490. Cuubo.

 

My visit for lunch in February was generally enthusiastic and I awarded it one 🌞 which is equal to a mention in the Michelin Guide which is something that happened subsequently. It’s a lovely bright place and everything that goes on there speaks the words, “Fine Dining”. Indeed Cuubo is very much a representation of fine dining eating for the first fifth of the 21st century. The dishes come out clean and elegantly poised and of course it’s all served as a tasting menu and it all looks lovely and is well cooked and presented.

  But is chef Dan Sweet living in the, admittedly recent, past? Is Tropea at the other end of Harborne, 

more at the cutting edge of quality dining in the city? Do we want more rusticity asthe second quarter of this century approaches. Perhaps we want something more aggressively down to earth - a good, man-sized dish of aubergine parmigiana rather than a rectangle of sea bream with pretty sauces and emulsions ad creams. Or perhaps we don’t. What we do want if we are sticking with fine dining and paying high prices for the artistry rather than the ingredients is precision of cooking. My dining companion and I both felt that a couple of dishes presented to us on this lunchtime visit to Cuubo were, while being good, not quite as precisely cooked as we might have wished.

  The slick front of house manager served us first with some pleasing sourdough and truffled butter and then there was a satisfying dish of reasonably tasty tomatoes with a cold tasty tomato tea which all seemed very apt for a hot summer lunchtime.

  Next there was a very pleasing pea gazpacho. This had a hint of mint and was as refreshing as I hoped it would be. A well judged dish.

   Next, chunks of crispy pork belly which were indeed beautifully crispy, very moreish, but the meat itself was a little dry and mildly cloying and, we suspected, a little overcooked. It was a tasty dish however served as it was with a bacon cream, the mild heat of chilli and chicory salad which worked well with the main element. The next dish was also very colourful but here the panfried sea bream was definitely a little over though the skin was nice and crispy. The dish included sweet dattarini tomatoes, sea herbs and nduja cream and would have been excellent save for the cooking of the fish. 

  The final savoury course was made up of three small slices of beautifully cooked chicken breast. The meat was moist and delicious and enhanced by guanciale (cured pork jowl) cream and at the risk of turning this main course into a sort of Sunday roast, nicely and simply cooked Jersey Royals and green beans were sevednalongside and much appreciated they were. I’ve noticed that guanciale is one of Dan Sweet’s more favourite ingredients and the flavour came through very nicely to add to the pleasure of the dish.

 

  The single dessert was not particularly awesome being as it was, a deconstructed Eton Mess (well, I suppose you can’t really deconstruct an Eton Mess but if you could then this is what would look like) but it was an apt dish for a hot day and the accompanying raspberry sorbet was toothsome enough.

  We came away agreeing that it had been a “nice meal but not a great one”.

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛🌛.

26 June 2025.

459. Cuubo.

 

  Every time I visit Harborne, it seems to rain - quite heavily. But now, for once, the sky was clear, the sun was bright and the weather dry albeit it had a mild nip in the air. The High Street was busy as I wandered the length of it from the location of the excellent Tropea just around the corner on Lordswood Road, past the shops peppered as they were with rather more food establishments than one might expect or consider to be viable and down, past Michelin-listed Harborne Kitchen, past the post office (well, WH Smith really) and the location of the former Michelin starred Turner’s, where fine fare was served and Richard Turner would come out from the kitchen to glare at his customers and where Ben Tesh worked for a while as he advanced his career towards opening Folium, now a restaurant called Barsana, apparently a vegetarian restaurant with, I deduce from the name, a south Asian element to it,. Not much further on I arrived at my destination- Cuubo which I had visited previously in May 2024 (see Blog 403).

  I have mused before on the nature of the inner to middle city suburbs which are homes to some of Birmingham’s finer restaurants. They all tend to have, somehow or the other, added the word ‘Village’ to their name - Edgbaston Village, Moseley Village, Stirchley Village and, in this case, Harborne Village. 

  Anyone visiting any of these places who does not know them and who is expecting a village green whereon the gentle sound of leather on willow can be heard on Sunday summer afternoons and with a pond where dabbling ducks dream away lazy days or where friendly yokels misdirect American tourists asking the way to the local church, will be sorely disappointed. These are suburbs of an industrial city. They are not all that pretty (perhaps we might admit that Edgbaston’s fine Georgian architecture makes it the exception) and certainly not chocolate box twee as the suffix of ‘Village’ might imply. Harborne has mostly uninteresting architecture from the various eras of Birmingham’s boom and subsequent decline but it has a fair degree of wealth, populated as it is by a largely comfortably-off middle class with spending power which can keep a large number of fine and less fine restaurants afloat at these difficult times when the Starmer government has shocked restaurateurs by not only not lightening their loads but adding to them.

