544. Folium. Aiming For A Star.

  In this city we have several restaurants which serve fine food. I put aside the rustic style and the street food type of restaurants - there are several excellent such places in the city which provide delicious and enjoyable food in their own casual styles. But I’m looking for fine food - imaginative, original, seasonal, cooked to perfection, fabulous ingredients, attractively presented but not to the point of style over substance, served in a lovely dining room, the dishes running along the menu all working with each other, drinks on offer which are knowledgable curated. I always find what I am looking for at Folium where Ben Tesh’s sublime cooking and Lucy Hanson’s immaculate service add up to a fine meal indeed.

  It was my birthday though I did not reveal that to the restaurant. But I knew that this dinner was going to be a fine and pleasing birthday gift to myself. So let’s go straight to the food.

  There was of course the irreplaceable chicken liver parfait in a burnt onion tuile. As gorgeous as ever. There was also another lovely snack in the form of a Cornish crab croustade with brown butter. This was the most spectacularly tasty crab dish, if we may call it a dish, that I can ever recall eating. The flavour was powerful and delicious and most importantly it was bursting with the flavour of crab - not every chef can present a crab dish which is so robustly crab - magnificent. There was too, thankfully, Ben Tesh’s own, immediately identifiable and exhaustingly delicious sourdough loaf with his own cultured butter. The bread an absolute peak in bread baking. An irreplaceable part of dining at Folium.

  Then a new dish. ‘Biodynamic’ noodles with lusty shitake mushrooms, the flavour enhanced by a stupendous full-bodied sauce.it seemed chef was on fire this evening. Next, white asparagus, cooked with a bite to them with a sunflower sauce. Excellent.

  Next a generously sized piece of turbot, the cooking spot on, with brassica tuiles and a powerfully flavoured kohlrabi sauce. The brassica was noticeably salty and together with the sauce made a heavy attack on the flavour of the turbot which was rendered flavourless by the accompaniments. This was a great pity and Chef was good enough to allow me to give my opinion on this dish and accept it with good grace. Really, it’s too sad to let turbot to be sunk beneath the waterline by an assault from its accompaniments.

  Balance was restored to the universe by the fabulous next course which brought with it memorably and deliciously sublime Staffordshire lamb with a remarkable lamb sauce. The gorgeous flavour of lamb was as wonderful as I can remember being served and the accompanying chicory matched its natural bitterness with a a lovely sweetness brought to it in its preparation. I wondered if a neat little slab of Dauphinoise might round it all off but the dish was superb as it was

  And the savouries were done with save that I added the cheese course which was made up of four English cheeses, nicely chosen and in good condition, and included an excellent Lincolnshire Poacher and Stinking Bishop, plus Ben’s very own split pea crackers, delicious malt loaf, cube of Brambley apple preserve jelly and green tomato chutney. The first dessert was a delightful celebration of strawberries for now is their time - finely sliced New Forest strawberry with strawberry cream and elderberry. Best described as “lovely”.

 Finally there was an enjoyable Yorkshire curd tart which was very much like a cheesecake. It had a pleasing texture and its accompanying birch syrup ice cream was interesting and enjoyable. To wind there were two mignardises - a beautifully textured bee pollen financier and a fine manjari chocolate and woodruff pleasure.

  Folium had certainly made my birthday something special and as it was a fairly quiet evening I was able to have a little conversation with them both and they signed my menu which was very kind. Ben is working hard to achieve a higher level of recognition than he has already. He’s aiming for the stars and in my opinion the food at Folium has long been deserving of one.

Rating:- 🌞🌞🌞

22 May 2026

529. Folium New Menu In 2026. Then It Snowed.

 

  Ben Tesh’s Folium remains my favourite restaurant in Birmingham. Somehow it seems like a refuge. A refuge from the madding crowd. A refuge where I feel like I am among friends and where the food served is not bettered anywhere else in Birmingham. A restaurant which is included in the Michelin Guide but which has so far been denied a macaron - a star - which says more about the Michelin inspectors than it does about Folium. Ben Tesh’s cooking is meticulous and inventive and totally consistent and Lucy Hanson’s front of house management is deceptively relaxed but as spot on as the number of knives, forks and spoons nestled in the wooden utensil holder.

  A good friend who had recently moved from the fleshpots of Birmingham (well, Four Oaks actually) to the elysium of Saffron Walden, already nostalgically panting for a good curry and a fine dining meal, had returned for a two day stay at The Grand Hotel where myself and the dog were also taking up residence for a couple of nights. His, and therefore my, timing was not good. As the day of our reunion drew near, growing threats of one of those tiresomely named storms, and then the increasingly menacing neologism of a ‘snow bomb’, featured more and more in the weather reports for Birmingham. And the snow bomb landed as we enjoyed our very fine dinner at Folium.

