482. Great Brummie Menu, Birmingham College Of Food.

 

  This was the second year of The Great Brummie Menu, held at the Birmingham School of Food, part of University College of Birmingham, which was a charity event on behalf of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. I had been unable to attend the first event but was delighted to go this year’s which featured Liam Dillon of The Boat in Lichfield, Luke Tipping of Simpsons, Jonathan Howe of Lumière in Cheltenham, Glynn Purnell of The Mount in Henley in Arden and Darryl Collins, pâtissier at Resorts World at the National Exhibition Centre who had previously worked at the Lygon Arms in Broadway among other locations. The event was attended by about 90 diners and preced by a sparkling wine reception with some decent canopés.

  Liam Dillon was the first chef to present his work to the diners and it took the form of some passable Isle of Wight heritage tomatoes served nicely with an unaggressive goats cheese, herbs from the garden of The Boat and, most delicious of all, some very toothsome smoked eel. A good start though heritage tomatoes served nicely dishes are a great risk unless every presented tomato is packed with flavour.

  Luke Tipping served up a remarkable scallop dish - a variant on the numerous scallop dishes I have enjoyed at Simpsons over the years. The plump and well cooked scallop was served with the mild bitterness of chicory, the invigorating thrill of lemon, the savouriness of sauce épicée and sesame. A very fine dish, the best course of the whole meal.

  In contrast, I am sad to write that the main, a particularly small piece of nicely cooked Creedy Carver duck (though I can see that some might have felt it was somewhat over) served with a terribly soggily coated bonbon of dry and almost inedible duck meat (how lovely it might have been with a nice crispy coat on the bonbon) along with Cheltenham beetroot about which it was difficult to build up any enthusiasm and various purées, one of which was said to be fennel but which I found difficult to identify. I don’t think Jonathan Howe was having the best of days. Next came Glynn Purnell’s ‘10-10-10 Egg surprise’ alongside its ideal companion - strawberries and tarragon including a lovely strawberry ice cream. Purnell, I felt, had not lost his touch. 

  Finally from Darryl Collins a chocolate dessert which is best described as “safe” though nicely done.

  To close, five different mignardises including a macaron, a well made pate de fruits, a cracknel, a truffle and a Turkish delight. Each petit four was thoroughly enjoyable and the same could be said for the accompanying wines which were donated by Arch 13 Wine Bar. 

  This was a happy evening held for a good cause with the guest chefs donating their precious time and energy. Matt Davies played a large part in making the event occur. He had been cmployed as Andreas Antona’s first apprentice at Simpsons after it had moved to Edgbaston. He eventually became Executive Chef for the Lewis Partnership in Staffordshire which included the Moat House at Acton Trussell where unfortunately in 2018 he was seriously injured in an electrical accident necessitating long running treatment at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. He was now the Vice President of the British Culinary Federation. The Great Brummie Menu was a way for him to thank the hospital for the treatment he had received there and a sum of £17,000 was raised during the evening to support the Queen Elizabeth.

  I was saddened by a note on the back page of the menu which stated, “In loving memory of Wayne Thomson 22/09/1971 - 12/04/2025”. I had dined very happily a number of times at Wayne Thomson’s excellent Michelin-listed No. 9 Church Street in Stratford upon Avon. He was a hard working man who cooked extremely enjoyable dishes and his small restaurant was a charming delight. It was a sad event when the restaurant failed to reopen after the COVID-19 lockdowns though Wayne continued to work in the catering industry. Ars longa vita brevis.

  Finally, for the record - the first Great Brummie Menu was held at the School of Food on 21 May 2024 with the guest chefs being Luke Tipping, Adam Bennett of The Cross in Kenilworth, Jonathan Howe, Thom Bateman of the Flintlock at Cheddleton in Staffordshire and Louisa Ellis.

48. No. 9 Church Street.

  I visit and stay in Stratford-upon-Avon very regularly usually, but not always, to visit the Royal Shakespeare Theatre to see what outrage against the Bard's plays has been perpetrated on this occasion as the Royal Shakespeare Company comes more and more mired in increasingly extravagant political correctness and total silliness. Ofcourse other playwrights are used to promote the RSC's obsession with exaggerated equality - the grimmest recent example being a plainly puerile assault on Molière in which some not very talented actors performed in a dire production of Citizen Khan meets Tartuffe.

  Sometimes I like to pass a couple of days in Stratford, even though it's less than 20 miles from my home at the southern edge of Birmingham, and that gives me an evening to fume at what the RSC is up to and another to calm down and try the food at one of the several restaurants to be found in this most famous of Warwickshire towns. For several years now I've been a happy diner from time to time at No. 9 Church Street, in Stratford's old town area, just across from King Edward's School where Shakespeare had a short-lived education and a short walk from the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and Holy Trinity Church where Shakespeare's body is buried along with several members of his family.

  This is the tenth anniversary year of Wayne Thomson's comfortable restaurant which has a good turnover of dishes so that it's possible to always try something new and appealing on every visit. Wayne Thompson was born in Cornwall but brought up in Warwick and trained at Stratford-upon-Avon College before working at some prestigious restaurants such as those at The Savoy and Claridge's under authorities such as Alain Ducasse and Anthony Demeter. On returning to the Midlands he took up his first head chef post at Nailcote Hall Hotel at Berkswell and later was head chef at the New Hall Hotel near Sutton Coldfield.

  On my most recent visit to No. 9 Church Street I found that apart from the changing menu everything else was comfortably familiar. The food at this restaurant which has a Michelin Plate and is listed in The Good Food Guide is the product of good, solid cooking without the fireworks which modern Michelin starred restaurants might be expected to deliver to achieve that award. The plating up was a little short of the glamorous which we have come to expect in some restaurants and the main course dish in particular looked less than perfect with the bisque unevenly spread (it might have benefitted from the bisque being served in a small jug to be added at the table on serving) and a rather too large a lump of angel hair noodles overwhelming the piece of sea bream visually.

  I started off with a neat and tasty, but not dramatically delicious, warm game pie served with some mild chicory and appealing pickled rhubarb. Again there was a slight dowdiness about its visual display but all in all it was an enjoyable enough dish.

  The strong-flavoured sea bream was toned down by its accompanying south-east Asian ingredients, the most effective being the bites of ginger which cut through the strong fishy taste. There were also prawns and spring onion and undetectable chilli but for me there were a few too many noodles which can be quite tiresome to eat.

  I rounded off with a gorgeously alcoholic rum baba served with mint, little cubes of pineapple and a pina colada ice cream which had a slightly too aggressive flavour.

  No. 9 Church Street remains a pleasing place to dine when in Stratford but I wonder if it would benefit from a little thought being given to giving it a not-very-dramatic 10 year reboot. Well, just an idea but when you've got the trendy Michelin-starred Salt moving in next door to you, you don't really want to look like a fusty old uncle posing by his chic young nephew.