354. Bower House And Salt.

 

  I have reported already this year on the Michelin listed The Bower House in Shipston on Stour and the Michelin starred Salt in Stratford upon Avon. This summer and early autumn I have enjoyed a few stays in Stratford and on each occasion I have taken the bus to Shipston, enjoying the scenery of south Warwickshire as the vehicle cruised calmly and peacefully through it and then delighted to be ambling around this pleasingly understated town, where everyone wears body warmers, now I think to be known as gilets, and generally look comfortably off and pleased with their lot, as I suppose they should. A bankrupt Birmingham seems a continent away and though there are no Michelin stars twinkling in the town the Bower House does give the place a spot in the firmament. The owners of The Bower House have identified their market - they oversee the serving of good, sensibly priced food in a comfortable, attractive setting with a relaxed atmosphere.

  I love the opening - a fine bread with good salted butter and tasty miso butter - a clever and more harmonious version of the ubiquitous Marmite butter. For starter, I thoroughly enjoyed my choice of heritage beetroot and the main course of pork loin with ratte potatoes and chicory salad was equally pleasurable and interesting. This is a restaurant where the chef is forever working to keep his diners on the edge of their seats to see what delights he’s going to send out to them from the kitchen.

  The dessert admittedly did not work quite as well for me - the compressed pineapple was tasty and pleasing and the accompanying pineapple sorbet equally fascinated the tastebuds but the coconut espuma was no substitute for something with a bit of real texture - the dish would have been elevated by substituting it with some coconut sponge or something with a bit of body.

  Still, all in all, another visit to the Bower House is a future prospect I view with pleasurable anticipation.

  The previous evening I had experienced the great pleasure of dining again at Paul Foster’s Salt in Stratford’s Church Street where Laura Kimber is doing such a fine job in her role of Head Chef and on the Wednesday evening I dined there, where Aurélian Molliere, was accomplishing a brilliant one man performance front of house. 

  I opted again for the fine five course menu which was well priced, superbly realised and eaten with relish (by me).

  After the excellent amuses bouches of fine cheesy tartlet and the splendidly crispy and generously sized ‘pork scratching’ and the equally excellent nut brown loaf with Ampersand butter which is one of God’s finer gifts to Man, the starter of Charlotte potatoes with dill emulsion delivered the continuing pleasure promised by the amuses gueules. The next dish, centred on Burford Brown egg, did not lower my expectations either and the main course of Cornish plaice cooked impeccably and enhanced with a happy medley of sea herbs and vegetables and naughty little brown shrimps showed that in the hands of a fine chef a truly admirable fish dish can be brought to the diner’s table even in these landlocked Middle Lands.

  For dessert I was happy to be served chocolate crémeux nicely complemented by blackberry sorbet, plump autumnal blackberries and pistachio crumbs.

  This was a very satisfactory meal. Just as I have learned to expect from this fine Head Chef and this restaurant.

  A quick mention of another bus journey from Stratford, this time in the company of the indomitable Lucy  The Labrador, to Moreton in Marsh to visit the town on market day. The traffic flow through the town was awful - a fine utterly Cotswold town being smothered by the vast amount of vehicles that pass through it. Moreton really needs a bypass. 

  The market is unremarkable with less personality to it than you might expect given the glorious Cotswold buildings which surround it. But Lucy and I headed for the Black Bear to find it crowded mainly with raucous and unappealing ladies who lunch but we found a table and gained much pleasure from an excellent beef and ale pie (the both being from local sources) served with big fat crispy chips which fell at the hurdle of being somewhat undercooked internally though the accompanying vegetables were accurately cooked. Though there was plenty of gravy in the pie (with very adequate amounts of meat), I think a little jug of additional gravy to pour over the pastry would have helped. The pudding I chose was rather more bulky than I should have liked being a ‘ginger cake’ which turned out to be, for me at least, a too generously sized, rather dense sponge when I had been expecting a light cake.

