229. Butchers Social

 

  By way of introduction to the Butchers Social it’s worth taking a, er, butcher’s at Blog 211 which reports a visit to Harborne Kitchen located in the old Walter Smith’s butcher’s shop where the first incarnation of the Butcher’s Social Club was founded by present Chef Patron Mike Bullard and Harborne Kitchen’s Jamie Desogus.

  Subsequently, in 2018, Bullard moved the BSB to the building in Henley in Arden where Glynn Purnell has just opened his first venture into pubs, The Mount (where I’m lunching tomorrow), and then, his family purchasing the The Forest Hotel in Dorridge, moved the BSB from Henley to the hotel in 2021. Sometimes it seems you can tell the history of West Midlands dining by mentioning just about ten buildings.

  Dorridge itself is an unremarkable, rather twee 1930s suburb for the comfortably off and it’s clear that Bullard was remarkably canny in opening his new restaurant there. The town is not a place you really take much notice of; the number of times I’ve sailed through Dorridge on the train journey from Birmingham to Stratford without lifting my head to take a look at it are countless. But it is exquisitely conveniently located close to Birmingham on the railway line and it is a matter of a few minutes journey from Moor Streetjcbzck or Snow Hill stations. And The Butcher’s Social can not be more than 20 yards distant from Dorridge Station - a brilliant location. 

  Here’s an interesting point which needs to be considered. Suddenly, apart from Kray Tredwell’s opening of his excellent but rather diminutive 670 Grams, all the major developments in West Midlands dining out are taking place not in the city itself but in villages/towns around it. Thus Tom Shepherd opened his new restaurant in Lichfield and just a few months later was awarded a Michelin star, the starred Peel’s restaurant is located in Hampton in Arden and has now been joined there at Hampton Manor by Stuart Deeley’s Smoke and the remarkable Grace And Savour. Based on his recent pop-up in Lichfield I tip Rob Palmer to be the next starred West Midlands Michelin-starred chef for his newly opened Toff’s in Solihull. And Glynn Purnell himself is extending out into the surrounding West Midlands with his highly publicised The Mount in Henley (did I mention I shall be lunching there tomorrow?) situated across the road from Matt Cheal’s fabulous Cheal’s of Henley which has surely been wrongly overlooked when it comes to the handing out of Michelin glitter.

  And what’s happening in Birmingham city centre itself with its failing trams, its tyrannical Council, its filthy streets and catchpenny’Clean Air Zone’? Nothing new to report. And that’s bad news for the city for all the great new chefs and some of the great older ones have sensed the direction the wind is blowing and that direction is straight out of the city. In fact we may be witnessing the closing days of Birmingham’s gastronomic golden age. 

  So, to where the action is …. Dorridge.

  The Butchers Social, located at one side of the Forest Hotel, with a nice outdoor seating area, is a pleasure to enter, spacious, attractive modern decor, a smart bar, an open kitchen where the smartly turned out chefs are beavering away. The front of house staff are excellent, knowledgeable and welcoming. And isn’t it nice to have a simple three course menu with a good but not excessive range of gastronomically titillating dishes on it. I was comfortable and entering into the spirit of things and a glass of Hendricks and  tonic was getting air into the sails.

  For my starter, after a consultation with my very wise and charming waitress, I opted for three beautifully pan-seared scallops with miso, hazelnuts (which seem very in vogue at the moment) and watercress salad though I am bound to say that the watercress was more of a garnish than a full blown part of the dish (pleasingly, after my recent excursion to Weston super Mare (see Blog 228) it at least was not a peashoot garnish). This was a delicious start and I really felt that I was enjoying myself.

  In our deliberations, my waitress and myself had agreed that I should have a dish of stone bass (sublime, am I bad person for wishing that chefs would dump the turbot and serve more stone bass? - yes, I know turbot is far too expensive to ‘dump’ but still ….) served with punchy lobster ravioli, three charming seaweed, dumplings, a pot of enjoyable greens (kale, leeks, hispi cabbage and broccoli) and a highly enjoyable slice of dauphinois. Every element of the dish was excellent and I consumed it like a trencherman. 

  By now quite euphoric, I studied the dessert menu and concluded that these were my sort of desserts. Eventually I settled, again in learned consultation, for ‘pinky winky’ cherry parfait, decently flavoured, with tiny peaks of mango purée and coriander and mixed berry ice cream which was bursting with sweet sharpness. I’m a little bored with granola but I could see the point of it. Eschewing coffee per se, I chose another item from the dessert list - affogato with which I am currently obsessed - served with Kahlua, something which I may now consume on a twice daily basis.

  How lovely it is to really enjoy a meal. Butchers Social is now up there in my pantheon of West Midlands restaurants I most want to eat in.

