481. Riverine Rabbit.

 

  I was delighted to receive an invitation from Erin Valenzuela-Heeger, best described as ‘Front of House’ (though in reality no more Front of House than Ash, her partner, the Michelin ‘Best Young Chef of 2025’), to reserve a spot at the counter of Riverine Rabbit, for dinner as it is remarkably difficult to get a place there and it had been a while since I had last dined there where things have now moved on to, perhaps surprisingly for this tiny, casual and very relaxed restaurant, diners being offered the choice of one of two tasting menus, one of five courses, the other of seven. Rabbit is clearly getting serious.

  Arriving a full half hour early, I cocktailed in Couch, Rabbit’s next door neighbour which is a perfectly matched spot to start the evening before moving next door to explore Ash’s stream of edible delights. and inwardly enthused at my delicious. Despite it being highly regarded and having been the recipient of several awards, I had never visited Couch before but was pleased that I did. It was busy at the start of this particular Friday evening and the service was excellent and the gimlet variant cocktail enjoyable.

 Then, on to Riverine Rabbit where I was the first diner to arrive and was therefore able to have a little chat with Ash and Erin including asking some questions about their experiences at the Michelin awards in Glasgow earlier in the year. I decided to choose the eight course menu - after all what’s the point of missing the full experience when the opportunity comes so rarely?

    I was first offered a cup of Seychellois vanilla tea which I had had before having visited the islands several times in the past and bringing packets of the very pleasant beverage back with me. The reason for offering vanilla tea as a starter was related to Ash’s family having a hotel in Seychelles and she had recently returned from there. It is, it has to be said, a soothing drinking. 

  It was followed by ‘kitchen snacks’ - pretty amuses gueules - and very tasty they were too. Next, the ungenerously named ‘spring peas’ which was more a symphony of things pisine and more summer than spring. 

  Delicious Chalkstream trout tartare with sea herbs moved the meal forward demonstrating Ash’s flair and inventiveness and then, from the longer menu ‘fried chickenn& caviar’ which reminded me of the chicken oyster previously served at Carter’s of Moseley where Ash had worked previously. The crispy coated  chicken was moist and succulent and nicely complemented by the generous portion of Oscietra caviar - this was a course of turf and surf, or perhaps, chicken coop and seabed, which made it essential to lash out on the longer menu.

  Via a happy course of adequately al dente Wye Valley asparagus, finely flavoured and served not with a Hollandaise but a cream fraiche-based sauce I arrived at the lovely slice of accurately cooked, for me, Wagyu which gave much pleasure and then the two desserts, a clever play on another seasonal favourite, strawberries and cream, though being early in the season Ash had sweetened them too heighten the enjoyment of them. Finally, an excellent chocolate dessert which rounded the meal off nicely.

 This was an excellent meal, kindly priced given the work and ingenuity and skill on display, and emphasise Ash Valuenzuela-Heeger’s remarkable brilliance as well the astonishing business good sense she and Erin have shown in picking their location and type of prospective clientele, the food to be served and the price the diner was likely prepared to pay.

Rating, undoubtedly:- 🌝🌝🌝.

As a footnote, Brad Carter, Ash’s former employer at Carter’s of Moseley, announced that he would be opening his new restaurant,  Island, at Kings Cross in London in cooperation with Chef Tom Brown. It will take the form of a surf and turf establishment with Carter handling the meat side of the menu and Brown concentrating on the fish and seafood. No early return to Birmingham, then, for Carter.

461. Return To Albatross Death Cult; 2025 Michelin Awards Ceremony.

 

  I had very real expectations that Alex Claridge’s Albatross Death Cult would be awarded a Michelin Star in the 2025 Awards Ceremony held in Glasgow on 10 February and so, in anticipation of being present at the first service after a notable recognition, I reserved a table at ADC to scent the sweet smell of success at first hand. It was not to be, unlike last year when I had reserved a table at Opheem the first service after the award of two stars to Aktar Islam’s very fine restaurant. Alas, Michelin is a law onto itself and one should never assume that one knows what they are thinking. 

  Not that the news was all bad. The wonderful Ash Valenzuela-Heeger of Riverine Rabbit almost opened the proceedings by being awarded the Young Chef Award and her and Erin, her partner’s, restaurant was deservedly awarded a Bib Gourmand, the first seen in the city in many a year (though Rabbit was joined by Tropea in receiving the Bib).

  And further afield in the West Midlands, both Native in Tenbury Wells and Wild Shropshire in Whitchurch were awarded Green Michelin stars.

