441. The Wilderness Collaboration With Konjö.

   I dined at The Wilderness where a meal was being served by Alex Claridge and Marius Gedminas in collaboration with the Head Chef from Konjö - more fully, Konjö Robatayaki Kitchen - Joel, a Chef originally from Wolverhampton but now employed at the sister restaurant of Jöro in Sheffield (see Blog 41, 27 October 2018). Könjo has been described as a a”Scandi-Japanese mash-up with a mouthful of Jöro’s favourite ingredients, street food style”. Could that be a fusion one step too far? It was time to find out.

  The meal took the form of several courses of ‘snacks’ preceded by ‘bread’ and followed by a main course which was centred on quail with several other elements accompanying it.

  The opening bread - a beautifully textured focaccia, gorgeously unctuous with sesame oil and accompanied by kimchi relish and gochujang honey butter - was a very good start and the subsequent snacks gave much pleasure - a fabulous, crispy, again delightfully unctious, beef fat hash brown lifted to celestial heights by a sashimi of tuna belly nestling on it and intermediate texture provided by corn XO and all complemented by the precisely chosen flavour of yuzu..

  Then another highly successful, crispy ‘tostada’ with a prawn head mayonnaise and the citrus of finger lime. The next starter took the form of a pleasingly light bao filled with exquisite beef tartare, a combination of Könjo’s McBao and The Wilderness’ Unhappy Meal which took the informed diner back to Claridge’s battle to keep his restaurant alive during the period of the pandemic. A memorable play on street food from both restaurants.

  Then, a distinctly recognisable dish from ADC/The Wilderness - the sublime dish of hamachi with sliced green olive and jalapeño. To close the starters section there was subtle, delightful barbecued Cornish mackerel in a fig hot sauce with a side dish of a steamed and fried hot bun with zingy kimchi butter. Yes very, very good.

  This would have been perfectly adequate but the main course was still to come and when it did, though the various ingredients were pleasing, the whole was very much a dog’s dinner of disparate plates. The dish was centred on a poor little half quail coated in heavily cooked nam prik pao paste, its little pieces of meat hard to cut off.  There were some pleasingly crispy smoked fermented salt and pepper roast potatoes, the texture of which was enjoyable but the flavour of which I found to be less pleasing. There was a little dish of garlic aioli for which I could find no use - it did not seem to fit in with anything else that had been brought to the table - and some mango nam jim  alongside the little bird which looked pretty but for me was not quite the right accompaniment. The plate of green salad seemed equally out of place. I thought the quail needed warm accompaniments not all these cold elements. For me the whole just did not work. It was as though everything plus the kitchen sink had been mobilised and barely any of it seemed appropriate.

  I made little impression on the multielemental main course but enjoyed my unusual dessert, some of which was recognisable from ADC, of toasted jasmine rice ice cream served with an optimally citric calamansi curd and the fun of puffed pawa rice, reassuring caramelised aerated white chocolate and the freshness of kaffir lime.

  Many individual elements of the meal had been very enjoyable but as a whole it seemed incoherent with too many disparate dishes. The main was a hotchpotch. I am not too sure about Nordic-Japanese fusion. It may well indeed be a fusion too far. But, as always with Alex Claridge, this was an interesting and at times challenging meal. Who wants dull food?

  The previous evening was passed in Stratford upon Avon. Prior to attending the Royal Shakespeare Company’s latest production at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre - Othello (easily the best production I have seen there for several years with no gimmicky casting, men playing men, fine mature actors declaiming magnificently, no racial confusions, splendid period costumes and excellent direction) - I had eaten another very good early evening dinner at the Hotel Du Vin, where I was staying the night.

  To kick off I had a very fine Boulevardier, its subtle bitterness a tease to the appetite. Then a starter of a spot on chicken liver parfait which had an excellent texture, its richness nicely cut through by the accompanying plum and figgy chutney (I would have liked a bigger portion of this) which was served with two remarkably large slabs of toasted buttery brioche.

  For the main, I chose pan-fried cod served with lentils, winter root vegetables and cavalo nero. This was very a fine dish - the cod was cooked perfectly, the flesh white, glinting and perfectly yielding, the lentils were perhaps a little too numerous for my taste but they were very nicely cooked, tender but still with body and their flavour enhanced the earthy pleasure of the winter vegetables. The deep fried cavalo gave a cheeky, happy crunchy texture which no-one could complain about. A fine dish indeed.