  New year, new Folium. Ben Tesh had changed his menu to make it somewhat more affordable - to some extent - and introduced new, interesting, even exciting, new dishes while retaining a few old friends which never fail to give the greatest pleasure.

  There was a new amuse gueule - a supremely crispy and delicious Pink Fir potato rosti with three delightful tiny blobs of smoked cod roe sitting on it. Also new was a tartlet of spot on Marie Rose acting as a little home to lobster and of course, to my great relief, retained and still there, the signature chicken liver parfait served in a burnt onion pastry which must be what is served to those chosen few who have just arrived in Heaven, having bypassed Purgatory, their earthbound gastronomic life at an end.

  And so to the starters on this new menu. Tesh’s uniquely admirable homemade sourdough with his cultured butter was served first. Again this would be what is served in Paradise on one’s arrival there. Give us this day our daily Ben Tesh sourdough bread, O Lord. Then a bowl of toothsome noodles made from biodynamic grain in a gorgeous broth prepared using aged beef fat and mushroom with nice firm textures provided by Merit mushrooms (Merit is a brand of mushroom suppliers not a species of fungus) and puffed grains with added flavour from mildly pickled shitake followed by possibly my least favourite dish (on the grounds that I do not like poached egg rather than because of any failure on chef’s part), slow cooked hen’s egg in sauerkraut beurre blanc with textures provided by pickled kohlrabi, chicken skin and a range of dehydrated winter brassicas which were rather good and made a case that in the hands of a talented chef, brassicas can indeed be something rather special.

  Next came exquisitely and excruciatingly accurately prepared smoked trout with an alluring brown crab butter and then to a dish of fine salt marsh lamb, rich with a full flavour of lamb which for a while seemed to be lost to us but which has now come bursting back in great restaurant such as Folium. This was served with a delightful lamb sauce and well cooked grilled chicory which brought with it contrasts of sweetness and bitterness to work successfully with the rich lamb. A lovely dish.

  And then, already, we had arrived at the predessert and the dessert. I rather fancied the cheese selection but my friend did not and in retrospect perhaps that was just as well as the snow started to come down in earnest and smother the city and paralysed transport and if we had dined any longer a half hour’s walk on treacherously slippery pavements would have been necessary, all Uber drivers having wisely headed for home.

  The pre- and definitive desserts brought much pleasure with them - precisely cooked Yorkshire rhubarb with preserved  cherry blossom and slow cooked cox apple with a toasted hay cream (I first encountered dishes using toasted hay at Winteringham Fields in north-east Lincolnshire where Ben Tesh once worked and he usually manages to incorporate the flavour in a dish whenever a new menu comes along) and wafers - a hit a palpable hit!

  As the snow fell, we enjoyed our mignardises, a salted caramel and seed crisp and a cep tart.We thanked Lucy for her as always wonderful service, thanked Chef for his food, thanked God that we had managed to bag ourselves a Uber and with some and sliding, made it back to the Grand Hotel in one piece.

Rating:- 🌞🌞🌞.

8 January 2026

516. Folium In Autumn.

 

  Folium remains the most peaceful haven of culinary pleasure in Birmingham. It certainly seems that way whenever I dine there. Even on a grim, dark autumn day the restaurant is full of light as the large window lets in any brightness squeezing through the dense clouds lowering over St Paul’s Square, a few yards down the road. The welcome from Lucy Hanson is relaxed and friendly, the service she gives is spot on and Ben Tesh’s food which she serves is unimpeachable. I have no doubt that if Folium were situated in London then it would have ling been awarded a Michelin star.

  On this occasion there had been tweaks to the menu. 

 

As an amuse gueule, there was now a toothsome croustade with Winterbourne trout and brown butter, a play on potted shrimps. Then, so familiar and excitedly anticipated, the spectacularly delicious homemade sourdough, so tasty and excitingly crispy on the outside, with Folium’s equally delightful cultured butter.

  The first course proper a tartare of Cornish blue fin tuna - tasty in a relaxed sort of way and very happily textured - along with shiso from Westlands in Evesham. There followed line-caught sea bream, cooked just as I like it, and a red pepper espuma with brioche, useful for mopping up the remaining sauce.

  The next course was a Folium old friend - wagyu short rib - on this occasion the texture was exactly spot on for me - with marinated chicory which gave sweetness to the bitterness of the endive. I then had the additional cheeses course which included Lincolnshire Poacher and Northern Blue. The cheeses were served in an excellent state and accompanied by Ben Tesh’s own crackers and heaven-sent fruit loaf as well as a pleasing quince jelly.