  Regardless of what did or did not come to pass, I was back at Albatross Death Cult, seated at the shiny counter and not sorry to be there. I was happy to chat to my neighbours - one on a visit to Birmingham from Chicago, interested very much in dining out especially at seafood restaurants and drawn to the ADC by its sphinxian full name. He felt that people dressed more nicely to go out and eat in England than back home in Chicago but then he hadn’t visited a Weatherspoons so he wasn’t fully in possession of the facts. My other neighbour was a young woman who had settled in Birmingham and now had more time to go out and visit our fine eateries and was gradually working her way through the Birmingham section of the Michelin Guide. She was enjoying herself and, like our visitor from the Windy City, was very impressed by ADC and all the dishes as they came out.

  Head Chef Piotr Szpak was in reassuringly good form with a slightly revised coiffure and an opening gambit of his familiar greeting, “Long time no see” although it had only been a couple of weeks since my last visit. It was also a pleasure to see the remarkably talented young senior sous chef, Oliver Grieve, back at his station and to have my drinks needs admirably addressed by sommelier Camilla Bonnannini.

  I have detailed a number of the dishes which were presented this evening and which were familiar from previous visits and I will not cover old ground save to say that each dish was as immaculate as ever and as deserving of a Michelin star as ever. The usual little snacks which started off the meal were gems in miniature of the culinary art in themselves - I have described them in previous Blogs - and then came a top rate dish of delicious smoked trout roe mousse with the orange pearls of trout roe and the joyous kick of wasabi. A real star, beyond a doubt.

 The tuna nigiri was beautifully textured and had all the characteristics of a beignet topped by tuna though of course it was rice rather than dough - delicious. Then came another dish to me - finally cut sea bass with umami tare sauce which could not help but be riven through with flavour. The apple with crab is a familiar favourite - the crab shone through which, elsewhere, is not always the case and the apple provides a perfect companion to it. Then accurately cooked opalescent cod wrapped in nori with the sun-gold yolk of a quail’s egg - again absolutely spot on cooking with the yolk still runny inside. Such delicacy of preparation - the cheerfulness and lightheartedness of the chefs does not prepare the diner for the precision and obsessional care with which they prepare the dishes.

  The mussel-black pepper-Iberico must be one of the very best dishes on offer in the region at the moment - the mussels tender and pepper-spicy and the Iberico adds an almost overwhelming saltiness as well as little spicules of comforting texture. But there were still jewels to come - the red prawn with its punchy prawn head sauce and then the delicious hamachi with the bracing flavour of sesame.

   There was just the divine pleasure of the sushi rice ice cream to come and a happy petit four jelly and it was time to go. Star or no star - ADC remains truly remarkable. I have little doubt that if it had been located in London and only been a fraction as good as it is, then Albatross Death Cult would have been celebrating the award of a star. But, Michelin is a law onto itself though, as Mr Bumble is quoted as saying, “The law is an ass”.

Rating:- 🌞🌞🌞

  Back to the Michelin Awards ceremony - it was overblown, preposterous, pretentious, arrogant, full of hubris and really quite silly. It had a big organ, a piper, a plethora of overwrought Scottish politicians, a Frenchman with an ‘Allo ‘Allo accent in charge of it all and long drawn out promotions of its sponsors including the repeated and time consuming disrobing of the award winning chefs in order that they may put on chefs’ jackets produced by one of the ceremony’s sponsors. A video promoting the advance of women in the restaurant industry was shown and included appearances by Ash and Erin Valenzuela-Heeger filmed inside a rather poorly lit Riverine Rabbit but Michelin’s presumably well-intentioned presentation brought more criticism than praise afterwards. 

  Perhaps it would be best if Michelin allowed the British to stage their own version of the Awards ceremony in future years without too much interference from France. After all, the French are hardly known for being able to put on a good show, at least not since the days of Toulouse-Lautrec and Fin de Siècle Montmartre and the Moulin Rouge and the Folies Bergère  and all that sort of stuff. The Michelin Awards ceremonies, since they commenced in recent times have always been, at best, discomforting and, at worst , toe-curlingly embarrassing but every year that goes by, they are taking longer and longer to do what they are there for - that is - present awards to a tip-of-the-iceberg selection of some of Britain’s best chefs and thereby devolving into a tedious two hours lost from one’s life that one will never recover. No matter, it’s good to see our accomplished chefs rewarded for making dining out a pleasure, even if it’s not always affordable.

  At the end of it all, the West Midlands region now has 75 restaurants mentioned in the Michelin Guide which is far too few but an increase on this time last year.

376. Rabbit/RiverineRabbit.

 

  There’s no doubt that when it comes to promising new, if small, restaurants then Stirchley, not withstanding the Jewellery Quarter, is the place to seek them out at present. The latest is what was to be called Riverine Rabbit, but seems now to be plain Rabbit, located in the shopping area along the Pershore Road.

