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

538. Raj Doot.

  An old friend who had been born in Birmingham but who had lived in New Zealand for twenty or so years, was visiting and the question was, “Where to have dinner?”, given that it was a Monday evening and that you can’t get a good curry in New Zealand (you can’t get a good anything and I know, I’ve visited that back of beyond several times though Michelin is about to deliver a new guide for dining out in the Antipodes but I expect that the New Zealand section will necessarily be little shorter than that for Dudley in the British Guide). D. had a Birmingham-born individual’s taste for a fine curry and I knew just the place to take him - venerable and colourful and now, even historic, Raj Doot, in the Jewellery Quarter. 

  On a cold late winter evening, Raj Doot lived up to my expectations. It was warm and comforting and comfortable and had better decor with an air of drama to it than any put up by the RSC at Stratford in the past few years. We sat with our drinks feeling cosy and expectant as we waited to be guided to our table. Poppadoms with chutneys to begin and then starters.

  I enjoyed crispy, sweet onion bhajees served with a mildly spicy mint sauce while my dining companion indulged himself with gingered lamb chops which brought him much pleasure.

    As a main, I chose chicken bhuna because of my infatuation with fenugreek - this was very good, tasty, rich and full-bodied, its sauce thick and delicious and the meat tender and nicely cooked. My dining companion enjoyed his dish of rogan josh. We enjoyed the cloud like, happily sweet Peshwari naan and a simple dish of rice.

  Asha’s may appeal to Hollywood film stars but I prefer the old fashioned, glorious character and food of Raj Doot. Sixty years of serving happy curry lovers who enjoy style and personality as an accompaniment to classic Anglo-Indian food. Here’s to another sixty.

Rating:- 🌞

532. Vieni.

  Vieni had only just opened when I lunched there. It is a fresh-looking comfortable space, cheerful and spirit-lifting with the service being  enthusiasastc and friendly. The restaurant had come about as a result of another partnership of two accomplished young women - chef Angelina Adamo and front of house manager, Charlotte Carter. The style of food is Sicilian and is generously portioned and rustic and the name of the restaurant in Italian means ‘Come here’ which seems fair enough.

  To tickle up my tastebuds I ordered what turned out to be a disappointingly small portioned plate of  salami and pecorino. True, the salami was delicious but a little more of it would have been very pleasing. Then on to the starter of wild garlic mozzarella arancini. This was very good, nicely sized, the coating enjoyably crispy and the contents tasty, all enhanced by a robust sauce. 

  I gasped when presented with my remarkable main - I had chosen Sicilian fennel sausage served in a bowl with stew of butter beans, soffrito and cavalo nero and a side dish of Jersey royals which were unnecessarily roasted. The great coil of sausage was far too much for one old bloke and suffice it to say that Lucy The Labrador was happy to receive a doggy bag of some of it on my return home. It was a great pleasure to eat and that went for the both of us.

  The individual zabaglione was excellent and rounded off an enjoyable meal. There’s so much going on in the Jewellery Quarter foodwise that one feels one ought to move there but the dog would disagree as someone thought it was a good idea to have no green space in the area apart from the churchyard of St Paul’s and the cemeteries but then again it was originally built as a place where people worked for a living rather than sitting around doing nothing of any particular use except of course those restaurateurs who work hard and produce something of great worth - the Jewellery Quarter dining scene.

• 

• Angelina Adamo

Charlotte Carter

 

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛🌛

13 February 2026.

534. The (Starry) Wilderness.

 

  It is not unknown for me to dine at The Wilderness. My first visit was shortly after it opened in Dudley Street back in 2016 if I remember rightly, or was it perhaps the end of 2015. Time passes and one forgets details. I remember the shock of the moss covered walls, an exquisite lamb dish and those citric tasting ants lining up to get at the cheese tart. The rest, they say, is history. Ten years or so later, Alex Claridge now has his well-deserved Michelin star. It’s fair to say, I think, as an interested eyewitness, that the ten years leading up to the award have been ten years of relentless struggle but finally the walls of Chateau Michelin have been scaled and the starry flag carried off to be flown at Wilderness Castle. I was happy to be dining at The Wilderness, just a week and two days after the memorable ceremony in Dublin where Claridge’s skill was awarded the recognition it deserved and much celebrating, apparently, took place.

  I was pleased to congratulate Chef and his excellent crew and have a brief chat and then to settle down and be cosseted and regaled with the dishes from the full dining menu - £150 - yes, I know but it was a special occasion  - which was as full of luxurious items, almost all finely cooked, as one might expect - unimpeachable A5 wagyu with an astonishing crab velouté and alive with tamarind, excellent, gorgeously flavoured saddle of lamb and perfectly cooked, gorgeous venison perfectly matched with beetroot and sweet plum. Unfortunately the preceding halibut was served cold and undercooked which was embarrassing for everybody given the so very recent award of the Michelin Star but the problem was quickly rectified and another dish was served, appropriately hot and nicely cooked. Mistakes happen sometimes.

  The pre-dessert was great fun with jalapeno and sorrel combined with the sudden sweet sting of grape and the dessert was mildly challenging as rocket elbowed its way in to a dish of nicely cooked rhubarb and pistachio. Fortunately the rocket did not elbow its way in too much as I really couldn’t taste it and so all was well that ended well at this newly starry but long-established Jewellery Quarter restaurant with Alex Claridge remains uncompromising in his drive to bring his dinners the good,the inventive and the sometimes challenging. No ants though, thank heavens.

Rating:- 🌞🌞

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