202. Purnell’s At Christmas.

 

  Birmingham is Birmingham is Birmimgham. Everyone, well most people at any rate, will see the place where they live as the best place in the world. And so it is here in this second city. We know that Birmingham is fairly unique. It’s a second city, true, but relatively, it’s fairly small. One point one million people live within its boundaries. They have origins from just about anywhere - for all I know there are people who were born in Kiribati or The Marshall Islands or Tristan Da Cunha or Svalbard living here. But the backbone of the city remains those who came here from Warwickshire and Worcestershire and Staffordshire and Shropshire and Gloucestershire and Herefordshire in the course of the Nineteenth century (various ancestors of mine were born in all six of these counties) . Agricultural workers seeking work in Birmingham’s burgeoning industries. And then too came the Irish fleeing poverty and famine and prepared to do the work that not even the poor native Mercians were keen to carry out. And so we had Birmingham. The rich lived in Edgbaston and Handsworth and the poor who served them or worked for them lived in Ladywood and Bordesley Green and Small Heath. The city thrived and evolved. You had the jewellery industry, Guest Keen and Nettlefolds which brought the Chamberlains to the city, the Quakers in south Birmingham which gave us the Cadburys, the car industry which found Herbert Austin in Longbridge, King Edwards School which gave us Tolkien, numerous city professionals and latterly writes such as Jonathan Coe, and military men such as Viscount Slim and do not forget politicians including the now notorious Enoch Powell and by all these influences the Brummies became the Brummies. What a great city and what fine people live here.

  I reflected on this as I sat in the bar of Purnell’s quaffing a glass of bubbly and following up with a Japanese version of a Martini. Well, at least it was a Purnell’s Japanese Martini containing sake and yuzu. And a mighty fine drink it was too. My reflections were initiated by the arrival of a good Brummie family with a dominant male in late middle age - probably a rough but very wealthy builder or scaffolder (likely with a big house in Four Oaks) - two sons who obviously worked in and shared the profits of the family business plus daughters-in-law and a much cherished grandson aged about seven or eight. I thought momentarily of the Shelby’s. How I love my fellow Brummies -  ‘My people’, to quote Kathleen Dayus, I thought. The pater familiaris asked me if I was doing the Full Monty, by which, I gleaned he meant the Tasting Menu, to which question  I had to reply in the negative. I was having what looked like a very promising five course meal from the lunch menu. Purnell’s is all about Birmingham. It’s comfortable with the Brummie voices around you. It’s the right atmosphere. It does a good job just like the city at whose centre it sits.

   And so onwards into the dining room. To start as always, and ever welcome, the edible charcoal, black potatoes and delicious chorizo dip along with the relative newcomer - the celeriac and apple ball. All delicious, original and mesmerising to those eating them for the first time. Then, of course, Purnell’s’ own light and gorgeous pain de campagne.  By then mellowness and contentment had set in and the delightful butter-roasted cauliflower starter enhanced my contentment. 

  

    Moving on to the second starter of a Purnell’s favourite which always looks different every time you have it but is always silky smooth and gorgeously flavoured - chicken liver parfait, perfectly poached pear in red wine with roasted grains and a wafer thin slice of the pain de campagne. Such pleasure. Then the ‘fish du jour’ - wonderfully cooked cod which may have been slightly over seasoned  - others might disagree - with perfectly flavoured black salsify, butternut squash purée, sorrel gel and an orange sauce. More pleasure.

  The main course was finely prepared pork belly with sprout leaves, red cabbage gel, purple carrot and chestnut. The dish reminded of why I so enjoy visiting Purnell’s and why I have developed my own personal tradition of making sure I dine there immediately before Christmas - a visit to this doyen of great Birmingham restaurants is my Christmas gift to myself. I had so enjoyed myself that I forgot to photograph the lovely dessert, new to the menu, of milk chocolate and hazelnut delice perfectly and joyfully accompanyed by mango, coffee cream and candied pistachio. 

  Purnell’s remains my favourite Birmingham restaurant for many reasons covered in previous Blogs. I had the opportunity to have a short conversation with Jarek Samborski who took over as Mâitre d’Hôtel of Purnell’s a couple of years ago and has done a very fine job in that role. I was sad to hear that after the final service this December he will be leaving his job there and will soon after return with his family to Poland. The end of another era at Purnell’s. As to who would take over his role in the new year it does look very much as though Adrien Garnier, Purnell’s present sommelier, will be promoted to that post and I expect he will do a very good job of it.

79. Into The 2020s With Purnell’s.

  I am lucky enough to visit most of the better Birmingham restaurants from time to time but, now in my eleventh year of visiting Cornwall Street, Purnell’s remains my favourite. Every time I visit  I think that the food there keeps getting better and better.

