515. A Week In Weston.

 

  The dog and I resolved to enjoy ourselves at Birmingham’s traditional seaside resort of Weston super Mare as I and my previous Labrador had done before for about thirteen years. Birmingham has no sea and Weston does and Labradors should have as much time swimming in the sea as they possibly can in their all-too-short lifetimes. Weston is also the nearest seaside resort by train to Birmingham as one can find. Hence to Weston. 

  It is a shadow of what it was in the 1950s and 60s as regards the number of visitors and the resort was very quiet during the week that we visited. Some days were wet, some windy, some cold - “fresh”, you might say - and I suppose that is why most British prefer to endure the process of flying to some hot, sunny resort in southern Europe or Turkey or further afield if they can afford it. They don’t know what they are missing. The beach at Weston is fabulous even if it’s usually too cold to sit on it for very long and the sea races in and out waiting for no man, like time, as the saying goes. It is perfect for an old bloke with a hyperactive puppy and the town is quiet and unthreatening and relaxing though most of the important shops there have closed and a lot of the people there look quite poor.

  It certainly is a town for ‘working people’ as the politicians like to call the working class in these present times. It is nowhere near posh enough for a Michelin inspector to trouble themself to visit and not middle class hipsterish enough for the Good Food Guide to take any interest in it. True, a few years ago Michelin did include the excellent Cove restaurant in the hallowed pages of its Guide but the Cove has long closed and Weston remains sans mention in either of these two publications. 

  The Cove is much missed by myself - the setting was one of overlooking the bay and was lovely especially at sunset and the unnamed chef(s) was/were masters of fish and shellfish preparation and cookery. I lunched or dined (sometimes both) there every day when I was in Weston and when the restaurant was open and its closure remains a sad event in my life. It closed, I think, about 2016 and eventually after a considerable period of dithering, the RNLI took it over as its local headquarters, ‘visitors centre’ and gift shop. The Cove did not do well on the ghastly Tripadvisor on which malign commentators wrote a number of harmful reviews which meant that The Cove was pushed well down the local rankings. Most of the negativity was centred on the admittedly at times inexplicably slow service though that may well have been because the restaurant attempted to train young people in front of house service and waiters therefore sometimes appeared cheerful and keen to help but rather slow and mildly clueless. 

  I experienced so many hours of happy dining at The Cove, indulging in some remarkably well prepared dishes - I remember a wonderful starter of delicious cauliflower panna cotta, fresh crab, various fish dishes including an ambitious and successful en papillote; The Cove served fine and well loved moules marinière. Ah! Such pleasures. Lost. But remembered. And all in Weston super Mare; who’d have thought it?

  But that was then and this is now. Of equal importance to Weston’s dining out history is the immortal Papa’s fish and chip restaurant which I have described previously. These are not triple cooked chips nor is the fish in little lumps a couple of cubic centimetres in size but generously portioned, lightly and crisply battered fine white cod meat and chips, not crispy on the outside but well cooked and tasty. The restaurant is atmospheric and its decor celebrates its history. Papa’s was my first port of call and great pleasure was derived from my cod and chips. A plate of fish and chips at Papa’s is a necessity on every visit to Weston.

  It was mid-autumn, night fell early, the weather was bipolar - raining one minute, brightly sunny the next. For the next three evenings I dined at The Old Thatched Cottage, right on the seafront, a few yards from the beach and nextdoor to my hotel. I had not eaten there for some years - I had not been impressed on my only visit there - I had fish which was badly overcooked and the waitress had seemed cold and unwelcoming. But it was time to give it another try. And  was delighted. The welcome was pleasing, the restaurant both spacious and cosy and comfortable and the menu had an emphasis on a mixture of the traditional English and traditional Greek, on the chargrilled and on the marine.

  I had a lovely prawn cocktail as my starter - a generous portion of sweet, plump crustaceans in a particularly pleasing Marie Rose sauce with a fresh crisp salad. Then for my main, a magnificently tender and tastilly grilled pork chop, lovingly French trimmed, with some exceptionally fine triple-cooked chips and a couple of sweet onion rings. This dish was a palpable hit. I rounded off with a soothing affogato and as contentedly as one might feel, I walked back to my hotel next door, taking in the mid-autumn seaside evening.

  The next evening, as starter I chose a very underwhelming dish of ‘chorizo bites’ and then for my main a truly delicious and perfectly cooked chargrilled chicken, bountiful in size, served with what I assume was a well cooked cous cous (I rarely choose to eat it so its optimal texture is not something I can comment on but this filled me with little pleasure reminding me, as it did, of small balls of tapioca though the salad and dressing - hits of refreshing mint and lemon) were lovely. For dessert, I was stuck in affogato mode - it’s such an enjoyable combination of pudding course and after dinner coffee and nice and light after a mesmerisingly generous piece of chicken.