  Though I had my niggles, I do like the Black Bear and think its food is a good example of what one might hope to find in an English pub in the 2020s. The Ladies Who Lunch there certainly seemed to have a grand time scoffing all that was laid before them as well as knocking back a couple of bottles of wine between them.

  The area has a number of dining establishments of note which I hope to visit at some time in the not too distant future - on the bus journey to Shipston for instance we passed the Michelin-listed Howard Arms at Ilmington and The Fuzzy Duck at nearby Armscote.

346. To Moreton-In-Marsh. Dinner At The Woodsman.

 

  The Labrador and I took the bus from Stratford upon Avon past Shipston to Moreton in Marsh. This is a pretty market town, a gateway to the Cotswolds on the edge of Gloucestershire with numerous gorgeous Cotswold stone buildings reflecting its past and present wealth, for centuries tied to the wool industry. Home to the Michelin-listed Henne as well as some fine-looking inns and most, if not all, dog-friendly. An early lunch, to tie in with the return bus times, at the lovely Black Bear Inn - spacious and bright with an enticing menu.

  Given my love for Ploughman’s Lunches, and bearing in mind I was going to dinner in the evening, I opted for the PL and very pleased too I was with it. There was a remarkably tasty warm scotch egg, memorable sausage meat surrounding a reasonably well cooked though not totally runny egg with a good slice of fabulous local ham, sweet cocktail onions, leaves, a generous chunk of bread and a not entirely memorable Cheddar cheese. But washed down with cider this made for a very happy meal in a lovely setting.

Rating:- 🌛🌛.

  The dog and I wandered around the town ahead of the return journey noting the other inns nearby but dismayed by the sight and sound of the constant, very heavy motor traffic, swollen by the large number of tourist motor coaches, running along the main road which cuts through the town. A Cotswold haven ruined.

  In the evening, to The Woodsman in Stratford upon Avon for dinner, hopeful that it had pulled itself together compared with the last two or three times I had dined there. My hopes, however, were dashed. Again the meal was made up of overworked dishes and challenging combinations when more simplicity may have had a more pleasing outcome. After a pleasing cocktail, I chose a starter of Terrine of free-range chicken, with confit leg and smoked breast, chicken liver parfait, red grapes, frisée salad and truffle dressing. The terrine which looked gaudy and extravagant was rather dry and the grapes were a relief with their sweetness. Not a great pleasure.

  I chose a main of Fillet of Cornish stone bass served with dull, wood fired ratte potatoes, welcome Salcombe crab, the inevitable sea herbs which did contribute and a cucumber butter sauce which also worked quite well. The fish itself was on the edge of being overcooked but acceptable but it can not be said that it was visually alluring. The sweet cucumber pickle brought a little life to this dowdy dish.

  I chose a fairly disastrous dessert - poached and marinated local plums which were largely flavourless - my plum tree at home has yielded some beautifully delicious and sweet plums this year so these dull boys came as a great disappointment. The dreary fruit was accompanied by tiny fragments of sponge cake - claimed to be a hazelnut financier on the menu, a hazelnut crumble which for me was too much texture and the pleasurable relief of a wood fired plum sorbet which was the one light in an expensive and sorry effort by whoever was taking on the role of pastry chef. 

  The Head Chef and management seriously need to rethink what they’re doing to the food at this restaurant and restore a degree of simplicity to ensure that fine ingredients are more easily appreciated.

Rating:- 🌛.

187. 1988.

 

  I have just obtained a decent copy of the 1988 Michelin Guide Great Britain and Ireland which was one of the three editions of the guide which was not in my collection of the book’s modern day version which dates back to 1974.

  Not surprisingly, given even today’s Michelin Guide’s attitude to the region, The West Midlands did not have many restaurants which the then Guide inspectors felt worthy of inclusion in the book in that year. The United Kingdom as a whole was home to just two three star restaurants - the Waterside Inn at Bray and Le Gavroche in London. There were just 4 two starred establishments - La Manoir Aux Quatr’ Saisons in Oxfordshire, The Terrace, La Tante Claire and Simply Nico all of course in London.

