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.

263. Out And About In September.

 

  A quick roundup of recent restaurant visits and any other matters pertinent to what is happening in dining out in Birmingham and the West Midlands. Restauranteurs, chefs and their customers are currently once more victims, or potential victims, of outrageous fortune - now it is the price of gas and electricity related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the consequent effect on world commodity prices. The anguish has not been helped by the protracted Conservative Party leadership election which has paralysed government for about two months and, as soon as a new prime minister took office, the death of The Queen and the protracted  period of national mourning which has ensued. Respectable restaurants are finding it difficult to fill all their tables it seems to me and prices have soared. 

On 26 August much pleasure was derived from being present at an excellent evening of English wine tasting hosted by the almost legendary Sonal Clare, sommelier at The Wilderness and formerly general manager at Purnell’s, held on  a lovely end of summer evening of the terrace of the former home of the Nettlefold family, Winterborne House, in Edgbaston. Apart from a surprisingly off-putting bottle of Stopham Estate Bacchus which I usually enjoy, this an occasion of sheer joy.

  

  On 3 September, to Divide (previously Craft) for the first time it took on its new name. The curtains which surround each table are, in my opinion, disastrous. They give the restaurant a very gloomy and lifeless feel along with the mild anxiety, unavoidably recalling Psycho, that the curtain will be ripped open to reveal a psychopath with an intention to kill. It’s all just a little too weird and everything needs to be rethought.

 

    The menu which must be read on a phone or electronic device was satisfactory. After bread, I had the inevitable heritage tomato dish served with far too much whipped goat’s cheese and this was followed by a delicious bowl of broccoli and Stilton soup. The main course of duck was cooked very nicely and the chocolate and raspberry dessert was pleasant if rather basic. The sixth course at additional price brought with it a pleasing trio of British cheeses, quince jelly and a selection of biscuits and delightful fruit bread.

  This was a pleasing enough meal though hardly outstanding. 

🌛🌛🌛

  A return visit to Le Petit Bois in Moseley on 1 September confirmed that this is a fine little neighbourhood restaurant which will always deliver pleasure to the diner. Here’s my tweet - 

  

 

  The duck rillette was lovely and the salmon beautifully cooked with the accompanying lobster bisque vibrant and oozing flavour. The rum babas were a nice consistency but the flavour of rum was undetectable and therefore disappointing but I made up for it by having a French Colonel which is a disgraceful, highly alcoholic, utterly enjoyable self-indulgence combining a liberal helping of vodka with lemon sorbet, based on the French dish of Armagnac with apple sorbet.

🌛🌛🌛🌛 

  The following evening, 2 September 2022, a return to Adam’s. Everything about the restaurant is immaculate with the service being close to impeccable. There is just one thing which disappoints and that is the lack of luxury items on the £125 tasting menu. It was a beautifully prepared and served meal but I was disappointed that the fish course, for example brought an extremely well cooked, but to be honest, rather lowly skate to the table. These are difficult times, I appreciate, but when you are paying £125 a little feel of luxury is nice and if it can’t be done on £125 put the price up till you can. If someone’s prepared and able to pay that sort of price for a meal then a further price hike probably isn’t going to put them off. 

  It was pleasing to see the restaurant pretty well full on a Friday evening, which is after all how things should be.

  That aside, this was a delightful meal which confirmed once more that Adam’s may be the city’s leading restaurant which presents the dinner with superlative service and very fine cooking.

🌞🌞

218. The Wilderness.

  I visited The Wilderness, down that mysterious alley off Warstone Lane in the Jewellery Quarter, only very recently for lunch (see Blog 208) but it is rather good and the friend who was to accompany me that day did have to cancel because he was undergoing root canal surgery and so on the basis that you really can not have too much of a good thing and also that a man who has had root canal surgery deserves to be cheered up, I was highly delighted to be returning to eat there again so soon after my previous visit.

 

    This again was a meal of great pleasure. Previously the meal had started with three canapés - the exhilaratingly delicious shrimp doughnut and the fine celeriac mini-tart were both there but the excellent wagyu beef tartare had gravitated off the menu to reposition itself on the £125 menu. Weep not, we had ordered the wagyu special at an extra price so that little pleasure was yet to come. 

  The only disappointment was the dish of crab mousse on a bed of Yukon Gold. The crab seemed lacking in flavour particularly in comparison with the remembered dish served on my previous visit and the potato was dry and dull. 

  The cod with Iberico with an XO sauce was as grand as before and “The Carrot” 2022 looked and tasted as good as it had when we first encountered each other.

    Then came the A5 wagyu with truffled yolk and kampot pepper (photograph at head of this blog). Sublime. Such flavour. Few dishes I eat this year will be able to approach it for the gustatory delight it brought. An exceptionally fine dish.

  On my previous visit to The Wilderness the menu was quite heavy in fish but now meat was back with a vengeance. The first was ‘Lamb Caesar’ - loin, beautifully cooked, and tasty belly with an artichoke purée, a fine lamb sauce and baby gem. And then a dish with which I was happily familiar - tasty venison and an even tastier little faggot with a pomme purée and barbecued brassica. After that came ch-ch-changes, the not-a-real-banana pre-dessert, the immensely pleasurable ‘milk and honey’, as dainty and pretty as before (illustrated in Blog 208) and finally a pair ‘Hot lips’, redder than Rudolph’s nose. 

  More pleasure, then, at The Wilderness. Prices have risen significantly, swept along by the post-Pandemic effects on commodity costs, but the excellence of the food served at the restaurant can not be disputed. We must see what the French tyre people think about it all next week, not that there’s ever any logical explanation to whatever they think. On the subject of which ….

Michelin news.

  The French tyre manufacturing organisation which employs people who claim to be experts on dining out or perhaps, more accurately, ‘eating food in dining establishments’ (since it claims absurdly that judgements are made only on the quality of the food and are nothing to do with the other qualities of the restaurant), is drawing out its 2022 annual awards announcements to an extraordinary length so that it receives continuing publicity for a whole week. Not even the Oscars has come up with that idea. But the world of Michelin is very strange.

  On 11 February it announced its 2022 Bib Gourmand awards which are for those chefs who have more modest ambitions for their food but nevertheless achieve a certain excellence, the nature of which is, hopefully, more clearly defined in the minds of the Michelin Guide inspectors who descend on the dining establishment to pass judgement on it.

  In all there were 16 new Bib awards with NONE being awarded to Midlands restaurants let alone West Midlands restaurants. Naturally the rest were almost all awarded to London (5) or south east England (3) (plus 2 in East Anglia, 1 in the south-west, 2 in Scotland and 3 in Ireland) establishments. Why does anyone take these awards even vaguely seriously?

 Meanwhile the most recent Michelin inspector tweets from the West Midlands, as usual, have not been numerous and indeed only one has been posted (6 February) - not on the subject of food - which features the so-called Black Sabbath canal bridge on Broad Street in Birmingham. This of course reveals that said inspector must have been paying a visit to Andrew Sheridan’s Craft or About 8 in the nearby International Conference Centre. Sheridan, I expect, quite justifiably, is waiting with intense anticipation the announcement next week of which Birmingham and West Midlands restaurants will be receiving one of the French tyre people’s macarons. Though if the number of West Midlands Bibs awarded this year is anything to go by, I shouldn’t hold my breath.