256. Café De Paris by Didier.

  The dog and I have committed ourselves to touring the West Midlands in easy bite-sized journeys. Over the decades I’ve experienced the horrors of international travel to 115 countries, visited some wonderful places, stayed in some remarkable hotels and dined rather well but on the other hand I have also endured trips to pretty awful spots on this globe, stayed in cockroach infested hotels, been offered food to eat that the dog would most assuredly have turned her nose up at, been in a city where a coup was taking place, been in Kuwait just before the Iraqi invasion, been given rides in lorries along roads on sheer cliff faces where the road has been half washed away, been close to being arrested in Eritrea for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, stuck in Athens for days on end when I needed to get home because of that wretched Icelandic volcano … the list goes on. Frankly I can’t do it any more. So touring the West Midlands in bite-sized chunks of journeys is just up our street. 

  And we’ve covered a lot of ground. So where to go next? Well I hadn’t been to Stourbridge for about fifty years. So Stourbridge it was. And what did I discover there quite by accident? The newly opened Café de Paris by Didier. Didier, I thought, could that be Didier Philpott whose Toque D’Or was listed by Michelin 20 years ago and who was also chef patron at Edmund’s? A quick google revealed that yes it was - it was the legendary Didier Philpott, now 44 years in the business. So there was nothing to do but reserve a table and head back to Stourbridge for dinner to see how this chef was faring in his new venture.

  Serendipity had resulted in my discovering the Café de Paris’ existence and sometimes the best things happen as a result of serendipity. Firstly there was the fun and bemusement caused by Stourbridge’s own, probably unique, rail service which involves travelling by a normal train to a station called Stourbridge Junction and then boarding a strange little one carriage train on a single track which dawdles backwards and forwards pleasantly and uneventfully to Stourbridge Town.

  And so to the restaurant. Bright, modern decor and a pleasant welcome awaited me and I rapidly settled into feeling comfortable and relaxed. Chef and his kitchen staff could be glimpsed through a large window which gave him as good a view of the diners as they got of him. The menu was simple, broadly French and appetising.

  A pleasingly fresh and crusty baton was served with butter from Netherend Farm, the origin of it being indicated by the foil paper containing it (probably best served without I’d have thought though all very honest in this era of cultured butters with various additions inserted in them). Personally I like good honest salted butter. Then the starter of Coquilles St Jacques - very spot-on cooking of the gorgeous scallops served here with pea purée and nicely salty bacon and a herb butter sauce. Rustic, less simple than it looked and enjoyable.

  For my main course I chose boudin noir - delicious blood sausage - with pork shoulder steak which was a little more chewy than I might have wanted, and caramelised apple, 3 little mounds of lovely mashed potato and excellent mustard sauce. Then, for dessert, a finally crafted tarte Parisienne with summer berries. 

  Chef came out of the kitchen and spoke to all his diners. It was interesting to talk to him about the Toque D’Or and Edmund’s and hear his thoughts about where restaurants are now.

  This was a relaxed and satisfying meal. None of the mad scramble we’ve got used to with multiple tiny dishes flying out of the kitchen, front of house staff reciting inaudibly a string of ingredients making up each course, an excess of glasses of wine ushered in as a ‘flight’. It did feel very French. And unpretentious in a well-judged sort of way. It was as though Chef had decided this was his approach, it suited him regardless of the daft madnesses of modern fine dining and if it didn’t suit a Gallic shoulder shrug was the answer. The food looked like it should do - basically it looked like food rather than a post modern piece of art. Happy recognisable flavours. I think that Didier Philpott might just be on to something with his Café de Paris.

157. Vingt Sept Noir.

   Alex Claridge and his publicist have posted notice of the reopening of The Wilderness, as this pandemic fades to a close struggling as it is in its last gasps to attack us with fresh not-very-impressive mutants or variants, now ennobled and at the same time made politically correct by giving them Ancient Greek names rather than labelling them with the names of the countries where they were first detected. The main focus of Claridge’s publicity is that the restaurant is even blacker than before and that has everything to do with decor and nothing to do with race.

  The photographs released do indeed make it all look rather, shall we say, noir, actually très noir, and there are new black chairs and we are promised new menus which we hope are not too noir. Naturally being a Claridge enthusiast ever since the days of the ants getting to the cheese tart first I am keen to sample the new menu, which I have not looked up on the website since I shall be there myself in a handful of days time and I like surprises (well most surprises at any rate). You have to have a little uncertainty in your life and a Claridge menu gives one the opportunity to have some (uncertainty that is).