    I needed a simple dessert. I was not in the mood for crème brûlée and opted for a simple dish of vanilla ice cream. I should be more ambitious with my choice of desserts but I do not need too much after my main course and my tastes in dessert are somewhat limited. So ice cream it was.

  The Bistro du Vin really is very good. 

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛🌛.

29 October.

239. Excursion To Sheffield - Vero Gusto And Juke And Loe.

 

  Although Birmingham has always been my home, I worked in and had a little house in, Sheffield, across the border from northern Mercia in the dark lands of Yorkshire. I worked there from 1981 to 2004 and I can tell you far more about the dining scene there, what little there was of it at the time, during those important years of English gastronomic history from practical experience than I can of West Midlands food at that time. I still visit friends there sometimes and go out to dine to find out what’s hot there, so to speak, especially as Sheffield is presently on a crest of trendiness.

   And so, once more, Lucy The Labrador and I set out from Stratford upon Avon where I had sat through six hours of violence and murder at the RSC watching the second and third parts of Henry VI and was pleasantly surprised the plays had not been murdered too much by their director, Owen Horsley, as some of the other directors there might have been expected to do, and headed for the foreign territory across the border in South Yorkshire. This might have been problematical as I had been an ardent supporter of the Lancastrians in the plays but I thought I would not mention this partisanship to anyone I came across during my stay in this land of the Yorkists.

  On my first evening in Sheffield my dining companion had suggested we dine at Vero Gusto, a family-run local favourite Italian restaurant in town which was opened in 2006 and, though Italian cuisine does not rank too highly in my list of favourite dining categories, this seemed like a reasonable proposition to me. And there was much to be pleased about.

  Unfortunately we were dining there when men, in considerable numbers, who were attending the ongoing snooker competition at the Crucible Theatre, and who were more rowdy than Jack Cade’s mob who attempted to bring down Henry VI’s government, had occupied most of the restaurant and there was a veritable hubbub with the staff looking somewhat stressed. The welcome, I think in consequence of that, was brisk and not warm. We were also parked up a narrow section of the restaurant at an inadequately sized table close to a table of noisy snooker enthusiasists which was not a happy start.

  Still we coped with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and dug in for the evening. And how delighted we were that we did so.

  I chose a starter of splendidly cheesy and truffley ravioli stracchino and tartuffo nero. The pasta was fine and a scattering of chopped roasted peanuts gave added texture. An excellent start. My dining companion enjoyed his asparagus soup served with focaccia and bread sticks.

  Then I had a truly great dish of superbly cooked lamb loin with a gorgeous, slightly sweet sauce. The accompanying potato gratin might have had a little more flavour but the smoked aubergine cream added another element to the deliciousness of the dish. Nevertheless if I had been served a plate of nothing but the magnificent lamb and sauce then I would have been no less ecstatic about it. My dining companion chose the lasagne, and though not known for holding back on criticism, gave it “9 out of 10”. I think my lamb will be one of my stand out dishes of the year.

  For dessert I chose a gloriously amaretto-soaked affogato and had no reason to complain. 

  Towards the end the snooker enthusiasts had returned to The Crucible for the evening session, peace began to reign and the front of house staff seemed less tense and friendlier. I was thoroughly delighted with my meal and already resolving that an earlier rather than later trip back to Sheffield was indicated to eat again at Vero Gusto.

  The following day, a three course lunch at the Michelin-listed Juke and Loe, “Brothers Luke and Joe [Grayson] have come together to run this laid-back eatery in this bustling part of the city. Seasonal cooking mixes the traditional with the modern ad every dish is equally appealing; preparation is skilful and flavours big and bold.Start with a cocktail in the bar”. 

  I doubt that having the cheap lunch option is ever a good idea and I think that one rarely gets a genuine impression of what a chef is offering. Naturally ingredients are less luxurious and more often than not, less enjoyable. But, despite what I write, we opted for the £30 for 3 courses lunchtime menu and it is hard to complain that we did not have value for money.

  I enjoyed my starter of smoked trout with wasabi mayonnaise, pickled whelks and seaweed salad but was less enthusiastic about the main course of ray wing, which was just too insubstantial in texture for me, served with a tasty white bean stew made lively with delightful pieces of guinea fowl and bursts of heat from harissa butter. The dessert of carrot cake, vanilla cream, black olive caramel and carrot sorbet was very much to my liking.

