flavour and their texture - very fine chips indeed.mYes, this was an excellent dish and the salad of thin ribbons of carrot with an Asiatic sesame dressing added a soothing coolness to it all.

  I was very pleasingly satiated and could only manage an affogato served with a shot of amaretto as dessert but it was nicely served and proved to be a nice close to the meal.

  My dining companion (not Lucy The Labrador) gained as much pleasure from her opening cheese soufflé as I had myself and was immensely pleased with her dish of beautifully cooked sea bream and accompaniments along with her rather extravagant dessert of Eton Mess.

  We  departed content and very well fed and with the resolution that the Fuzzy Duck had not seen the last of us.

Rating:- 🌝+

30 July 2025

  The day previous, a dining companion and I revisited the Wildmoor Oak Inn at Wildmoor near Bromsgrove. I have written about this previously but enjoy lunching there so much that I find it hard to stay away for very long. The food served from the kitchen where Peter Jackson, Brad Carter’s brother-in-law, is Head Chef is excellent pub food, delicious and of that standard consistently. as well as being of very good value.

  We were not disappointed on our latest visit. We shared a plate of tasty hummus of good flavour, the amount of garlic in it nicely judged, served with thin slices of beetroot, sweet, softly textured confit garlic cloves and pea shoots, which for once served a real role in the dish rather than being a lazy man’s garnish for everything from breakfast scrambled egg to steak in the evening.

  My plate of haddock and chips was, as ever, excellent. The fish was beautifully cooked with delightful  crispy batter and the chips were about as perfect as chips can be. While I can live without the curry sauce, the mushy peas were delicious - sweet and minty - and the accompanying tartare sauce was a cut above most tartare sauces that one encounters. For dessert I chose the perfectly wobbly vanilla panna cotta which was lovely though the flavour of vanilla might have been stepped up another notch. The pleasingly wobbly panna cotta was accompanied by nicely macerated strawberries and an excellent sable biscuit.

  My lunch companion chose one of the ‘specials of the day’ as her main course - gammon, which though it looked rather overcooked, was judged to be delicious and succulent. This was accompanied by a pot of the much loved chips, peas and a remarkably attractive-looking fried egg. Her dessert was very grand - a magnificent confection made up of a perfectly sweet mango sorbet sitting on a mango and passion fruit pavlova.  No complaints about it were heard.

  The Wildmoor Oak Inn continues to be a very great pleasure to dine at and represents very good value in these times of continually rising ingredients prices.

Rating:- 🌞

29 July 2025.

  Now, a quick mention that I very much enjoyed my pretheatre dinner at Stratford’ s Hotel du Vin where I chose to eat a splendidly sweet and filling bowl of French onion covered by a thick, vigorously tasty cheesy crouton and then, for the second time in two days, a very well cooked, moist and flavourful confit duck, more generously sized than that served at the Fuzzy Duck, and in a rich and highly toothsome sauce. This was excellent and perhaps only held back by being served with a generous helping of sauté potatoes when I rather would have preferred fewer potatoes and some other vegetable to give more contrast to the dish. Nevertheless it was very good. The Stratford Bistro du Vin serves some very good dishes and I especially enjoy the robust, rustic and filling Gallic-style dishes it has on its menu.

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛🌛.

31 July 2025.

  The HdV dinner preceded a trip covering the short distance to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre where a fabulous production of one of the three plays I have never before seen, The Winters Tale, certainly did not give me any indigestion though, the production being so powerful and at times very dark, a stiff post-theatre drink seemed a necessity.

  Finally, during a long walk around Stratford town and along the river bank I spotted two interesting sights relevant to Stratford’s dining out history. Firstly, I espied the ‘floating restaurant’ The Countess which chugs up and down the Avon serving lunch, afternoon tea and dinner. While this is not particularly notable it’s worth noting that in 1978 and 1979 another Stratford floating restaurant, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, was included in the Michelin Guide. 

  Further along the river, by the bridge near the theatre, can be found the site of the former Boathouse restaurant and this too was once included in the Michelin Guide in the 1998 to 2000 editions.

  There was also a sad sign of the times - a notice in the window of the Stratford upon Avon branch of Pizza Express announcing that the dining establishment is to close on 2 August. There are now many empty shops in the town and many of them former restaurants and cafes. There are directly caused by the Labour government’s raised taxes for businesses and aggressive raising of the minimum wage which are wreaking havoc with the hospitality industry which continues to also be hit ever rising food prices. Stratford is now a shadow of its former self and Starmer’s crass Labour government and the actions it is taking are playing a huge role in destroying the town and the industry. So Stratford says Ciao to another popular dining establishment. No doubt, it is not the last.