437. The End Of Purnell’s.

 At 1000AM on Monday 14 October 2024 Glynn Purnell announced via social media that his restaurant, Purnell’s, in Cornwall Street had served its last diners at close of service on Saturday 12 October and that the restaurant was now permanently closed.

  He was interviewed an hour later on the BBC West Midlands station by Kathryn Stanczyszyn and repeated that which he had stated in the social media and identified a number of reasons for his decision to end the 17 years of fine dining he had been serving up to the citizens of Birmingham and from further afield in Cornwall street. 

  We know well Purnell’s story before opening Jessica’s in Edgbaston with owners Diane and Keith Stevenson and this had included a period of work as Chef de Partie at Andreas Antona’s Simpsons and for Claude Bosi at Hibiscus in Ludlow. Jessica’s was opened in 2004 and, with Purnell in the kitchen, it was awarded a Michelin star in 2005, joining Simpsons as one of only two Birmingham restaurants to have been awarded the accolade up until then. Jessica’s closed in 2007 after Purnell decided to open his own restaurant which he did in May 2007, quite reasonably naming it after himself, and Purnell’s was awarded a Michelin star in the 2009 edition of the Michelin Guide (announced in 2008). Purnell’s retained the star until its closure.

  Purnell became a local and national culinary celebrity with numerous appearances on television and in the press and opened, and sometimes closed, other restaurants as he was eventually to do with his flagship fine dining restaurant itself as the gastronomic climate changed, costs rose, and the fall off of diners able to, or prepared to, pay significant prices for tasting menus and their ilk.

  Purnell’s is survived by its younger siblings, Plates By Purnell’s in Edmund Street and the upmarket public house/restaurant The Mount in Henley in Arden.

  A look at Blog 413 (28 June 2024) may provide the reader with at least one reason why Purnell’s finally had to close. It was still very good but it was tired, the menu had lost its thrill, its humour and wit, its flair and imagination, its sense of excitement, its oomph. Restaurants rely on their old, faithful customers coming back time and time again and while they like to see familiar old favourites on the menu, they also want novelty and for me the menu was too repetitive drawing on old glories. I’m not convinced that Glynn Purnell had not lost his interest in it all to some extent. When something’s tired and elderly, it’s time to let it rest with its memories of the glory days of fine, exciting, witty experiences and so to move on.

 And in response to the news I made a reservation to visit Plates by Purnell’s the very next day. Somehow it seemed the decent thing to do.

   I had dined just a month ago at Plates with a regular dining companion and we were very impressed. Our chosen dishes were pleading and represented good value. My only real problem with the restaurant was the general lack of space there which makes it feel just a little unwelcoming though that is certainly not a comment that one could make about the excellent front of house staff there.

  We indeed had little to complain about on this occasion - we enjoyed the platter of embutidos (cured meats) which admittedly was more a matter of curation than of culinary skill; we enjoyed some inoffensive albondigas, some cheese and basil  croquetas, some fine-looking patatas bravas (which to be fair were more patatas than bravas) and some nicely seasoned gambas al ajillo. I chose the pistachio dessert - a pistachio foam with honey and tuiles - though it only served to emphasise how unrewarding are the restaurant’s desserts. Generally we enjoyed ourselves and I felt that I shoukd like to return sooner rather than later.

  Which brings us to my solo visit to Plates one month after my previous dining experience there. In many ways I wish I had not decided to dine there. I repeated my previous order of albondigas and requested chicken thigh with romesco sauce (it was not available), ‘chip  de trufa’ - potato with truffle mayonnaise (I was informed it was a single chip which sounded a little insubstantial for £5 to say the least so I opted for good old patatas bravas, croquetas de queso y albahaca and, in the absence of the chicken, calamares with alioli. First the good news - the croquetas were good - nice and crispy though not bursting with flavour, the patatas bravas were indisputably lacklustre, the albondigas were much as one would expect them to be but the crispy squid was awful - true the coating was pleasingly crispy but the squid inside was vile, decidedly miscooked in a way which truly gave it an unchewable rubber band texture. Oh dear! This was not the standard one expects from a Michelin recommended restaurant. *What is going on at these Purnell restaurants?

