526. Wilderness Tenth Anniversary Dinner.

  The Wilderness has been located down a side alley off Warstone Lane in the Jewellery Quarter for longer than was ever intended. After its move there, an old former factory and previous home to Two Cats, Big Nanny’s Jamaican Kitchen, Choolo, Toque D’Or and Restaurant Gilmore which first opened in 1997, Alex Claridge had planned to make it a temporary site for his dining establishment before moving it after a short period to somewhere more permanent. Plans fell through and The Wilderness settled in to its present site very comfortably. The restaurant had been born under another name - Nomad - on 15 November 2025 at the Urban Coffee Co. in 1 Dudley Street, close to New Street Station but was necessarily renamed as The Wilderness shortly after opening in April 2016  because of the extraordinary pressure put on Alex by a New York hotel, NoMad, which threatened to take legal action because it claimed that Claridge had taken on the hotel’s name which of course was pure nonsense.

  Right from the word ‘go’, The Wilderness caught the local press’ attention with some of the ingredients used in some of his dishes - ants, for instance, in place of citric fruits because Claridge wished to source hyper-locally and ants were readily available while lemons were not a recognised feature of West Midlands agriculture - it all got rather farcical when a friend I was dining with there asked for some lemon with his glass of tonic and was offered the only source of citrus at hand - ants - which he politely declined. Despite this extreme idiosyncrasy, now long an eccentricity of the past, the food that Claridge was serving in Dudley Street was remarkably good and a sublime lamb dish I had there remains forever in my memory.

  And so, just before Christmas 2025, I wandered through the vaguely festive streets of the Jewellery Quarter in the direction of the alley in Warstone Lane. The welcome was warm and the kitchen alight with activity. This was The Wilderness’ 10th birthday dinner and a worthy celebration it was. The theme of the dinner was old favourites reimagined and there was a surprise in the kitchen with Jonny Mills working there while he waits for his own Sāēl to be open for business. This was a tasting menu costing £150 but rather oddly called Requiem, though unusual and vaguely morbid names never come as a surprise from Alex Claridge. So Requiem it was and the meal began.

Menu signed by Ediz Engin and Alex Claridge

  Firstly, two pleasing amuses bouches - as often at The Wilderness, a croustade and a tartlet. And then Claridge’s Big Mac, a fine beef tartare dating back, according to the menu, to 2019, and delivered by Jonny Mills. Then another ever evolving Wilderness dish, the Carrot 2025, which originated in its first primitive form in 2015 and I presume, may well have been served when The Wilderness was still Nomad and also harked back to when Alex had been a chef until 2013 at the now long closed vegetarian restaurant, the Warehouse Cafe in Digbeth where I remember eating a languid and somewhat glum pak choi (I would be sure that anything so dreary had not been cooked by Alex) and resolved to loath the useless vegetable for the rest of my life. Alex had then moved on to be Development Chef at another vegetarian dining establishment, Bistro 1847 in the Great Western Arcade, before starting to do pop ups of his own food at the Kitchen Garden Cafe in Kings Heath. Presumably by the time Carrot 2015 made its first appearance, Alex had worked out just the right thing to do with a carrot.

  Then came a brilliant dish - witty, hilarious, original, delicious - Trout - Truffle - inspired by the 2016 dish, Trout & Soil. Overlying a piece of finely prepared trout lying on a bed of truffle was a pastry fish one which gave a dish of trout some great visual characterisation and on it, more truffle. This was a highlight dish of 2025.

  Next some very nicely cooked quail with a brilliantly tasty crab curry sauce. This was based on the dish NAFB which dated back to 2018 and afterwards a piece of venison as I like it - a nice pink slice with  a wholly agreeable bite to it - paired with plum and beetroot and based on Alex’s 2015 Venison and beetroot. This worked very well and shows that despite years of cooking vegetarian food by the time 2025 came around he was already a master of meat and the precise matching of ingredients.