  The Guide included 21 one starred restaurants in the whole of The United Kingdom, ten of which were in London, and only two of which - Croque-en-Bouche in Great Malvern (see Blog 94) and Mallory Court in Leamington were in the West Midlands. The Guide also included a ‘red M’ category which was explained thus, “Whilst appreciating the quality of the cooking in restaurants with a star, you may, however, wish to find some serving a perhaps less elaborate but nonetheless always carefully prepared meal. Certain restaurants seem to us to answer this requirement. We bring them to your attention by marking them with a red ‘M’ in the text of the guide”.  In the whole of The United Kingdom there were 68 restaurants in this red M category (just 8 in London) with the following West Midlands restaurants being featured:- Henry Wong and Henry’s (Birmingham), Buckland Manor  (Broadway),  Redmond’s (Cheltenham), Hope End Country House (Ledbury), Westgate Arms (Warwick) and Brown’s (Worcester) - a total of seven.

  The Birmingham restaurants mentioned in The Guide apart from the two red M restaurants were:- Ploungh And Harrow, Jonathan’s, Sloans, Rajdoot, Dynasty, Lorenzo, Maharajah and Pinocchio’s plus Le Bon Viveur (Sutton Coldfield) and Franzl’s (Smethwick) (see Blog 94).

  It’s interesting that unlike now, Coventry had 3 restaurants named in The Guide - Herbs, Simla and nearby Nailcote Hall. It has been a long time since Coventry has made an appearance in the Michelin Guide, perhaps the planned opening of Glynn Purnell’s restaurant there will act as a spur to the Michelin inspectors to visit the city and reestablish it as a destination for food lovers. 

  Meanwhile Wolverhampton made no appearance in the 1988 Guide; there was no mention for any Ludlow restaurant; in Cheltenham there was just the above mentioned Redmond’s plus Twelve; Shrewsbury had Antonio’s and the Old Police House with Albright Hussey at Albrighton and Country Friends in Dorrington. In Stourbridge Berkley’s (Piano Room) received a mention as did Severn Tandoori in Stourport-On-Severn, Hussain’s (still there but very much trapped in 1988!) in Stratford-Upon-Avon and The Chase Country House in Ettington. Stafford had no restaurant mentioned with just Effy’s in Hereford, Thrales in Lichfield and there were no restaurants mentioned in Stoke-on-Trent. In addition to the above mentioned Westgate Arms there were Randolph’s and Aylesford in Warwick, Hunt House in Rugby, the above mentioned Brown’s plus Kings in Worcester, Rose Tree in Bourton-On-The-Water, College Green in Gloucester, Old Colonial and Haywain at Bridgnorth, Brookhouse Inn at Burton-Upon-Trent, Le Filbert Cottage in Henley-In-Arden, Grafton Manor in Bromsgrove, Lambs at Moreton-In-Marsh while at Kenilworth there was a goodly list of mentioned restaurants - Diment, Bosquet, Portofino and Ana’s Bistro. In Tewkesbury there was Corse Lawn House, in Tetbury there was Gibbons, in Chipping Camden there was Caminetto and in Solihull there was Liaison.

  This list is clearly not exhaustive but it occurs to me that restaurants are featured in the 1988 Guide in rather more towns and communities than is the case today. In 1988 the Michelin inspectors were loitering in Bearwood or driving down country roads to Tewkesbury or Stourport-on-Severn. The Guide’s representation of the West Midlands, though having more named restaurants now, seems to have spread its listing around the smaller places in the area. Of course the current Guide richly features the Cotswolds area and Cheltenham but elsewhere across the region a number of significant smaller towns do not make an appearance. Perhaps it is because they just do not genuinely have anywhere worth eating in or perhaps it is because standards for inclusion in The Guide have been raised to unrealistic levels. Perhaps those with their London-centric gastronomic brains and bellies who plan the Guide should look a little more at the bye-ways towns of the West Midlands than seems to be the case at present.

