428. Ludlow Food Festival 2024.

 Lucy The Labrador and I are back in Ludlow for the Food Festival - the original food festival in Britain. This is our tenth year (though of course we were not here in 2020 when a Festival of sorts was broadcast on line because of the pandemic we did not attend thr festival in body though we were in Ludlow physically.

  Once more we were staying at Fishmore Hall, as we always have, and the now old dog is familiar we the room we always have if not the staff who have largely departed after Laura Penman sold the hotel in January this year to a cost-cutting businessman who seems to be doing to Fishmore what Starmer is doing to the country. A lot of the joy seems to have disappeared from the place just as it has from Britain in general over the last two months or so. The kitchen staff all departed with the Head Chef Phil Kerry who had maintained the reputation of the hotel’s restaurant, Forelles, after his predecessor, Joe Gould, had moved on and matters culinary seem to have been very chaotic over the late spring and early summer. A new chef, Nicky Hull-Saldhana, who had worked for a long time in the Cayman Islands, was appointed in June and dining in Forelles seems to have improved with only an à la carte menu being on offer (three courses for a fairly stiff £55) but I am told that he will depart Forelles next week to be replaced by a Cayman Islands colleague, Alan Pressly, to whom I was introduced as he was arriving at the hotel.

  The dishes on offer generally have a veneer of fine dining but lack the finesse needed to see Forelles returned to The Good Food Guide or to maintain its presence in the Michelin Guide. We will have to see what chef Pressly brings to the party.

  My first dinner at Forelles brought with it an amuse bouche of a mushroom in a crispy batter on a rather rough looking pea purée, but who doesn’t like a piece of crispy batter?

   There then followed a starter of murky coloured but nicely textured leek and potato soup which was tasty and accompanied by well-flavoured smoked haddock and precisely poached egg. There was the inevitable garnish of the omnipresent pea shoot.

  A slice of sourdough with miso butter was served along with the soup. I was not too keen on the butter. Sometimes I would like to experience the pure taste of good quality English butter.

  The main was visually messy, wholly lacking in the finesse one would expect to be on display in a “fine dining restaurant”. But it tasted much better than it looked - blackened cod, nicely cooked and seasoned on a bed of mashed potato. Some sad pea shoots inevitably served as garnish and they did not add to rhe dish’s attractiveness.

  The dessert was very enjoyable and quite arty in its presentation though to be fair it was a passable strawberry cheesecake deconstructed with no very good reason.

  All in all Nicky Hull-Saldhana presents some pleasant and edible food but the presentation leaves something to be desired. It will be interesting to see if Alan Pressley brings more finesse to the dishes presented at Forelles.

Alan Pressley

  In my search started before the assault by the COVID-19 virus for great Ploughman’s lunches, I derived some pleasure for an example of the dish served at Fishmore especially as the plate included to be, aptly, Shropshire Blue, though one fully understands that Shropshire Blue is not made in Shropshire?

  And so, to the festival. I attended some of the food demonstrations including that by a Gareth Johns, ‘Slow Food Ambassador for Wales’. This was helpful especially as Johns gave an explanation of what ‘Slow food’ is exactly, particularly as the term seems to have become very trendy. Basically it is food that isn’t fast food and not slow cooked food.

  I should have liked to be present at the food demonstration given by Stuart Collins of Docket in Whitchurch but unfortunately his session clashed with an excellent tasting demonstration on cheese and drink given by Emma Young, author of The Cheese Wheel. Emma concentrated very appropriately on local cheeses which, because no cheeses are made in Shropshire other than Ludlow Blue from the Ludlow Food Centre, involved presenting Cheshire and Welsh cheeses.

  I was very impressed by the demonstration by Ivan Tisdall who earlier this year opened Native at Tenbury Wells at the location of the former Michelin starred Pensons. It was interesting to hear how pleased he was to have exchanged the pressures and costs of London for the quieter rural location of Worcestershire. It emphasised to me how fortunate to live here in the West Midlands rather than London which may have far more to offer but at a much greater price.

  Dinner again that evening at Forelles. After an amuse bouche the starter I chose of trout gravlax came with little blobs of beetroot relish dotted all over plus, I think, a saffron cream. It was quite enjoyable but, goodness, what a fussy presentation.

  The main was made up of three very nicely cooked slices of lamb served with pickled walnut and another rendition of beetroot. This was a very enjoyable dish and the lamb was just as I should have liked it. I chose not to have dessert.

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛.

69. Birmingham’s New Star.

  The Michelin Star awards ceremony held this evening (Monday 7 October) was, as usual, a mixture of long drawn-out tedium and toe curlingly cringeworthy moments. Really the organisers should get someone to introduce the whole shabang who actually knows how to ask questions of men who are obviously generally socially inept (except when in the company of fellow chefs especially if the chefs are men). In fact cutting out the questioning altogether would be a step that everyone would welcome. But the show had everything - a weeping Japanese chef, an Irishman well in his cups who wrestled Raymond Blanc to the floor in his state of half-drunken euphoria, a heavy sprinkling of swear words, numerous words of gratitude to various chefs’ mothers, a young and highly successful chef who pronounced that both he and his wife had been ‘going mental’ and a remarkable 

demonstration that the Michelin inspectors were all cashing in on their Irish second passports by sprinkling stars across that island.

  But from our point of view all that mattered was that Aktar Islam’s sublime Opheem has been awarded a Michelin star, the first Asian restaurant outside London to be so honoured. And deservedly so. Birmingham is back to 5 stars and Aktar has bolstered the city’s gastronomic reputation. In his on stage interview Aktar could not help but attribute his success to using his mother’s recipes. I for one would have been quite happy to see Mrs Islam on the stage along with him receiving her share of the Award!

  There were no other stars for Birmingham chefs and, though some thought it might happen, Adam’s did not increase its star score. In all there were 23 new one starred restaurants, 1 new 2 star restaurant which did not previously have a star at all, 2 new stars made up from 1 star and 1 new 3 star. Stars were sprinkled liberally over Ireland which makes me think that the inspectors are looking for a bolthole in the event of Brexit actually taking place.

  Meanwhile there is also good news for the West Midlands with the award of a Michelin star to chef Lee Westcott at Pensoms in Tenbury Wells in Worcestershire. My paternal grandmother was born there before coming to Birmingham in 1911 to work at the Bell Inn (long since closed and demolished) in Northfield and so the pleasant little town of Tenbury has a special place in my heart and the news is particularly pleasing to me. 

  Finally it’s worth mentioning that Manchester, which hilariously has not had a single Michelin-starred restaurant despite the city’s ‘second city’ pretensions for forty years, finally finds itself with a starred restaurant in the form of Mana. If it can get another four it’ll be starting to look a little more like a ‘second city’.