K

  Which brings me on to the decor in 27 Warstone Lane over the years. That of course is the current location of The Wilderness in the Jewellery Quarter and has been for rather longer than Alex Claridge originally intended. This building has a peculiarly interesting part to play in the gastronomic history of Birmingham. From 1997 to 2000, No. 27 was the home of Restaurant Gilmore where chef/proprietor Paul Gilmore won a Bib Gourmand in the Michelin Guide Great Britain and Ireland editions 1998 to 2001. He moved on from Birmingham to open the Restaurant Gilmore at Strine’s Farm in Beamhurst near Uttoxeter in November 2003. In 2015 he became Chef/Proprietor at The Wheatsheaf at Stone near Stoke on Trent and is now the sous Performance and Nutrition Chef at Wolverhampton Wanderers FC training ground.

Paul Gilmore

  When Restaurant Gilmore closed, No 27 Warstone Lane then became home to La Toque D’Or from 2001 to 2006. Chef/Proprietor Didier Philpott ensured that the building continued to be the location of a Bib Gourmand holding the accolade in the 2003 to 2006 editions of the Michelin Guide.

  After the closure of LaToque D’Or, the building then became home to a Nepalese-style restaurant and afterwards one serving Caribbean-style food. I do not know the names of either.

  Two Cats Kitchen was opened by Chef/Proprietor Niki Astley in 27 Warstone Lane in July 2015. He labelled his cooking style as being ‘New Baltic cuisine’ reflecting the then trend for Scandinavian cuisine and tying it to the nationality of his partner Diana Fjordarova who is Latvian. He had previously operated a series of ‘pop-up restaurants’ which was also then a fashion for chefs waiting to establish themselves in their own restaurants, the ‘pop ups’ being titled Two Cats Roaming. He said that he intended to “shed light on Baltic-Russian cuisine by recognising traditional dishes and attempting new ones”. Such dishes included ‘Beetroot and buttermilk gazpacho’ and a dessert of celeriac ice cream, pears, birch biscuit and verbena. In March 2017 Astley announced that the food he was serving was “too niche” although the restaurant had received recognition by Michelin and thenceforth the food served in Two Cats would represent ‘a wider culinary exploration’ but the restaurant finally closed on 30 September 2017, Astley attributing the closure to “volatile trading conditions”.

Niki Astley

The interior of no 27 as Two Cats.

  It is to be argued that the interior of no 27, with its stained glass windows and attractive tiled floor is really too pretty to be converted into a blackout shelter but a restaurant is what the chef and restaurateur are and we may prefer one look or another but no 27 is a fine old industrial building which has seen many changes in its life and Claridge’s desire for darkness is just another stage in its existence which has seen it home to four Michelin-listed restaurants in recent years.

  After the closure of Two Cats, it was announced that no 27 would be home to a restaurant to be titled Grit, in itself not an entirely appealing name when applied to a restaurant. The restaurant was to have retained its links with Niki Astley and the chef there was to have been Graeme Jackson, a Canadian who had worked at Two Cats with Astley, alongside Isadora Gavilet who had worked for a time at Adam’s. However the proposed restaurant never opened and no 27 Warstone Lane found itself home to The Wilderness in March 2018. Claridge had intended it as a temporary home for his restaurant pending the completion of work on his proposed new restaurant in Bennett’s Hill but he decided to open Nocturnal Animals there instead before closing it and recommencing  work on it to relocate The Wilderness. This work was affected by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and so, for the present at least, no 27 remains home to The Wilderness. And its blackness.

81. Great British Menu To Return Fronted By A Comedian.

 It was announced recently that BBC2’s annual Great British Menu will return to our television screens this spring for its fifteenth series with some changes made to it. For the first time the programme will be hosted - by the comedian Susan Calman  - which will inject a piece of downmarket triteness (and somewhere no doubt inclusivity with which the BBC is currently obsessed) not previously witnessed in the history of GBM.
  The already rather stretched competitors will also now be expected to deliver 6 courses with an amuse bouche and a pre-dessert being added to the list of their labours. I assume that this gives 6 chefs the chance to present a dish at the final Banquet which this year has a children’s literature theme. Well, that is probably appropriate. Sometimes one wonders if fine dining really is something like a Mad Hatter’s tea party and it’s true that the BBC really is the nearest thing that we British have to a modern-day Wonderland