  For my third dinner at The Old Thatched Cottage, I happily sank a toothsome pina colada to start while getting on with a very pleasing chicken liver pâté which lacked the bitterness that some examples of this dish often bring with them and on it sat an equally pleasing red onion chutney which was just right for cutting through the richness of the paté. For my main, some really excellent beer battered haddock - light crispy batter and nice, well-cooked meaty fish. The chips were excellent and the peas were fine and underlined the traditionality of it all. To be fair this was a dish I probably enjoyed more than my Papa’s fish and chips but  I would never miss the opportunity to visit Papa’s. Afterwards - well, affogato again I’m afraid.

  For my Cottage dinner, the next evening, I returned to the Greek theme. As a starter I had a generous plate of undistinguished olives with a pleasing, not overly garlicky hummus and refreshing tzatziki and some rather nice flatbread.Then for my main I chose what turned out to be a beautifully grilled chicken  thigh souvlaki - very pleasingly moist and tasty and this was served with a generously portioned fresh Greek salad, more tzatziki and flatbread.  This was a thoroughly enjoyable main course.

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛🌛.

   The final dinner of my seaside visit was eaten at an old favourite of mind - a friendly, warm, cosy, welcoming sort of place about which I have written before - the splendid Ginger Pig Kitchen. I found that it remained as enjoyable as ever - not much has changed since my last visit (including most of the menu) but the meal gave me great pleasure. To start I chose a newcomer to the menu - a delightful, sweet French onion soup with gorgeously sweet onions, the broth hot enough to make it a dish to sip slowly and a decent cheesy crouton blanketing it all. It was accompanied by a slab of the Ginger Pig’s focaccia which is made on site and is very good.

  Then there could be nothing better on a nasty autumn evening, with a biting wind sweeping in from the Bristol Channel and the rain cascading from the black skies, than a Ginger Pig homemade pork and cider pie on a bed of very satisfactory mash, crispy rocket, a pig in a blanket, smashed peas and for me, a rather overgenerous lake of good gravy. Stuck in the top, as usual, was a crispy twig of pork crackling which had a satisfactorily not excessive crispiness. Then there could pie itself was a very good size, the pastry just right and the meat inside plentiful and tender.

For dessert, inevitably, affogato; this extravagantly enhanced with pieces of honeycomb to add to and sweeten the mix.

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛

My week in Weston was over and I was well fed.

27-31 October 2025.

406. West Country Pleasures.

 

  The end of May saw my dog and I taking one of our trips to the West Country seaside at Weston super Mare. I started off by dining on well cooked cod and chips at Papa’s, the historic and atmospheric restaurant, busy and characterful. The fish was white and meaty and nicely cooked with a pleasing light batter. Sometimes the simplest pleasures are the best.

  Less historic and much more recent, is the Strange Catch which has seating but is not intended to be a restaurant. Again, very pleasing cod and chips are served there and the following evening I had a takeaway, dining yet again on this traditional seaside food. The chips were tasty and well cooked and the cod again was cooked in a pleasant, light batter and might have been even better cooked than that from Papa’s - nicely moist and again meaty even though both the fish and chips looked less golden than those served at Papa’s.

  One can not live by fish and chips alone and so off to lunch in Bristol the following day. On my last trip there I had lunch at Casa on Lower Guinea Street but this time I changed from Italian cuisine to Spanish tapas in the sister restaurant of Paco Tapas, Michelin-recommended as is Casa and next door, part of complex of swanky apartments located in a former hospital building. As is the case with Casa, Paco Tapas has modern, fairly minimalist decor - fresh and à la mode - though unlike its sister which is furnished with pleasingly ordinary tables and chairs, it has high tables and high seats - not uncomfortable but not being a bird, I prefer not to perch. Both restaurants have gleaming open kitchens with plenty of bright metal and young chefs going about their labours calmly and methodically and everything appears permanently under control. The Front of House staff was welcoming, helpful, patient, knowledgeable and unhurried.

  And so to the food - I opened with a pair of indulgently cheesy ham croquetas though the jamon was not the dominant feature it should have been. I also had some splendid charred padron peppers which kept things going until a plate of very finely cooked  Iberico pork chop arrived  - gorgeously tender though it was not quite as tasty as some Iberico pork I have had. To accompany it I had a helping of patatas bravas - a generous and tasty enough portion. 

  

  For dessert a sweet, but not excessively so, rather luxurious Pedro Ximénez flan - Spanish flans, which to be honest are not excessively familiar to me - are really a custard without the pastry which we might expect with a British flan and this was a pleasing example.

  This was an enjoyable visit with finely prepared and carefully cooked Spanish dishes. There was a pleasing absence of chorizo and an an equally pleasing absence of rusticity which is often very welcome but sometimes it is a pleasure to have something with a little more finesse - not just in the presentation of the food but also in the surroundings it is eaten in.