  Next there was a small but delightful version of his 2019 white chocolate banana filled with mango which, to the best of my recall, he first served at his then other restaurant, Nocturnal Animals in Bennetts Hill (what an ingenious and fantastic surprise it was when it first made an appearance) although the menu dates it to the dish Banana 2023 which suggests that Tom Shepherd served a version of it first on The Great British Menu which is not correct. This remained a clever, meticulously prepared and delicious item to boost anyone’s spirits, even Alex’s.

  We were in the home straight. The predessert was titled sorrel and jalapeño ”cheesecake”, inspired by Claridge’s White chocolate and wasabi from 2017. The hit of heat from the jalapeño was fun though I think the description of a cheesecake even in quotes was stretching things a bit - it mildly scruffy and removed from Claridge’s usual meticulously arranged plates. But we went on and arrived at the dessert proper of Chocolate-cherry-cep inspired by the 2016 Cherry and mushroom.

This was a reflection of a former more radical Alex Claridge and was very edible though very filling and it took some to get to the end of it but the process of ingesting had been very pleasurable.

  I took my petit fours home with me, bid my Christmas farewells and happy new years and, of course, happy birthdays, enubered and was whisked home while I wondered what Alex Claridge would be presenting us with in the next 10 years.

Rating:- 🌞🌞

20 December 2025.

  Meanwhile the faces in the kitchens of Birmingham’s fine restaurants continue to shift around like tectonic plates. No sooner than they were first spotted in the kitchens of The Wilderness a few months ago, Messrs Lewis Perks, the talented pastry chef, Jordan Johnson and Evan Holliday, all late of Simpsons where the latter two were working when they appeared on Masterchef The Professionals and before they worked at Claridge’s restaurant, are now to be found working at The Fountain gastropub in Clent. That should be interesting.

Perks, Holliday and Johnson at The Fountain.

  Meanwhile at Simpsons, where a friend dines regularly, I am told by him that the restaurant manager, Steve Locklin, has now left his post there after about a year and we have already reported that the sommelier, Thomas Moore, has moved from Simpsons to Glynn Purnell’s new glitzy restaurant in Snowhill, Trillium. All of this makes it more difficult for Luke Tipping to deliver the high standard of food we have come to expect at Simpsons in recent years. Presumably many of these departures are linked to the proposed sale of Simpsons which so far does not seem to have advanced to any degree. But for now, at least, Luke Tipping ploughs on and Simpsons remains.

508. The Wilderness Does Turkish.

 

 If you are a restaurateur, it makes sense to make the most of the particular skills of your Head Chef and if your Head Chef was brought up in Turkey on Turkish food and, furthermore, can produce the most remarkable Turkish dishes this side of Istanbul, it is thoroughly sensible to give your Head Chef his head and let him unleash his own personal cuisine in his own personal style on to your loyal and admiring diners.

  This is precisely what Alex Claridge did and the result was an evening at The Wilderness with a difference - a veritable banquet of authentic Turkish cuisine that charmed and comforted in equal measures. Head Chef Ediz Engin delivered a bountiful series of delightful dishes that were often thrilling and which could certainly be unleashed from time to time on the The Wilderness crowd.

  First there was Turkish Mezze - a collection of toothsome ‘small plates’ which included a remarkable sesame bagel (simit) - supremely well-textured bread enhanced by the flavour of sesame - quite the best bagel I can remember being served and the perfect agent for mopping up the various dips tgat arrived with it - atom, a pleasingly spicy yogurt and chilli dip, a ‘carrot tartare’ which seemed to be a dish of sweetly and mildly pickled julienne of carrot and onions set alight, interestingly, by the chopped chives which sat on top, and Lakerda, a lovely piece of mildly-flavoured mackeral served to good effect with taramasalata.

  The highlight came early in the performance - midye dolma - tasty mussels with an espuma riven through exquisitely with lemon and all spice. This was so delicious Inwould include in my list of best dishes of the year.