178. Ludlow Food Festival 2021.

 

 After a necessary year’s break (though there was an online version in 2020) the Ludlow Food Festival, Britain’s first, has returned to Ludlow Castle as autumn arrives in a timely way. Lucy The Labrador and I were in town for when the Festival opened its gates and I was surprised to see how many people were waiting to be admitted. 

 I attended all the talks from West Midlands chefs on the stage during the first day and broke them up by exercising the dog and visiting the fast food and other stalls. It was hard to believe that anyone was taking the pandemic seriously, no-one at all was wearing a mask, social distancing was a forgotten concept and the only visitors forced to keep their distance from the food tents were the multitude of dogs who, when you think about it, were probably a far lesser threat to the health of the humans than other humans. 

 The first speaker of the opening day was Reuben Crouch of C-Sons on The Green and C-Sons of Shrewsbury. He had been a speaker at the 2019 Festival and well worth listening to and he was the first speaker of the day to reflect on the difficulties of the pandemic and the possibly even greater difficulties now experienced by the hospitality industry due to the shortage of staff and the difficulties associated with supply problems.

  Well worth listening to was the Suffolk Food writer and Fisheries journalist, Mike Warner, who talked about preparing the various ingredients for a fruits de mer dish. The interviewer admitted she had never eaten an oyster so far in her life and was therefore encouraged by the audience, like a Collisium crowd gesturing a ‘thumbs down’ sign, to sample one, a fresh raw specimen. Warner advised that the best way to achieve most pleasure from the shellfish was to chew it and relish it slowly - first the salty, maritime “flavour of the ocean” followed by a sweetness and ending with a metallic burst. The interviewer was game though reluctant and with a moderate amount of gurning set about her task hardly with relish. She indicated that this might not only be her first oyster but also her last. 

  And then an enjoyable cooking demonstration by Andy Link, chef at the Riverside Inn in Aymestrey in Herefordshire. He had first spoken at the event about, I think 15 years ago as a mere lad, and now gave an account of his career and work in a fine restaurant in a Marches village and how he had dealt with the unique problems of the last 18 months.

  The final demonstration of the day on the Wardington’s original stage was by Mike Bullard, founder of the Butcher’s Social Club, now located in Dorridge. Bullard was asked about the evolution of his restaurant from a ‘pop-up’ in a butcher’s shop in Harborne, the several months of carrying on serving burgers and beer from there till he established himself in Henley in Arden. He found his restaurant was popular in the village but there was not sufficient passing trade and so he has recently moved on to the Forest Hotel in which The Butcher’s Social Club is now situated which offers greater opportunity for catering for events. He talked about how much of the restaurant’s meat is cooked in water baths (good for beef and lamb apparently, less so for pork) which greatly eases their preparation of large amounts of food. Well, each chef must choose what is best for his business but sous vide cooking may make good business sense but it often results in a less than satisfactory outcome for the diner - not so much Chef as artist as Chef as Swimming pool lifeguard. My enthusiasm for visiting the Butcher’s Social Club was considerably reduced by the prospect of everything there being largely cooked sous vide.

 

  In between listening to the talks, Lucy The Labrador and I toured the fast food stalls. Inevitably the longest queue was waiting at the Beefy Boys stall. My enthusiasm for burgers is usually only a little greater than my enthusiasm for food cooked sous vide but the previous evening I had had a perfect burger, precisely seasoned (which is the key) in the ‘Bistro’ (the former sitting room) of Fishmore Hall (it was accompanied by a sensuously delicious relish and very fine chips) and I resolved to see how the Beefy Boys burger matched up to the delight of the previous evening. I chose the Beefy Boys original burger - more simple and less encumbered with numerous additional ingredients - with its ‘original’ and ‘secret’ accompanying sauce. It was not really all that good. The Beefy Boys burger was desperately under-seasoned and the sauce unmemorable and really now one has to ask what all the fuss is about. Prize-winning in the past, I believe, but now nothing to place it in the firmament of great burgers. The number of customers queueing may say differently but it looks to me that the makers of this product have been living on old successes for far too long and need to take a long hard look at their tired product.

Beefy Boys burger, tired and underseasoned

The dog at least remained a fan

Fishmore burger, great chips, delicious relish

  The businesses occupying stalls at the Food Festival are little changed from previous years. There’s a wealth of local cheeses, ciders, ales, charcuterie, pies, meat, pottery, utensils, condiments, preserves, chutneys, relishes, breads, pastries, greengrocery and so on if you wish to buy. And very good it all lookks too. And of course there are countless opportunities to buy local gins from businesses around the area. Ludlow Gin is a major sponsor of the event but in name at least my favourite has to be Gun Dog Gin.