  Perhaps we may see some new West Midlands mentioned in The Guide as my Michelin Guide Twitter watch reveals just where the Michelin inspectors have been in the West Midlands recently:-

1 October - Simpsons “A verdant oasis in the heart of the city of Birmingham” (really, that’s a bit overblown isn’t it? and since when was Edgbaston “in the heart of the city”?).

11 October - La Dolce Vita, Shrewsbury -  not mentioned before by

16 October - Henne, Moreton-In-Marsh - not mentioned before by Michelin.

  Myself, I have had a very pleasant week of dining in Birmingham with a repeat visit to Kray Tredwell’s 670 Grams,  tasting some dishes I have had before as well as some new ones. It’s certainly a different dining experience, novel, often exciting, even thrilling. Tredwell offers a true tasting menu - not a collection of dishes but small plates with items that send the diner travelling through the world of food - a single langoustine with a tiny pot of Thai green sauce, a vegetable course highlighting celeriac, his now familiar crispy chicken served with a garish red sauce in a dish shaped like a skull with its top sawn off, a course of excellent halibut (more accurately cooked on this second visit) and so on.

 

 Then, the following evening to Purnell’s to join a small number of old university friends for our annual reunion. Those who had not had the pleasure of dining at Purnell’s before were astonished at the excellence of the dishes - there were the usual ‘gifts from the kitchen’, the totally delicious pain de campagne, the classic but a little revised, I think, emotions of soixante-dix (the modern day twist on cheese and pineapple which only Glynn Purnell could come up with): ‘Mom Purnell’s remix’ of the smoked haddock, cornflakes and egg yolk classic, a surprisingly chewy and overcooked Cornish monkfish dish with roast butternut which brought the evening down a bit only for it to be salvaged by a fabulous dish of divinely cooked Ramsbury Estate fallow deer artfully served with a little pat of duck liver parfait with thin little slices of beetroot and a cameo by some sorrel, an Autumn version of 10/10/10 burnt egg custard surprise with blackberries plus the usual tarragon and honeycomb and then the ‘Mint choccy chip’ which as usual rounded everything off to the delight of my fellow diners. Needless to say, it was a happy reunion.

 

 I might just mention that a final treat was shared by the aged reunioneers - a splendid vanilla and strawberry jam sponge bought from the excellent cake maker, Mary Ashman of Kiss Me Cupcakes located in West Heath, here decorated in line with the former professions of the diners:- 

 The week had not completely come to an end. The day following the reunion I was off to Bennett’s Hill to lunch in at the newly opened fish and chip restaurant and takeaway - Fillet Of Soul.

 

 There are a good number of options to chose from but it seems ridiculous to go to a fish and chip shop and not have fish and chips. I chose the excellently-priced cod and chips and as a side dish a black pudding fritter. I had forgotten that the restaurant cooks in either beef dripping or rape seed oil and when my perfectly sized plate of fish and chips arrived I realised I should have asked for the oil-cooked version. Beef dripping-cooked fish always leaves me with a slightly claggy sensation on my tongue and the flavour is not quite to my liking. That aside it was an excellent piece of cod, cooked admirably with perfect batter and as fish and chip shop chips go those on my plate were pretty good. The black pudding fritters were a revelation; apart from being far too big a helping for my appetite, they were cooked perfectly - so many hotels who offer black pudding as part of a cooked breakfast overcook it so that it is dried out to the point of unpleasantness. I was surprised how very edible they were with the fish and chips. So Fillet Of Soul proved to be an excellent option as a meal alternative in the city centre, offering fine fish and chips at a reasonable price. What a joy it is to find a good fish and chip establishment.