  There was a new dessert - a frozen passion fruit and marshmallow tart - very good - and then a triumph of texture - “yesterday’s sourdough” with rye caramel and the crunch of cobnut.  Afterwards the two mignardises - an old friend - the perfect pleated barley Madeleine with Cotswold whisky cream and a sweet little sunflower macaron filled with cep fudge - yet again, I use the word ‘delightful. After a nice chat with Lucy over a glass of port I headed back home, crossing St Paul’s Square, then up Newhall street and through St Philip’s churchyard where the Christmas craft market was underway with a vehicle selling Asha’s dishes at a prominent point near the cathedral.

Rating:- 🌝🌝🌝.

7 November 2025.

  But no time to stop, on through the churchyard, down Temple Street to New Street station to find, as often happens, trains delayed or cancelled. Hospitality businesses are under threat in the city centre for many reasons but having a failed public transport system which should be bringing people in from the suburbs to patronise the fine city centre restaurants does not help at all. Hopeful commuters were standing ten deep waiting on the platform for the severely late trains to arrive. If the city’s hospitality trade is to thrive then good, fast, easy access to the city centre from the suburbs is needed. But the system fails almost on a daily basis. Birmingham needs good political leadership to put it back on its feet and sort out its problems and those in power at present seem to have no idea of how get the city up and running again.

473. Folium.

 

  These are difficult times for the hospitality industry. Starmer’s government’s taxation measures have made things even worse.

   The previous Conservative governments had been more helpful to hospitality businesses than those who ran them chose to accept. In particular, when Chancellor of the Exchequer and during the COVID-19 pandemic, Rishi Sunak had introduced a scheme - furlough - whereby the government paid 80% of a worker’s salary and this greatly enabled businesses to retain their staff during the periods of lockdown thus avoiding mass unemployment and a vast number of businesses collapsing. After the lockdowns he furthmore reduced Value added tax for hospitality businesses for a twelve month period and also introduced an ‘Eat out to help out scheme’ whereby the government subsided the price of  meals when eaten out at restaurants and other dining establishments, all to stimulate the post COVID hospitality industry’s trade. 

  Nevertheless when the government necessarily returned the rate of Value added tax to its prepandemic level, many in the hospitality industry were enraged and felt the maintenance of the lower rate would continue to stimulate their businesses in the face of additional problems which included the rise in energy and commodity prices caused by the war in Ukraine. The Conservative government maintained the higher rate and many in the hospitality industry thought that by voting for a Labour government in the general election held on 4 July 2024 they would get a government more sympathetic to their plight and their wishes.

  They were to be sorely disappointed. Not only did the new Labour government maintain the VAT rate but in a budget delivered on 30 October 2024, the new Labour chancellor of the exchequer, Reeves, announced painful new measures which would add severe added crippling burdens to those trying to run businesses, including restaurateurs. 

  Far from favouring hospitality businesses, Reeves was hell bound on squeezing them through a mangle. Reeves’ measures included raising employers’ national insurance contributions by 1.2%, taking it to 15% and lowering the threshold at which it was to be paid from £9100 per annum to £5000 pa (this clearly affected the numbers of staff members restaurant owners could employ thus threatening unemployment in the industry), reduction of the business rates relief for hospitality businesses from 75% to 40% (thus increasing business costs) and raising the minimum wage from £11.41 per hour to £12.21 which again affected the costs of employing staff).

  As these changes only came into effect from 1 April, the potentially calamitous outcomes of Reeves’ budget are yet to unravel themselves and those hospitality industry figures who thought that voting Labour would be a good thing may well experience the same sort of buyer’s remorse as a diner in one of their restaurants who is served something on a tasting menu that they don’t want but which they’re paying for anyway.

  But that is only one side of the coin for potential customers who might be thinking of coming to eat at restaurants may be held back by a simmering cost of living crisis which has manifested itself under the Labour regime. Energy costs are exorbitant and raised artificially because of government measures attached to its green agenda. Transport costs, postal charges, water rates and inflation have all soared since Labour came to power and the result is that only those public sector employees to whom it has given enormous pay rises (junior doctors and train drivers to prevent them striking as well as members of Parliament of course) may be in a position to consider eating out at expensive restaurants. In short, the hospitality industry is tottering on the brink and disaster is just round the corner.

  On 27 April 2023, the then Mayor of the West Midlands, the much admired Andy Street, appointed Alex Claridge, Chef Patron of the Wilderness, to be his Nighttime Economy Advisor in a bid to have an expert in hospitality supporting the local industry in the region and advising the Mayor on how this support could be given. Claridge fitted perfectly into this role and it was particularly useful for the dining out industry to be represented at such a high regional level. Claridge tried to steer clear of party politics though he was not shy to let it be known that Sunak’s Conservative government needed to do more to support hospitality. The government was largely unresponsive to this after its years of going out of its way to see the industry through the COVID-19 crisis. 

