549. Summer At Tropea.

 

  Push aside the ragus, and the bolognese and ossobucos, it seems to me that Italian food is really all about summer - the vegetables, the fish, the sea food, the lighter meats. And it was summer in June as a blighted first few days of June turned golden as the sun came out, the blue skies became cloudless and the god of weather turned up the temperature.

  I was in the mood for a trip to Harborne heading specifically for one of my favourite restaurants Tropea on Lordswood Road where an Italian summer seemed assured.

  A smooth and friendly - but not over the top - welcome and a suggestion that I might like to start with a Paper Plane which was either well remembered from my previous visits or information cleverly retrieved from records of bills settled up on former occasions. Regardless, I had my Paper Plane and I was all the happier for doing so. The accompanying complementary giadiniera - pickles - and olives were very pleasing - the pickles are sweet and toothsome and are a perfect hors d’oeuvres /antipasto.

  And it was a summer menu indeed. I had come with a picture in my excited mind of the lightly tempura-battered courgette flowers stuffed with goats cheese and mint and enhanced with Moor Pool honey - I was lusting for them; it was the need for them that drove me to travel to Harborne - and they fully lived up to my expectations and memories of them. My only regret was that I ordered just two of them - three of them would have been more sensible or perhaps even four and why not five ….?

  But we cannot say that the choice of another small plate was an unwise one - the pasta - I had the fabulous lobster cappelletti, the excellent pasta filled with tasty chunks of the fine crustacean and served with a delicious lobster and Datterini tomato sauce and dressed with Arënkha caviar (smoked herring roe in the firm of small black pearls currently popular among restaurateurs and a cheap alternative to the real stuff), This was an excellent dish, faux-caviar or not.

  Naturally I could not resist indulging myself in the Tropea aubergine parmigiana which was as good as ever though naturally the portion is rather too large for an old bloke though I made a good fist of it and no-one could have asked more of me. I also splashed out on a very healthily sized plate of barbecued Wye Valley asparagus with a lemon dressing, a good sprinkling of pecorino and pangrattato on top to give that  little extra peasant crunchy texture. The asparagus was lacking in flavour to some degree  - I have had better this summer (from Sainsbury!) just in the last few days - plump and bulky, oozing asparagusic acid and high with flavour. But, allowing for the asparagus’ lack of exuberance it was still a pleasing dish. 

  I also had the Jersey Royals, sadly roasted instead of being plainly boiled, with roasted garlic aioli trailed across them and parsley. As I hinted, I would have preferred the new potatoes to be boiled perfectly and allowed to calmly bathe in the aioli but chefs must be chefs and sometimes they overdo things for the sake of showing they’re putting in the effort.

  And of course I closed with the magnificent Tropea tiramisu which must have been eaten by the Roman gods on Olympus. I was full but made sure I did not leave a cubic micrometre of it.

  Such pleasures, some finer than others, but the whole a delight. 

Rating:- 🌞

12 June 2026.

537. Sunday Lunch At Samo.

 

  Chef Elliot Brown opened his restaurant Samo in March 2026 in the Great Western Arcade. The location had previously been home to Land before it moved a short distance along the arcade and prior to Land’s occupation of the site it had been home to Bistro 1847 where once in his salad days Alex Claridge had served vegetarian dishes. Brown has a distinguished curriculum vitae, having trained at the Hotel du Vin and then at Simpsons when Leo Kattou, now at the Bower House in Shipston on Stour, was Head Chef there. Subsequently Brown worked at Aktar Islam’s short-lived Legna and then at Tierra Tacos and Trentina both in the Jewellery Quarter and then he had gained experience with Italian-style food at Tropea in Harborne. Brown is assisted in the kitchen by Greg Shephard, his sous chef.

  Brown’s intended style for his own restaurant was a wise choice - ‘modern bistro’ - with an emphasis on the seasonality of ingredients. My first visit to the new restaurant was for the first Sunday lunch to be served there and it proved to be a very pleasing experience. It really was very good. I was the first diner to arrive for the particular sitting and I received a pleasing welcome and then sat back to enjoy an anis aperitif while the other diners trickled in. The middle class on a Sunday don’t like to hurry themselves.

  As starter I chose an impressive-looking and tasty prawn cocktail surmounted by two king prawns looking accusingly with their dead eyes from the rim of the dish. There was a very generous portion of little shrimps and the Marie Rose was well made.

  But of course I was there for the roast beef and out it came - tender, pink and blushing. There came with it a fine crusty Yorkshire pudding and a banquet of vegetables - very edible beef dripping roast potatoes and slices of roast turnip, gorgeously - yes, gorgeously, that’s the very word, buttery mashed swede with creamed leeks and cabbage and, as an extra, cauliflower in cheese sauce. More vegetables than I could manage but I made a good attempt and there really wasn’t very much left on my plate by the time I surrendered it to be taken to the dish washer, be it machine or human.

    I was kidnapped by the lovely creamy rice pudding with compôte when I read the dessert menu and my choice was fully vindicated by the intense enjoyment it gave. Modern bistro had rendered classic, fine English Sunday lunch. And I had been seated at a window table and what a relaxing time I had watching the Sunday afternoon shoppers pass by. Brilliant!

Elliot Brown & Greg Shephard

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛🌛

29 March 2026.

528. Events Dear Boy Events - January To June 2026.

 

See also Blogs 400, 416, 452 and 492.

12 January 2026 - Aktar Islam, Chef Patron of Opheem, announces that he intends to open a new restaurant, Oudh 1722, in Borough in London during spring 2026.

15 January - Harborne Kitchen announces that it is to close permanently and will not reopen after the Christmas holiday break.