To do this restaurant full justice I feel I must return for dinner where cod and hogget are on the menu at present. I note that the restaurant will close for a short period in the coming weeks and then reopen having moved its location and that may well be the time to return.

41. Does Sheffield's Jöro Point The Way?

  To return to the main subject of Blog 39, I add a few extra thoughts about where is the future of dining out going to place us fairly soon? This week I visited Sheffield, not in the brief of this Blog for sure, but I was able to dine at what might be viewed as a cutting edge restaurant in that city which has been notorious for its poor gastronomic reputation over the past 30 years or so.

  My dining companion and I set out for Jöro (which is apparently Old Norse for 'earth') and were quite impressed when we arrived at a very stylish little restaurant housed in the Krynki shipping container development which seemed like just the right place for what we thought of as a rather adventurous place to dine.

  The restaurant states that its philosophy is based on a blend of influence from Nordic regions and Japan which they have nick-named 'Scandi-Jap-Mashup', the New Nordic Kitchen. Hmmm. The focus is on creating minimum fuss and producing delicious food using the best obtainable ingredients especially from local sources.

  Chef Luke French opened Jöro with his fiancée Stacey in December 2016 having worked for a short period as a youngster at Daniel Clifford's Midsummer House in Cambridge from whence he fled feeling overwhelmed by the place and then travelled around and worked in Asia and then worked in Sheffield for several years before trying out Jöro as a pop-up restaurant in the city. The chef most admired by Luke French is Paul Cunningham (a photograph of him occupies a prominent place in the restaurant), an English chef who holds two Michelin stars at his restaurant, Henne Kirkeby Kro, in Denmark. Presumably this foregoing paragraph explains the 'Scandi-Jap-Mashup' served up in Jöro. This is very interesting as one can not help but wonder if British exit from the European Union may result in young British chefs doing less of this international travelling especially on the European continent with the result that we see a contraction of foreign influence, especially European, on the future direction of British cuisine.

  A fixed 9 or 11 course Tasting menu is all that is served at Jöro and the menu may vary nightly. The home page of Jöro's website leads with the phrase, 'A meal built of many small plates'. Whether that concept actually works is sometimes questionable. A menu similar to that served to my dining companion and myself is depicted below. Some of the 'small plates' were indeed small gems. The mackerel with yuzu and coastal herbs, depicted at the head of the Blog was wondrously fresh and marine and the blue cheese and onion dish was delicious.

  In the middle of the meal things got a little out of hand. A small piece of duck, with an enjoyable, crunchy coating with plum sauce was really no better and less satisfying than a trip to a reasonable Chinese restaurant would have brought to the diner and immediately afterwards was, and to be honest it was a lovely piece of belly pork, another dish with a classic Chinese restaurant sauce - plum - which made me wonder why I hadn't just gone out 'for a Chinese'. The lowest point came next with a vaguely unpleasant dish containing charred broccoli and another brassica and not a lot else. I've made this point before (see Blog 5) - a plate of a single vegetable does not a course make and usually they're not very enjoyable. Please Chefs, serve your vegetables with something else.

  The meal as a whole was very good allowing for these false steps and it all represented tremendously good value. I'm not really convinced that we need to combine Scandinavian and Japanese food but it makes a change. I'd be very happy if Jöro upped sticks and settled down here in Birmingham and I could go there more often. As he matures I expect that Chef will swerve away from serving a plate full of brassicas and straight Chinese restaurant steals; some of the dishes worked very well and I would be happy to eat them again. But the brassicas - oh dear, a shiver goes down my back every time I think of the dish.

  O, I must go back again if only to have another piece of Chef's Ginger Miso fudge served as a petit four with the coffee.

  So perhaps we are still heading in the direction of using the freshest and most immediately available ingredients with less theatre both on the plate and in the restaurant but served in unusual and original forms and in chic, original environments. Refreshing dishes with a cleanness to them even though they may not always work.

  Jöro was awarded a Michelin Bib in the 2019 edition and the 2019 Good Food Guide rated it as having a 'cooking score' of 5 which, improbably, is just one less than Purnell's which I think says more about the underscoring of Purnell's than it does about the overscoring of Jöro.