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛🌛

  Having expressed a pleased relief for a lack of rusticity at Paco Tapas I now reverse my stance and express a delight caused by the rusticity of Ginger Pig Kitchen back in Weston super Mare which serves damn fine food though, like anywhere else, sometimes things are not quite what one is hoping for.

  Like many English seaside resorts, Weston has seen better, busier days when West Midlanders, in particular, and also the invading Welsh, would take their summer holidays in their tens of, if not their hundreds of, thousands in the resort with its fine, elongated beach and notorious tide which leaves exposed mud when it is low and can be splashing at the sea wall when it is high. On this present visit - a school holiday week - it looked as though things were picking up with more visitors to the town than I can remember seeing for a long time.

  It is a shortish distance from ultra-middle class, privileged, champagne-socialist Bristol inhabited as it is with the true ‘heirs of Blair’. Weston could not be more different - the holiday resort of the working class where one feels the burgers of Bristol would feel uncomfortable and would be roughing it if they ventured down the coast to see how the other half live, or in this case, holiday. The Ginger Pig Kitchen is unlikely to be for them and it’s easy to stumble into the middle class frame of mind when judging a restaurant though well heeled socialist restaurant critics like Jay Rayner, cosy in his self righteousness and sense of moral superiority, may feel they should stoop to show solidarity with the people at other times they may well sneer at. 

  I will try to view the restaurant in its context where the diners may not have the culinary sophistication which the middle class, their restaurant critics and the left wing newspapers they read, feel that they themselves possess but from the point of view of the restaurant which has a good chef and a clear understanding of what its clientele wish to eat at a price they can afford and which is several cuts above most other restaurants locally available to them.

  On my first evening of dining there I chose a starter of shrimp croustade. Sadly this did not work for me - the hot toast clashing with the chilled shrimps in Marie Rose and with shredded lettuce, cucumber and cherry tomatoes. Without the bread this would have been a version of a prawn cocktail and as such would have been very enjoyable.

  The main course was remarkably good - the locally sourced lamb was delicious and delightfully tender - the dining elite might have said that the lamb was not as pink as they would have wished but this suited me very much. The weather had turned warm in Weston and the well sautéed potatoes and roast vegetables spoke of winter rather than the passage of spring to summer but how was Chef to know that the weather gods had finally decided a little bit of sunshine, warmth and blue skies was due to us all? In this generously portioned vegetable extravanganza, I drew particular pleasure from the beautifully cooked leeks which were sweet and tender - simple pleasures but good ones. I could manage nothing more than an affogato for dessert but, as I’ve remarked before, it’s quite the perfect way to end a meal - dessert and coffee all rolled into one.

  For my second dinner at the Ginger Pig Kitchen I chose the prawn cocktail proper, served in a scallop shell, nicely immersed in a thoroughly enjoyable Marie Rose sauce and accompanied by fresh English salad. The Ginger Pig has kept the fine Berni Inn classic alive and well and living in Weston super Mare. I purred with pleasure.

  Feeling thoroughly maritime I stuck with fish for my main course and was served very satisfactorily cooked battered cod with, at my request, mashed potato - a man can not live by chips alone - and creamed crushed peas. This was lovely locally sourced fish with an excellent crispy batter and treated by Chef in a way that it deserved. I should have liked a little more butter in my mash - mash should be luxurious though not reduced to a purée with no body to it - the vegetable should have a texture and be allowed to keep its earthy flavours.

  Then, I returned for Sunday lunch. I did not resist the temptation to have another prawn cocktail and then I was served a grand, very kindly priced, roast beef main with all the, and one or two other, trimmings. The beef was as delightful as the lamb from a couple of days previous and again, I suppose, not as rare as some would have liked but thoroughly pleasing to me. With it came a successful cauliflower cheese, roast potatoes more accurately cooked than I have had in some other establishments, tender red cabbage not assaulted by apple nor cinnamon and all the better for that, a very precisely roasted half carrot with just the right bite to it, broccoli cooked to my taste , a delicious stuffing which I might not have been expecting with beef, an unimpeachable Yorkshire pudding and all brought together with a good, honest, silky gravy.

  The Ginger Pig Kitchen serves good traditional fare elevated to a higher level but without the overpriced pretensions that we often see. With the food goes the atmosphere and the feeling of diners enjoying themselves overseen by a restaurant manager who really knows how to do her job.

Rating - 🌛🌛🌛🌛

Back to Birmingham - 

  Michelin announced its list of newly recommended restaurants for May 2034 on 29 May.There were seven in all and one of them was located in the West Midlands area - Cuubo in Harborne which I recently visited (see Blog 403).