  Street lost the Mayoral election to the Labour candidate, Parker, on 2 May 2024 and the Conservative government was heavily defeated by Labour in the general election of 4 July 2024. Those in the hospitality industry who had believed these changes of regime would lead to them receiving a more sympathetic and generous approach to their problems were soon disappraised of this illusion as the new Chancellor, Reeves, delivered her first budget which included the measures noted above and the new West Midlands Mayor revealed himself to be ineffectual and inconsequential. The region’s hospitality industry it seemed, had willingly, even enthusiastically, jumped out of the frying pan into the fire and had now to face the consequences. It has to be noted however that some of the leading chefs in the city had shown their keen support for Andy Street in the run up to the Mayoral election and not everyone in the dining out industry had any enthusiasm for a Labour government.

  And now April 2025 has arrived and the consequences of Reeves’ budget will begin to reveal themselves. Who will survive and who will go under? Or will things turn out to be not quite as bad as one would logically predict? Alex Claridge tweeted on X on 4 April 2025, “Previous Mayoral advisor on hospitality ….” Which was a somewhat opaque phrasing which can be interpreted either as he was the previous advisor or he was the advisor of the previous mayor while still occupying the post under the present Mayor, Parker. There has certainly been no resignation publicised as far as I can see but it is noteworthy that the rest of the tweet says, ”… Labour have created the worst possible environment for all the named uses below and de facto gone to war with the industries they claim to support. The dangerous net inflation of costs to create jobs means opening later is moot”. This was a response to a tweet by the Labour Deputy prime minister, Rayner, saying, “Our pubs, restaurants & live music venues are the beating heart of our cultural life, so it’s vital they’re given every chance to survive and thrive.That’s why new trial powers for London will back the capital’s pubs and clubs - boosting the nighttime economy and driving growth”. 

  Two days later, on 6 April, Alex Claridge again commented on another tweet put out by a government department featuring a video of Rayner’s comments on the nighttime economy industry and the rather underwhelming measures she was taking with the simple message, “Gaslighters”.

  Claridge had long recognised the dangers to his industry which had arisen in the previous five years and not hesitated to speak about them and now he appeared unimpressed by what the new government was doing to help it survive. Is he right to be as worried as he is?

  One of my most favourite restaurants in the city is Ben Tesh’s Folium - it could be the nicest place in Birmingham to relax and eat remarkably delightful food prepared meticulously to look beautiful and to taste perfectly delicious. On 9 April 2025, a tweet was posted saying, “A slow week this week. We would appreciate your support, as always. Thursday - Saturday dinner Friday/Saturday lunch”. Apart from the reason that Folium is such an excellent place to dine, it seemed right that I should also go there to give Ben Tesh and Lucy Hanson my support and so off I trooped to the Jewellery Quarter a couple of days later. 

  It was a bright, sunny mid-spring day,quite warm, and I was happy to walk through the doors again to be warmly greeted by Lucy and seated comfortably but I was sorry to see, and hear that I was to be the only diner that lunchtime though things were looking better that evening. I have reported on my visits several times before and having only recently visited there and the menu being unchanged from that visit, I shall not repeat myself except to say that this was another very fine meal with every dish completely unimpeachable. 

  I chose the shorter tasting menu if only because experience tells me that my digestive tract now has its limitations but I did add in the selection of cheeses which included Baron Bigod and accompanied by a crab apple jelly, home cooked crackers and a slice of Folium’s own delicious fruit bread. Such pleasures.

  As the only diner, I had the opportunity to talk to Lucy and we exchanged little items of news that we had come across since my last visit. This was very pleasant. I learned, among other things, that Aktar Islam is said to be opening a second restaurant in the Jewellery Quarter and there’s a bit of a buzz about chef Jonny Mills’ plans to open his eight-seater Sael in the GoodsYard next to the tram station in the Jewellery Quarter in the autumn. The front of house will be led by Asher Beardsmore who has worked previously at Couch in Stirchley and at Opheem where he was junior sommelier and most recently as bar manager at the Michelin Bib Gourmanded Tropea in Harborne.

Jonny Mills, his Sael is due to open at the Goods Yard in the Jewellery Quarter in the autumn.

Asher Beardsmore, soon to be in charge of front of house at Sael.

   I departed from Folium back into the bright afternoon knowing how much I had enjoyed myself and looking forward to another visit when Ben Tesh may have brought or two new dishes as I am now rather familiar with the splendid dishes he has been serving. I thought about the gloomy situation for restaurants at the moment and hoped all the great dining establishments in this city will keep going through these hard times despite what Reeves and Starmer are throwing at them at the moment. 

  As I walked through St Paul’s Square heading for Newhall Street I stopped to watch a very handsome song thrush indulging in obtaining his preferred form of fine dining - a luscious worm lurking in the soil beneath him. I wished him good luck, took a photo and moved on.

Folium rating:- 🌞🌞🌞.

11 April 2025.