  Then, a generous portion of excellent flatbread, nicely smoky flavoured from the barbecue and topped by a reasonable ‘shepherd’s salad’ enriched and raised several levels by the sweetness of pomegranate seeds.

 Then, a Turkish mixed grill of barbecued quail and lamb which were both very accurately cooked. This dish included pieces of lavas bread as well as hummus and baba ganoush and this ‘daddy’ certainly felt pampered at the end of it (tip - Google the meaning of baba ganoush). Many love quail and I see why but it always seems to me that there is so little meat on it that it is hardly worth killing the poor little bird. I would have been more than content with the excellent lamb alone but we must take these opportunities to try these various elements when those opportunities arise. I loved the tender, mildly hot green pepper garnish.

  The dessert was simple and fabulous - a glorious rice pudding of the utmost deliciousness served with a brown butter ice cream and fig and raisins to give an added mouth cleansing sweetness. There followed, a suitably Middle Eastern-flavoured pate de fruits and the feast was done. And what a feast.

Rating:- 🌞🌞🌞 

17 September 2025.

504. The Wilderness New Menu.

  As ever, there are changes at The Wilderness. Marius Gedminas has left his role as Head Chef to do some travelling with Turkish-born Ediz Engin leading a new young team, some of whom, I’m sure, will acknowledge Simpsons as their Alma Mater - including recent Masterchef The Professionals contestants, Evan Holliday and Jordan Johnson (see Blog 496) and soon another big change will be announced which will stun and shock. Despite all this, I was visiting the restaurant again because there was a new Control menu (the menu has a new splendidly gothic TW at the top of it) to try out and the chance of a new 6 course meal which is quite enough for me and it is very well priced at £65.

  This was an excellent lunch with Ediz Engin in charge of the kitchen apart from one course which really didn’t do it for me. My dining companion had no reservations at all. We both agreed, as we have many times before, that if this food were being served in a London that restaurant would certainly have a Michelin star.

  We started with a charming croustade, with good crispy pastry. How Indo like my amuses gueulesand then enjoyed

  We found the Raw course of flamed Cornish mackeral to be lovely, the mackerel’s flavour was restrained and for me all the better for being so and it felt all very summery with the scattering of peas and the soothing buttermilk. Then the vegetable course - Greens - which was something of a misnomer as the principle element of the dish’s colour palate was the crimson, where ruby meets amethyst, of beetroot bathed in a joyous ajo blanco, the subtle almond calming the beetroot. A very pretty dish.

  There was a choice of barbecued mussels in Cafe de Paris sauce served on toasted brioche or a fine - well, actually quite fabulous - plump Orkney scallop, perfectly cooked and full of flavour, served with a full bodied, delicious roe sauce and very edible seaweed. Although costing an extra £12, the pleasure the dish brought meant it was worth every extra penny.

  And so to the main course. We both chose lamb rump with anchovy, a courgette espuma and a condiment monsterously powerfully flavoured with lemon which appeared to have been installed on the wrong plate altogether and certainly seemed to me to be the worse possible match for the delicate lamb which itself was beautifully cooked but ended up being grossly assaulted by the lemon. This was a match made in Hell and not in Heaven and needs to be expelled from the menu with all due haste. Yes I know that the acidity of the lemon cuts through the fattiness of lamb but there is more to lemon than acidity and no matter how many chefs may say that this is a classic pairing, I beg to differ. Alas, poor lamb. 

     We were treated to a predessert which restored pleasure to the meal in the form of a play on cheesecake and then a fine seasonally summer dessert employing strawberries, a tonka ice cream and a pretty tuile, coloured and shaped, like a strawberry.

   There’s a new fresh team at The Wilderness. Apart from the unhappy lemon condiment served with the lamb, this was a very fine meal.

Rating:-  🌞🌞

8 August 2025.

The pass at The Wilderness, Ediz Engin & Evan Holliday, August 2025

Farewell to Marius Gedminas, seen here at ADC.