   The squid was the single most unpleasant piece of food I have put in my mouth in a restaurant since a trip to China in, if I remember rightly, 1993 when I wrestled with a ghastly, grey piece of sea cucumber which had been served as a delicacy. The stuff that nightmares are made on. I pointed out the extreme chewiness of the squid to the waiter and no charge was quite rightly made for the dish and there the matter should end except that one is bound to wonder how the Michelin grade kitchen could let such a horror escape from it.

  The squid had rather knocked me back and I did not feel I could risk a dessert. Glynn Purnell needs to get a grip on this. Hopefully it’s a one off.

Rating - 🌛🌛.

  More bad news. The friend .with whom I dined on the first of my reported visit to Plates usually joins me for a ‘3 and half ounces of pleasure’ at The Alchemist prior to our sauntering off to some worthy dining establishment for our regular lunch. He was not with me on my second visit but having 45 minutes to pass prior to my reservation time it seemed like a very good idea to pop into the Alchemist and renew my acquaintance with that very soothing cocktail. Alas! I was informed that 3 and half oz was no longer being made. An instant state of crestfallenness set in. But it was suggested I substitute the Pleasure with a June Bug, the ingredients of which included gin and banana and coconut. This was good - who can resist gin with some of the ingredients of a Planter’s punch? But the embracing rum of the Pleasure would have been a nice soother on a grim, cool English mid-autumn afternoon. Perhaps June is the best month for glugging a June Bug unless you’re in Jamaica where, I guess, the weather makes any time fine. 

  We like to close with good news. A near neighbour location of Plates, the now closed Urban Coffee where Ben Tesh staged pop ups in 2016 prior to opening Folium has posters in the windows which indicate that Tiger Bites Pig will be moving in - just what the restaurant needs -a lot more space.

235. Dining At The Grand.

  

  There’s no doubt that cocktails in Madeleine and dining in Isaac’s at The Grand Hotel in Birmingham are rather special whether or not the food is any good. I’ve thought that Isaac’s is a missed opportunity in its New York-diner guise rather than in a classic, rather stately English alter ego persona but that’s just me I suppose; I’ve just read too much of the writing of Nathanial Newnham-Davis whose time has long passed and I have visions of grand dining rooms full of smart people dining off Escoffier-inspired cuisine rather than early 2020s casualness, American scoff, noisy music, tattooed arms and upmarket burgers, hot dogs and, er, lobster Newburg. I am forced to acknowledge that the Newnham Davis experience is not really for this present age. And yet…..

  But for decor and atmosphere Madeleine and Isaac’s are not to be missed even on a slow Wednesday evening when everyone’s dashed off to Europe to catch up on their continental experiences which they have missed for the past two-and-a-bit years, leaving the second city’s centre to its denizens who have only just arrived in the country and hardly want to be on their way out of it again. First an excellent Margarita in the soothing comfort of Madeleine. Such pleasure.

  Then, down a floor to Isaac’s. It really is very good (see photograph at head of this Blog). I start off with a generous portion of excellent house-cured lox served with tomato and onion on excellent rye bread with a generous layer of cream cheese. This was a grand dish. Then one of my great loves, hot dog - one of the finest frankfurters I recall eating - with sauerkraut, red cabbage coleslaw, sorry, slaw, ketchup (I declined the mustard) and really excellent thin chips, nicely salted and acceptably crispy. Such fun! 

  Finally for dessert, a mildly bitter New York cheesecake with splendidly sour macerated cherries though a little more sweetness might have been helpful in addition to the vanilla ice cream. Still, not bad. 

 Return visits to The Mount by Glynn Purnell in Henley in Arden and Toff’s in Solihull. In fact it has been two return trips to The Mount, both not quite up to that heady first day when Glynn Purnell was on site and it was all very exciting. The second visit, as mentioned in Blog 234, involved a pleasurable Atlantic prawn first course, a satisfactory but rather dull chicken main course and missed crème caramel as recounted previously. On the third visit I was determined to relive the great pleasure of my first visit - I ordered once more the truly delicious cheese custard starter (my lunch companion was delighted with his scotch egg), I gluttonised on the very generously portioned and optimally rustic pork cutlet and finally got my teeth around the long awaited crème caramel. My dining companion chose the cod and chips which was remarkably unimpressive with mediocre batter covering the admittedly nicely cooked cod and middling chips and a tiny helping of unsensational mushy peas. 