  When I last visited Cuubo (for lunch) it was full - there was not an empty table in the house - of well off-looking elderly locals, moderately damp from the downpour going on outside the steamed up windows,. On this my latest visit there was just me. And no-one else. At least for a couple of hours, until just before I departed - a couple who had been delayed at a hospital appointment  which says everything about the nation’s problems and there should also have been some ‘ladies who lunch’ who had cancelled at the last minute because one of them had had to stay at home to look after the children who could not go to school because “they had come down with something”. This also says much about the state of the country.

  Regardless, my solitary presence was welcomed most professionally on arrival and I was given the choice of all the tables in the restaurant. I chose to sit by the window in the brightness of the lunchtime sun and, though I had preordered the three course à la carte lunch menu, I opted instead for the six course Tasting menu and this, perhaps not surprisingly because of the lack of pressure of work that lunchtime, did not pose a problem for the kitchen.

  The meal started with a savoury beignet which was nicely textured though somewhat unremarkable as regards flavour and this was accompanied by a pleasing slice of sourdough with butter. 

  Then the starter of a beetroot salad in with buttermilk foam and cucumber sauce. The cucumber brought a freshness to it all and the salad was made exceptionally tasty with surprises little hits of horseradish and slivers of fennel. Winter was banished, the sun outside shone even brighter and I was already pleased that I had taken the trouble to head for Hungry Harborne, as it was once known by those more humble Brummies who were amused by the pretensions of Victorian and early 20th century Britain. I suppose Harborne has had the last word - certainly it should not be hungry now.

   One of the reasons I had opted for the Tasting Menu was to ensure I could have both the Beetroot salad and the onion soup and I judged it to be a wise decision- the soup was creamy and thick - none of your French onion soup here - it was just sweet enough and instead of a large cheesy crouton, toasted sourdough  crumbs were scattered over the soup which gave a clever, crispy texture to it. Not bad at all. 

  Then came the quite famous Portland crab risotto - this was the dish that the newspaper food critic, Jay Rayner, one of those socialists who likes to live well - had complained about in his otherwise gushing review of Cuubo soon after it opened, claiming that the main problem with it was that the flavour of crab was somewhat undetectable. I visited Cuubo about that time and had to agree that he had a point. Well, there’s no doubt that chef Dan Sweet has certainly now taken notice - the flavour of crab on this visit was very assertive, as one would wish, I enjoyed the texture of the risotto and the little fragments of cauliflower in it gave a perfect texture - little islands of crunch - and the samphire was perfectly tender and I was no longer in an unattractive Birmingham suburb but by the sea with the dog rushing up and down chasing the ball I was throwing for her. Well done, Chef!

  And so, to the main event. Unctious, tender braised beef was served with a tasty beef sauce, lovely creamy potato purée, maitake which was cooked to give a slight, pleasing crispiness to its edge - a delighful texture, a mushroom purée, tenderly cooked kale leaves and nasturtium.

  The dessert was perhaps the weakest course, being rather an eclectic hotchpotch of unlikely elements. It was basically a rather fine vanilla ice cream served with shards of peanut britttle which was a little too bitter for me in this context, the interesting flavour of candied celery strips which I enjoyed, little cubes of nicely textured rhubarb and, as far I could make out, the absence of rhubarb Bavarois which was in the description on the menu. At least it looked pretty.

  I like Cuubo. It reminds me of Folium, one of our finest restaurants in the city. I was pleased to hear that the restaurant had plenty of future bookings and was looking forward to a bumper St Valentine’s Day in a few days’ time. I had, it seemed, chosen a quiet day to lunch there. Restaurants have such days and we used to say that about Tuesdays and then Wednesdays and now, it seems, about Thursdays. Of course, as I made my reservation at short notice I might never have been dining at Cuubo if things had been busier there that day. I was pleased for my sake that I had made my reservation and dined as I have described.