6 February - Chef Angelina Adamo and Charlotte Carter open Vieni in the Goodsyard in the Jewellery Quarter and serve Sicilian-style cuisine.

8 February - The Michelin awards ceremony is held in Dublin and Alex Claridge’s The Wilderness and Liam Dillon’s The Boat (Lichfield), each are awarded a Michelin star for the first time. Opheem retains its two star status and Adam’s, Grace and Savour (Hampton in Arden), Le Champignon Sauvage and Lumière (Cheltenham), Upstairs by Tom Shepherd (Lichfield), The Cross (Kenilworth), The Royal Oak (Whatcote) and The Homeend (Ledbury) retain their single stars. Bibs Gourmands are retained by Tropea, Riverine Rabbit, Duncombe Arms (Ellastone) and The Inn at Welland (Welland). Plates by Purnell in Birmingham and Forelles (Ludlow) are removed from the Guide.

16 February - It is announced that The Mount by Glynn Purnell in Henley-in-Arden will close on the Ides of March (15 March) after 4 years serving diners.

2 April - Raj Rana announces the Itihaas is up for sale for a price of £1.25 million. Rana opened the restaurant in January 2005. Rana revealed that he was planning to move on and be involved with a hotel with restaurant in Worcestershire.

22 April - Hollow Bottom in Guiting Power in Gloucestershire is added to the Michelin Guide.

7 May - It is announced by Chef Patron Munayam Khan that Raja Monkey in Hall Green would close permanently on10 May due to “an increasingly challenging and demanding [hospitality business] climate”.  The restaurant had been in business for the previous 13 years.

  

26 May - Glynn Purnell’s Trillium is added to the Michelin Guide.

28 May - Andreas Antona announces the permanent closure of  Simpsons, the doyen of Birmingham restaurants.

12 June - Andreas Antona awarded an MBE in the King’s Birthday Honours list

21 June - Gaijin Sushi in Bristol Street closes after being fined in April 2026 for environmental health offences relating to mice infestations. 

26 June - Adam Stokes announces that Michelin-listed The Oyster Club will close permanently on 11 July.

Omelette Arnold Bennett, King prawns, Sunday lunches roast Chateaubriand and all the trimmings for £32, and Dover sole -

520. Sunday Lunch With Beef Wellington At Harborne Kitchen

Former Head Chef Tom Wells.

Head Chef Patrick White.

 

  The thought of a beef Wellington Sunday lunch at Harborne Kitchen was irresistible and so I indeed did not resist and went on unhesitatingly to reserve my table there. Since I last dined there, former sous chef, Patrick White, had replaced Tom Wells as Head Chef, the latter having gone on to be Executive Chef at Hogarth’s Hotel in Dorridge. The restaurant has been redecorated in a cooling, sophisticated, soothing grey with restrained boxes of healthy-looking green plants trailing from high up and positioned under them colourful and perfectly apt tiles. Music was perhaps mildly intrusive but Harborne-cool as REM and Michael Stipe slithered out across the ether. The Harborne Kitchen is aptly named as comfortably off Harbornites chatter away, imbibe and in the back of their mind shiver at the nagging fear of what Rachel Reeves will come up with next.

  A thrillingly warming Old Fashioned taste-alike cocktail made with Bourbon and called Honey and Wine proved to be a secret pleasure until it was whipped away unfinished and mourned. Sunday service does seem rather brisk. Regardless, there was a lovely amuse gueule to start, an inoffensively small portion of Hereford beef tartare sitting on a satisfactory chunk of beef fat potato terrine with a tiny hint of confit egg yolk and the pleasing acidic hit of pickled walnut.

  The starter was a pleasingly cooked Orkney scallop serving interestingly with Jerusalem artichoke, julienne of refreshing, tangy fresh apple and a buttermilk sauce. This was accompanied by an enjoyable slice of sourdough and whipped homemade butter both of which were very good.

  Then the Beef Wellington. This is why I had come to this particular Sunday lunchtime.

  The Wellington was very good and the beef excellent - in fact - I would say that it was absolutely perfectly cooked and the tenderness spot on - very good beef indeed.The surrounding duxelle was tasty and did its job and the pastry was pleasing  The accompanying horseradish sauce was too subtle in its heat but the beef fat roasted potatoes were particularly good and acceptably crispy with well cooked interiors. The roast parsnips were nice and sweet in a parsnip sort of way and the glazed turnip was well cooked but contributed very little. The creamed spinach was as interesting as spinach can aspire to be. 

  Then the great pleasure of a tarte tatin which in this case was made more interesting by using quince rather than apple or pear or even pineapple which has been unsatisfactory when I have been served it in the past. Then quince had an excellent texture and was tasty but less so than apple usually is. There was also a rapidly melting, somewhat unconvincing vanilla ice cream but it’s hard not to enjoy a well made tarte tatin as this dish was. Finally a familiar mignardise, a pair of lips, which is always welcome.

  I wound down after this fine Sunday lunch with another Honey and wine cocktail. I would have been happier if the service, while fully meeting my needs and being appropriately friendly, had been a little calmer and I do wish that on taking one’s seat one is not immediately told that, effectively, one is welcome but only for the next two hours after which one will be expected to settle up and make way for another group of temporarily welcome guests. Yes, I know the economics of running a restaurant necessitate the turning of tables and I accept that but does the announcement of the temporariness of one’s possession of the table at which one has just sat down have to be made immediately on arriving?

  One other trick which might have been pleasing would have been if one of the uncut Wellingtons had been brought to the table to show off the artistry of the complete item. But everything was just too busy,it seemed, for that open.

Rating:- 🌞

30 November 2025.