  A sunny February afternoon in Birmingham, everywhere more and more glamorous high rise buildings are shooting upwards, the tram line gradually extends itself along Broad Street, Brindley Place has a new restaurant every time you look and Paradise Place promises to deliver much in the near future. But take a turn through the Colmore Business District and there it is - still there - the almost anonymous, secretive-looking Purnell’s on a corner in Cornwall Street almost opposite Opus which is much easier to spot. You could miss it if you didn’t know where it was.

  Straight to the food. The single Purnell’s chip, now hardly recognisable with its fluffy coat of grated cheese and neatly covered by a single sorrel leaf, languishing on a neat piece of slate alongside Glynn Purnell’s gorgeous pieces of black meringue - ‘edible charcoal’ - and black potatoes, heavenly light lemon-flavoured mash potato, in a raven black coat. Triumphant Purnell gems. I suppose the new cheesy chip is a grand little Purnell joke playing on the gruesome trend in recent years of the young in particular to want their chips drenched in melted cheese and thus add even more to the enormous number of calories that can be consumed in one meal. Purnell’s cheesy chip is an elegant version of keeping up with youth and its ill-judged fads. 

  On to the starter proper - escabeche of a red beetroot (a juicy lightly-pickled wafer-thin slice) with the addition of other types of beetroot, a sprig of watercress with little blobs of watercress sauce and a wasabi crumble lifting everything from a beetroot dish to a forever memorable beetroot dish.

  The second starter. Delicious to the level of 10 out of 10. The most perfect chicken liver parfait balanced beautifully by little pieces of red wine-marinated pear with a clever little katalfi nest sitting on top to add a wholly enjoyable nibbly element and all with a pretty little hat of a single red-veined sorrel leaf. Feed me this course every day please.

The fish course. Now it seems the fish course has a new term added to the menu - the initially apparently perplexingly unnecessary French-English language fusion of Fish du jour which is of course another splendid little Purnell joke thrown in as an amuse de langue rather than an amuse bouche to sustain the smile on our faces while we’re waiting for the course to come along which it does with perfect timing. The fish du jour is tasty pollack with a greener than green parsley sauce, very edible chopped up clams and a kohlrabi remoulade. Something new, I think, and very pretty too especially if you like green things.

    I moan a lot about the ceaseless serving of pork belly or ox/pig cheeks as the main meat course in good quality restaurants. I understand why the meats feature so often on menus but generally wish that chefs could come up with something different more often. So if you’re going to find a beef cheek on your plate yet again then it’s got to be really good. So it was that I looked down at a plate of slow cooked daube of beef served with barbecued leek (very good), mushroom ragout, creamed celeriac and the overwhelming primitive pleasure of a deep fried breadcrumbed onion ring. The beef was bathed in a glistening unctiousness  as one looked down on one’s plate and that unctiousness was carried through to the eating. The beef was, beyond doubt, unimpeachable. I nibbled my onion ring in little sections to prolong the pleasure though I would have been even happier if the onion had been somewhat sweeter and perhaps cooked for a few seconds longer. Still, given that this was a course based on nothing more than ox cheek, it had all come together pretty triumphantly.

   

  I’m an unusual individual in that I generally avoid chocolate desserts. But the chocolate tart served up with its excellent, crispy pastry and accompanied by the two gorgeously complementary flavours of dramatic mango and dreamy passion fruit, was a happy dish with which to close the meal.

  The service remains as excellent as ever in its own amiably and comfortably relaxed but highly efficient way though there are new faces dealing with the customers. Sonal Clare has now left his managerial role at Purnell’s and exchanged his lounge suit for jeans and trainers as general manager at The Wilderness and his place has been taken over seamlessly by Jarek Samborski, originally from Poland, who began training as a chef in Lublin but found himself instead working front of house and then coming to Britain and working firstly in Sussex. He came to Birmingham in 2015 and was appointed Assistant Restaurant Manager under Sonal Clare in October of that year. This sustained period of familiarisation with Purnell’s is clearly showing through. He has the necessary charm and understanding of his customers and can clearly schmooze his diners highly effectively though in a different way from the polished Clare-schmooze. His wine recommendations are to be highly trusted. He said that he has now appointed a new sommelier - Adrian - who told me he had been at Purnell’s for just 3 weeks having arrived from France and naturally he is still finding his way around. Perhaps he will introduce a greater emphasis on French wine, he joked that he would but many a true word is spoken in just.

  Purnell’s is still Purnell’s. That’s how I like it.

Jarek Samborski