Rating:- 🌞 

6 February 2025.

403. Cuubo.

 

  On 24 June 2021, as the storm of the COVID-19 pandemic which had raged around both diners and those who served them in the hospitality industry, had at last settled and tentative bright sunlight was once more beginning to peep through the clouds of national anxiety, a young chef, Dan Sweet, who had trained at Birmingham’s University College and subsequently worked for more than three years at Simpsons, where so many careers have taken off to subsequent success, opened a fine dining-style ‘take away’-style establishment in the very well-heeled suburb of Harborne called Qbox. 

The interior of Qbox

  This proved to be very successful - Dan had wisely chosen the right location and the right audience, those who wanted to go to his culinary theatre as well as being able to afford to buy a metaphorical ticket for it, though, in truth, his food was very fairly priced. By 2023, the pandemic being largely forgotten except as something else to blame the government for, Sweet crowdfunded enough money to enable him to equip a full kitchen and dining room, titled Cuubo. 

  Soon after opening, he was blessed by a visit from a god descending from Olympus  - the socialist restaurant critic Jay Rayner of The Observer - who pronounced that Cuubo was “as exciting a new restaurant as” he had “encountered in a long while” although he had reservations about the crab risotto “Just to prove my critical faculties didn’t completely desert me”. Mildly for him, he stated, “there was a crab risotto that didn’t taste especially of crab” (a fault I find that happens with crab dishes far too often in even expensive and ‘fine’ restaurants. Chefs, use crab in a dish at your peril).

  Thus, trailing in the wake of the good food-loving, fine dining, socialist restaurant critic from the rarified and excruciatingly expensive culinary atmosphere of The Smoke (though to give Rayner his due, he does gird up his loins more often than most others to haul himself to the provinces and notably to Birmingham to report on our fine new restaurants (doubtless he’s champing at the bit to get to Rabbit in Stirchley) and indeed, now close to two decades ago, reported on Glynn Purnell’s first voyage into gastronomic distinction, Jessica’s (ahead of Matthew Fort by a head)), I myself found myself in a rainy Harborne High Street festooned as it is with a near excess of dining and coffee-imbibing establishments and wondering if it always rained in Harborne. The reservation, please note, had been made some time before our well-fed Olympian socialist writer had reported on his visit there.

  But enough of food critics, it’s the food that counts. The restaurant definitely looked smaller on the outside than it did on the inside - a reverse TARDIS effect - and while it’s true that it is quite small, it’s comfortable and the tables are not uncomfortably on top of each other. I had booked lunch for 1PM and the place was full as I arrived - populated mainly by elderly diners taking advantage of a three course lunch for £40. The restaurant was decorated brightly and anonymously, which in itself was not unwelcome as it conveyed newness and freshness and a canvass yet to be fully realised. The two front of house staff knew what they were doing, were appropriately friendly and were not at all perturbed by me changing my prebooked request for the lunch menu to the 7 course tasting menu (£75) although providing the premeal snacks was a problem which bothered me not at all since I was responsible for the last minute changes of heart.

  I was pleasingly sat by the pass and was able to watch Chef and his young sous chef going about their work calmly and smartly. And what a pleasure it all was.i was served some good sourdough bread and then was launched into the menu proper with a fresh, well flavoured dish of tasty heritage tomatoes served on sourdough. Summer was bursting out all over ignoring the ongoing onslaught of rain outside in Hungry Harborne. The dish reminded me that many of the dishes were to nod in the direction of Chef’s partial Italian heritage and the wines, well chosen, were also mainly Italian.

  Then a plate of very well cooked pork belly with crispy skin and mostly melted fat with smooth bacon cream split with nduja oil and accompanied by a fennel salad though it has to be said that the flavour of the fennel was a little too subtle. Pork belly does not rank highly in my list of favourite meat ingredients but this dish was considerably more enjoyable than most pork belly dishes I have been served elsewhere.

  Next, the crab risotto which had disappointed Zeus during his descent from Olympus and it has to be said that the old lightning hurler had a point - the flavour of crab was not as discernible as one would have hoped but the texture of the rice was spot on and the wafer thin slices of cauliflower gave texture to the dish. Still, crab should have been the centrepiece and, as Rayner wrote, it really was not.

 Next the main course - a fine, meaty, plump piece of very nicely cooked chicken with broccoletti (or friarelli) and a supreme sauce and a delicious little pile of mild wild garlic purée and a sliver of Iberico capping the chicken. An excellent dish.