Here is the Submission menu, cost £135 - 

Ediz Engin and Alex Claridge,

492. Events, Dear Boy, Events. 2025. Part 2. July To December.

 

See also Blogs 400, 416 and 452..

2 July - Hogarth’s Hotel in Dorridge where previously Rob Palmer had been planning to reopen his Toff’s restaurant from May 2024 to 26 March 2025,appoints Tom Wells who had previously worked at Harborne Kitchen for six years as Executive Chef from November 2019 having also worked as Head Chef at Turner’s in Harborne from February 2007 to May 2009.

Tom Wells

Rob Palmer

4 - 5 July - The annual Colmore Food Festival is held in Victoria Square under hot sunshine on the opening day. A large number of Colmore District hospitality businesses participate including Adam’s/The Oyster Club, Purnell’s Plates, Asha’s, Tiger Bites Pig, Dishoom, Mayan, Isaac’s and Orielle. The Oyster club serves up an excellent dish called ‘Tempura Fish and Chips’ which is a perfectly cooked deep fried kebab of five large prawns, minty pea purée and string chips. Visitors to the Festival are given a free ‘Colmore Cook Book’.

Oyster Club’s Tempura ‘Fish and chips’.

11 July - Alex Claridge reveals some of his new dishes for The Wilderness in an event called Bâtard where former Masterchef The Professionals competitors, Evan Holliday and Jordan Johnson, who had previously worked at Simpsons make their first appearance in The Wilderness’ kitchen, thus joining Simpsons’ former pastry chef, Lewis Perks at The Wilderness. It is also revealed that Marius Gedminas has left his role as Head Chef at The Wilderness and is presently doing some travelling. The new Head Chef is Turkish-born Ediz Engin who was already employed at The Wilderness.

Evan Holliday at The Wilderness.

Evan Holliday, Jordan Johnson and Sonal Clare.

Jordan Johnson

Ediz Engin and Evan Holliday

14 July - Alex Claridge showcases the premiere of a 4 minute-long film about him and his passions at the Mockingbird Cinema in the Custard Factory in Digbeth. In a discussion afterwards he reveals that he intends to stand as a candidate in the next West Midlands Mayoral election.

15 July - Tony Parkin leaves his role as Head Chef at Opheem after less than three months in the post. He :is appointed as development chef with the Open Group (Andrew Sheridan, Sam and Emma Morgan). 

27 July - The Good Food Guide adds the Madresfield Butchers and Grill in Great Malvern to its list of recommended restaurants rating it as ‘Good’.

2 September - Sonal Clare officially announces that he has left his job at The Wilderness to become Midlands Account Manager for Möet Chandon.

12 September - The three day-long 2025 Ludlow Food Festival gets underway.

23 October - Michelin announces that the 2026 Michelin Guide reveal ceremony will be held at the Convention Centre in Dublin on Monday 9 February 2026.

24 November - The Good Food Guide adds Liam Dillon’s The Boat in Lichfield to its list of recommended restaurants. The question is, “why did it take so long?”.

26 November - Michelin adds Stuart Deeley’s The Warwick at Mallory Court in Leamington to the Guide. It is the only West Midlands restaurant to be included among a total of 24 additions for November. However, it is worth noting that Brad Carter’s new restaurant in Kings Cross, Island, has also been included in the guide.

10 December - Glynn Purnell opens his new city centre restaurant, Trillium, at Snowhill in collaboration with Phil Innes, proprietor of Loki Wines. The new Head Chef is Rob Palmer, previously Head Chef at Peel’s Restaurant at Hampton Manor and of his own Toffs in Solihull.

17 December - Michelin includes four new West Midlands restaurants in the Michelin Guide - Journey in Cheltenham (Gloucestershire, Head Chef), Moda in House of George W Davies Hotel in Broadway (Worcestershire, Head Chef James Wilson), Post in Newnham (Gloucestershire, Head Chef Fred Page) and Bastardo’s Trattoria in Shipston on Stour ((Warwickshire).