Andy Waters

  One question I recently realised that I needed to ask myself was “what happened to Andy Waters?”.
  Andy Waters had had links with Birmingham and the West Midlands for a long time. He started work as a commis chef at Chewton Glen in Hampshire and then came to Birmingham to work at The Plough and Harrow in Edgbaston for 8 years. Subsequently he worked under Paul Bocuse in Lyon in France and then returned to the West Midlands to work at Simpsons when it was situated in Kenilworth and where he was working with Glynn Purnell and Luke Tipping and then opened his own restaurant, Edmund’s (named after his late father who had died tragically at the age of 32), firstly in Henley in Arden in 2002 and later, in 2009, moving it to Brindley Place in Birmingham city centre. He also opened a restaurant at The Queen’s in Belbroughton in Worcestershire.
  Waters sold Edmund’s in 2012 - it became Edmunds Bistro de Luxe with Didier Philpott as Head Chef (he had been Head Chef at his own Toque D’Or in the building in the Jewellery Quarter that was subsequently to become the present home to Alex Claridge’s The Wilderness) - and opened a new restaurant, Waters On The Square, at Five Ways in 2012. However he closed this in 2014 after being approached by Genting Group to become Head Chef in a restaurant it was opening at Resort World at the National Exhibition Centre near Birmingham Airport. The new restaurant was named Andy Waters. Waters ended his association with the restaurant in November 2018 and Aaron Darnley became the new Head Chef there, the restaurant’s name being changed to Sky By Waters.

Didier Philpott at the renamed Edmund’s Bistro de Luxe

 Andy Waters took up the post of Head Chef at Pebble Beach restaurant in Barton on Sea in Hampshire in October 2019 where his menu features modern British dishes.

19. Folium Opens, Wilderness Wanders, Edmund's Closes And Turner On The Move.

  Dining out in Birmingham has been very interesting in the last few months. 

  Folium opened in Caroline Street. I've had two excellent lunches there so far. Ben Tesh is producing some wonderful food and the place is bright and modern and comfortable.

  What a pleasure indeed was the salt marsh lamb. A fine start to Folium in its Jewellery Quarter home.

  A little further into the Jewellery Quarter a surprise temporary home for The Wilderness. With work on its new Bennett's Hill home delayed, Alex Claridge is cooking in the previous location, down an alley in Warstone Lane, of Two Cats and, more historically, The Toque D'Or. The all-black decor follows the rule that less is more and Claridge's whimsies are no worse showcased in this perhaps slightly claustrophobic environment than anywhere else. Claridge' food is magnificent and full of humour. His Big Mac appetiser does to steak tartare what it has always been asking for. His lamb (charcoal, cucumber) is perfect and his 'Quail, Tamarind' (NAFB - the waitress will tell you what it stands for - not only is Claridge a gastronomic genius but also one of Britain's great comedians) gives us one of the most memorable 'curries' ever served up in Birmingham. Notably, all tables were taken at a mid-week lunchtime.

  Perhaps The Jewellery Quarter is the new Ludlow.

  Having mentioned the Toque D'Or there comes the sad news that Didier Philpott's later restaurant, Edmund's in Brinkley Place, closed suddenly and is to be reopened as Maribel where the Head Chef will be, of all people, Richard Turner, who closed his own Turner's At 69 shockingly suddenly in January this year. I liked Edmund's though it's fate always seemed sealed by how few people were lunching there whenever I went. Philpott's cooking gave us perfectly fine and accurate French cuisine better than that served at the persistently 2 Michelin star Champignon Sauvage in Cheltenham and I shall miss it.

  Turner of course went through revisions of his menus at Turner's eventually ditching his multi-course tasting menus for a return to the pleasures of a la carte. Now an article in the Birmingham Post tells us that Turner will be presenting an 11 course tasting menu at a cost of £85 in Maribel but that there will also be a three-course a la carte menu which in my view is a relief.

  Finally The Post tells us that Aktar Islam, his days at Lasan numbered, is planning 2 new restaurants in the coming months - the Opheem in Summer Row which will feature 'progressive Indian cuisine' and  also in Summer Row will be the Mi Amore Ristorante Pizzaria to open in May. Oh good, another Italian-style restaurant - as Claridge would say, "NAFP", the last initial standing for 'pizza'.