  As an avoider of desserts, I was delighted with the charming vanilla and basil mille feuille paired with a blisteringly tasty strawberry sorbet. Given that Dan Sweet had spent three years between 2013 and 2016 at Birmingham’s University College working on a Diploma of Education in Baking and Pastry Arts and had been a baker and pastry chef it is little wonder perhaps that he was turning out a very admirable dessert.

  So, a very enjoyable lunch in Harborne at Cuubo. I shall have no hesitation in returning. Perhaps I will bump into another member of the Pantheon down from Olympus to see what wonders Dan Sweet is cooking up.

Rating:- 🌞.

392. Comings And Goings.

 

  In a tweet posted on 6 April Glynn Purnell confirmed that he had appointed two new Head Chefs at Purnell’s - the diarchy of Sam Luck and Tom Blakemore, two old stagers at the restaurant, who had worked as a duumvirate since the departure of former Head Chef, Luke Butcher at the end of December 2023.

The triumvirate at Purnell’s or is it a duumvirate?

  Exciting times for the Old Bloke as Dining Out In Birmingham & The West Midlands Then, Now & Next went to the printers yesterday. The book has over 220 pages detailing the relevant history of dining out which brought us to where we are now as diners in Birmingham and the wider area. 

  There’s everything from the Guild of the Holy Cross to Riverine Rabbit with stop offs in the age of Taverns, the French Revolution, the rise of the Clubs, the Escoffier Scandal at The Savoy, Hotel dining in the 19th and 20th centuries, the First and Second World Wars with the era of rationing and Attlee’s Age of Austerity, the rise of fast food, Elizabeth David’s promotion of Mediterranean food and Jane Grigson’s English food fightback, the rise of the modern Michelin Guide, the coming of nouvelle cuisine, gastronomy, gastropubs, food festivals, immigrant cuisine, the birth of Balti, the growing influence of television on dining out, the rise of fine dining in Birmingham and the golden age of Second City Dining as the city is glittered with Michelin stars, the COVID-pandemic and the energy crisis. Everything you need to know about how we got to how we dine out now round these parts.

  A review at the weekend in The Observer by Jay Rayner of the recently opened Cuubo in Harborne has gained a lot of local press attention.

 The twenty seater restaurant was opened in April 2024 by chef Dan Sweet who had previously served ‘fine dining’ takeaway meals from the same shop which was then called Qbox. Rayner expressed the view that the food, “bursts with huge flavours, big ideas and massive ambition” and declared that, “Dinner here was an introduction to a storming talent announcing itself to the world, one clever, delicious, well-priced dish at a time”. Rayner can be very florid in his praise, or otherwise, of a dining establishment and when he’s keen on somewhere, he’s very keen on that place but I have been meaning to make a reservation for Cuubo and Rayner’s molten enthusiasm for Dan Sweet’s cuisine spurred me on to negotiate the irritating reservation site and grab me a place in Cuubo for lunch in the near future.

Photograph of Dan Sweet from Birmingham Live:-

  The West Midlands dining out scene is certainly lively at present and contributing to all the activity is the news that the former Pensons at the Netherwood Estate at Tenbury Wells will reopen as Native at Pensons with Ivan Tisdall-Downes, described as an ethical chef, the new Head Chef partnered with Imogen Davis, whom he met while studying in Brighton. Tisdall-Downes was born in London and after starting off serving street food and staging pop-ups, opened Native with Davis at Neal’s Yard in Covent Garden and then moved to Borough Market and eventually worked at Brown’s in Mayfair.

  The emphasis of the food to be served at Native at Pensons will be a “sustainable, ultra-seasonal menu” and as we might expect will involve a lot of foraging and, less predictably, ‘street food’. Tisdall-Downes is described as having a signature dish of ‘wood pigeon kebab’ which may or may not be appealing depending on one’s taste for the bird. He appeared as a contestant in the 15th season of The Great British Menu.

Ivan Tisdall-Downes

  Finally, it has been announced as shown by this article in The Caterer, that Adam Bateman has left his post of Executive Chef at the Grand Hotel. Whether or not this will lead to a change in direction of the food served in Isaac’s restaurant remains to be seen. I have never felt that the New York-style cuisine really suited the place. It also really needed to raise its game in what was served given the price charged for food there. I wait to see who will be appointed to take over from Bateman.