Birmingham Food - An Old Bloke's Perspective: Jessica's

At 1000AM on Monday 14 October 2024 Glynn Purnell announced via social media that his restaurant, Purnell’s, in Cornwall Street had served its last diners at close of service on Saturday 12 October and that the restaurant was now permanently closed.

He was interviewed an hour later on the BBC West Midlands station by Kathryn Stanczyszyn and repeated that which he had stated in the social media and identified a number of reasons for his decision to end the 17 years of fine dining he had been serving up to the citizens of Birmingham and from further afield in Cornwall street.

We know well Purnell’s story before opening Jessica’s in Edgbaston with owners Diane and Keith Stevenson and this had included a period of work as Chef de Partie at Andreas Antona’s Simpsons and for Claude Bosi at Hibiscus in Ludlow. Jessica’s was opened in 2004 and, with Purnell in the kitchen, it was awarded a Michelin star in 2005, joining Simpsons as one of only two Birmingham restaurants to have been awarded the accolade up until then. Jessica’s closed in 2007 after Purnell decided to open his own restaurant which he did in May 2007, quite reasonably naming it after himself, and Purnell’s was awarded a Michelin star in the 2009 edition of the Michelin Guide (announced in 2008). Purnell’s retained the star until its closure.

Purnell became a local and national culinary celebrity with numerous appearances on television and in the press and opened, and sometimes closed, other restaurants as he was eventually to do with his flagship fine dining restaurant itself as the gastronomic climate changed, costs rose, and the fall off of diners able to, or prepared to, pay significant prices for tasting menus and their ilk.

Purnell’s is survived by its younger siblings, Plates By Purnell’s in Edmund Street and the upmarket public house/restaurant The Mount in Henley in Arden.

A look at Blog 413 (28 June 2024) may provide the reader with at least one reason why Purnell’s finally had to close. It was still very good but it was tired, the menu had lost its thrill, its humour and wit, its flair and imagination, its sense of excitement, its oomph. Restaurants rely on their old, faithful customers coming back time and time again and while they like to see familiar old favourites on the menu, they also want novelty and for me the menu was too repetitive drawing on old glories. I’m not convinced that Glynn Purnell had not lost his interest in it all to some extent. When something’s tired and elderly, it’s time to let it rest with its memories of the glory days of fine, exciting, witty experiences and so to move on.

And in response to the news I made a reservation to visit Plates by Purnell’s the very next day. Somehow it seemed the decent thing to do.

I had dined just a month ago at Plates with a regular dining companion and we were very impressed. Our chosen dishes were pleading and represented good value. My only real problem with the restaurant was the general lack of space there which makes it feel just a little unwelcoming though that is certainly not a comment that one could make about the excellent front of house staff there.

We indeed had little to complain about on this occasion - we enjoyed the platter of embutidos (cured meats) which admittedly was more a matter of curation than of culinary skill; we enjoyed some inoffensive albondigas, some cheese and basil croquetas, some fine-looking patatas bravas (which to be fair were more patatas than bravas) and some nicely seasoned gambas al ajillo. I chose the pistachio dessert - a pistachio foam with honey and tuiles - though it only served to emphasise how unrewarding are the restaurant’s desserts. Generally we enjoyed ourselves and I felt that I shoukd like to return sooner rather than later.

Which brings us to my solo visit to Plates one month after my previous dining experience there. In many ways I wish I had not decided to dine there. I repeated my previous order of albondigas and requested chicken thigh with romesco sauce (it was not available), ‘chip de trufa’ - potato with truffle mayonnaise (I was informed it was a single chip which sounded a little insubstantial for £5 to say the least so I opted for good old patatas bravas, croquetas de queso y albahaca and, in the absence of the chicken, calamares with alioli. First the good news - the croquetas were good - nice and crispy though not bursting with flavour, the patatas bravas were indisputably lacklustre, the albondigas were much as one would expect them to be but the crispy squid was awful - true the coating was pleasingly crispy but the squid inside was vile, decidedly miscooked in a way which truly gave it an unchewable rubber band texture. Oh dear! This was not the standard one expects from a Michelin recommended restaurant. *What is going on at these Purnell restaurants?