  And to be fair, you can’t blame ambitious young chefs and restaurateurs opening up in Stirchley where they will have a captive audience, heavily hipster, all living within a short walk of what is charmingly described as the High Street. The exterior of Riverine Rabbit is very Stirchley with a small name sign which is rather difficult to spot especially on a dark winter evening. Looking through the window, you can see it is pleasantly bijou, with a well planned interior. Lucy The Labrador and I visited the restaurant soon after it first opened. 

  Having correctly identified the right location, the dog and I walked into a a not over-brightly lit but smart-looking and warm dining area with just 18 seats running along the counter at which the diners sit. There was a pleasingly adequate space in which the dog could relax. There were two people behind the counter - Erin Valenzuala-Heeger, who by the way has a day job as a metallurgist at Birmingham University, and her wife Ash Heeger, the Chef.

  There’s an interesting background story to the couple. Ash was born in Transkei in South Africa and brought up in Capetown and ran the 70 seater restaurant - also The Riverine Rabbit - with her sister Mandy in that city until it was closed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. She came to Birmingham with Erin who works in the Midlands Industrial Ceramic Group at the University and worked at Carter’s of Moseley before Brad Carter decided that his restaurant should shift its location. The originally intended name of the new restaurant (and that of the former Capetown restaurant) derives from that of a species of rabbit (they might perhaps have used the Latin name Bunolagus monticularis, though to be fair it doesn’t really have hipster appeal when you think about it) which lives in the Karoo desert in Ash’s homeland  and the choice of name highlights Ash’s and Erin’s efforts to support sustainable farming practices. The Birmingham restaurant’s name seems to have been shortened, probably wisely, to plain and simple Rabbit, which has much more good down-to-Earth Brummie appeal even in a hipster zone such as Stirchley.

  As the first diner of the evening to arrive I was greeted most warmly and Lucy the Labrador no less so. After seating myself in my designated chair at the counter I was given a nice, warming, interestingly flavoured tea of South African origin and shown the drinks on offer which were brought around from Couch next door which seems to work very well for the customer while Rabbit is sans alcohol licence. I ordered a gimlet which was brought round very rapidly andas regards wine, pre-warnedI had brought a half bottle with me.

  The menu looked very exciting - small plates often with South African connections - and while Erin set about preparing my ordered dishes I dived into an excellent plate of fresh salty crisps with accompanying dip. The first dish was an excellent beef tartare with the meat marinated deliciously in rapeseed oil, smoked soy and fava bean miso. This was a generous portion of perfectly tender beef and was accompanied by wafer-sized pieces of nori which powerfully ushered in the flavour of the sea making this a rather clever surf and turf, if you like.

  Next I was served a gorgeous crab muffin; the tasty crab alive with the perfectly balanced citrus of pickled lemon and enhanced by a brown butter mayonnaise. Again this was a sizeable dish  the muffin adding considerable volume to it all and I might in retrospect have not also added fine hash browns served with spiced salt and ponzu mayonnaise to my order. On the other hand, who can resist a well cooked hash brown?

  I had not even then finished as I had ordered quite the most beautifully cooked pork belly I can remember ever having been served, the fat all melted away but all the flavour lying deep inside it from miso and gochujang, served on a triumphantly light and fluffy bao with charred hispi and cucumber. A very fine and delicious dish which, alas, I forgot to photograph, but shall return to when I next visit Rabbit in 3 or 4 weeks time. 

  Despite repletion having long set in, I allowed myself the sole dessert on the menu which was a soothing miso banana cream with the added flavour of crumbled speculoos, otherwise known as biscoff - a Belgian spiced gingerbread biscuit - along with coconut and the sweetness of ‘sprinkles. This was very good and different from most desserts which are often.

  As the minutes passed the denizens of Stirchley gradually came in and took their places at the counter and placed their orders. One irritating young woman, accompanied by lighting equipment and a doubtless expensive phone-camera, oblivious to all the other diners, obsessionally filmed the explanation of each dish given to her and her dining companion by Erin as she served them. I assume she is some sort of ‘influencer’. No matter, it was lovely to sit at the counter chatting with Erin and Ash and enjoying their food. The dog was content to lie back, rather in the way I’m afraid, but causing no trouble and being fussed by some of the diners who, naturally as dog owners do, first enquired about her age and then told me all about their dogs. By the end of my couple of hours in Rabbit, I felt as though I had been visiting and dining at someone’s home rather than having been seated in a restaurant.

  This is a great restaurant and possibly already the most important new restaurant in Birmingham to open in 2024. The opening of Carter’s in Colmore Row of course is of great importance but it is a reopening so I feel justified in giving that accolade, for the present at least, to Rabbit (though you may argue, if you must, that technically Rabbit is also a reopening given its predecessor in Capetown but I would say that that was not the same thing at all).