The squid was the single most unpleasant piece of food I have put in my mouth in a restaurant since a trip to China in, if I remember rightly, 1993 when I wrestled with a ghastly, grey piece of sea cucumber which had been served as a delicacy. The stuff that nightmares are made on. I pointed out the extreme chewiness of the squid to the waiter and no charge was quite rightly made for the dish and there the matter should end except that one is bound to wonder how the Michelin grade kitchen could let such a horror escape from it.

The squid had rather knocked me back and I did not feel I could risk a dessert. Glynn Purnell needs to get a grip on this. Hopefully it’s a one off.

Rating - 🌛🌛.

More bad news. The friend .with whom I dined on the first of my reported visit to Plates usually joins me for a ‘3 and half ounces of pleasure’ at The Alchemist prior to our sauntering off to some worthy dining establishment for our regular lunch. He was not with me on my second visit but having 45 minutes to pass prior to my reservation time it seemed like a very good idea to pop into the Alchemist and renew my acquaintance with that very soothing cocktail. Alas! I was informed that 3 and half oz was no longer being made. An instant state of crestfallenness set in. But it was suggested I substitute the Pleasure with a June Bug, the ingredients of which included gin and banana and coconut. This was good - who can resist gin with some of the ingredients of a Planter’s punch? But the embracing rum of the Pleasure would have been a nice soother on a grim, cool English mid-autumn afternoon. Perhaps June is the best month for glugging a June Bug unless you’re in Jamaica where, I guess, the weather makes any time fine.

We like to close with good news. A near neighbour location of Plates, the now closed Urban Coffee where Ben Tesh staged pop ups in 2016 prior to opening Folium has posters in the windows which indicate that Tiger Bites Pig will be moving in - just what the restaurant needs -a lot more space.

On Friday 7 July 2017 a highly important anniversary for food lovers in Birmingham was celebrated. On that very day, 10 years before, Glynn Purnell had opened the doors of his ground-breaking new restaurant to the public and dining out in Birmingham and the West Midlands would never be the same again.

In his book, "Cracking Yolks and Pig Tales" Glynn recalled how his first experience of cooking was preparing food for his younger siblings when his mother and father were out working and his earliest signature dish being baked beans on toast with some onion and a teaspoon of curry powder added to the beans. The dish would be finished with a covering of cheese. Glynn recalls that he thought he was a genius as did his brother and sister who were the beneficiaries of Glynn's early culinary inventiveness. Those of us who love to dine at his restaurant now know that these early presentiments of genius were completely correct.

Glynn describes how at the age of 14 he began washing up and preparing salads for a hotel lounge and when he left school he began to work in the hotel kitchen under Peter Wintle and Roger Kendrick. He moved on to work in the hotel restaurant, The Terrace under the Head Chef, Tony Morris, and with Mark Hill, the sous-chef.

The next step in his career was to work at Simpson's when it was in Kenilworth and he worked under the chef-patron and father of modern West Midlands cuisine, Andreas Antona. There he worked under Luke Tipping and Andy Walters.

He worked for a period under Claude Bosi at Hibiscus in Ludlow (see Blog 7). During his time at Hibiscus the restaurant increased its single Michelin star to two.

Leaving Hibiscus he became Head Chef at Keith and Diane Stevenson's newly opened Jessica's in Edgbaston. A Michelin star and the AA Restaurant of the Year title followed soon after.

After four years at Jessica's Glynn decided that he wished to open his own restaurant and found an old Victorian warehouse in Cornwall Street and, on a very tight budget, opened Purnell's with his wife, Kerry, on 7/7/07 at 7PM. Jessica's closed to business. Purnell's was awarded a Michelin star in 2009 and continues to hold this distinction. The restaurant's first manager was Jean Benoit Burloux and he was succeeded by Sonal Clare in 2014.

To celebrate the restaurant's tenth anniversary he held a free lottery so that 15 winners and their guests could pass the 10th anniversary evening being indulged with a champagne reception and a 10 course meal. Sadly my entry, one of over a thousand, was not drawn from the hat but you can't always have what you want in life. I have just received a leaflet (illustrated above and below) which is a rather nice souvenir in itself with the rather witty photograph of Chef outside his restaurant and a nonchalant pigeon wandering by oblivious to the presence of one of Birmingham's great celebrities. If it knew what Glynn can do to pigeons it probably wouldn't have got so close.

Here's to Purnell's' next 10 years and its second Michelin star!