  The Mount quite naturally raises great expectations as part of the Glynn Purnell brand but does not quite live up to them. These are early days and the restaurant is full and the short term looks promising for Purnell’s latest enterprise but given the prices, it will need to raise its game in the medium term if the punters are going to keep coming back. And present commodity prices and the yoke of inflation could pose a major threat to any restaurant’s future.

  And so, a return visit also to Rob Palmer’s Toff’s in Solihull, this time accompanied by my dining companion who had ordered the disappointing cod and chips at The Mount. The menu was largely unchanged from my previous visit which is not surprising given how recently I had dined there. It was a damp spring Tuesday evening but most of the tables were occupied and later Chef Aktar Islam of Opheem fame and two of his team came in to sit at the Chef’s table and dine and to chat with Palmer.

  It’s not surprising that I should report that most of the dishes were exemplary on this second visit - my dining companion agreed with me - and while I derived least pleasure from the monkfish (not because of its cooking but just because it was monkfish) we were both mesmerised by the perfection of the cooking of the duck. The weakest course was undoubtedly the duck ragu (which itself was delicious) in a brioche ‘doughnut’ which was far too heavy. I thought that the dish would be improved by serving it in choux pastry and my companion thought it would be better in something crispy - no matter, we really did not enjoy the brioche. The other courses are described in Blog 231. The splendid scallop had been substituted by a mackeral ceviche (presumably a sign of the financial times but this was a truly fabulous dish and what had been lost in the luxuriousness of the ingredient has been substituted by the brilliance of the dish’s preparation.

  Just as for The Mount, these are very early days for Toff’s. Some honing and fine tuning is needed but given that Solihull needs a high quality fine dining restaurant and it has a captive well-off local residential population it should prosper..

  Wednesday 20 April - The Michelin Guide announced the latest additions to its list of recommended restaurants - it is no surprise to find that no West Midlands restaurants feature in it - none at all have received a mention since the Guide began this monthly exercise last summer. The five restaurants receiving recognition equally unsurprisingly are located in London (2), Scotland (1), the Michelin inspectors’ much loved Republic of Ireland (1) and Liverpool (1, presumably to irritate Mancunians as they fume in their gastronomic wilderness).

  Finally, a photograph taken from a Twitter posting of a recently opened and already locally respected restaurant in Harborne. I am being curmudgeonly here but is it really necessary to put a garnish of blood-veined sorrel, coriander and other herbage on what I take to be breakfast? Aren’t chefs just going a little bit mad with this plague of green stuff? I really don’t want a herb garden on my fried egg. And I certainly don’t want to see any more peashoots (see Blog 228). Honestly, I don’t.

234. Oyster Club And The Mount Revisited.

 

  Quick reports on repeat visits to a couple of restaurants which have given me much pleasure in the past, one last September and the other only days after my first fabulous experience there.

  Firstly, lunch at The Oyster Club by Adam Stokes. In Blog 181 I reported an excellent meal of fish charcuterie platter followed by a stupendous roast sole on the bone. So much had I enjoyed myself that I could not fight back the need to revisit these two lovely dishes. Alas both courses were shadows of their former selves. The food at the restaurant is far from cheap which is forgivable if the food measures up to the price. The charcuterie, while being as tasty as before, was served with no generosity - as can be seen in the ‘then’ and ‘now’ photographs above - compared with last year the fish was sliced so thinly that flavour was barely discernible. This was appallingly poor value for £15.

  Then the sole with razor clams, grapes and verjus sauce (£34.50). This might be described as a less impressive specimen than that I adored back in 2021 (see ‘then’ and ‘now’ photograph below). The texture of the fish was less firm and the presentation of the dish seemed somewhat disorderly in comparison with the first time I ate it. The fish was certainly tasty and succulent but remarkably unremarkable. There was not the degree of consistency between the two dishes that I should have liked to have enjoyed. My lunch companion and I shared some unremarkable chips which would have been fine had they not cost £2.50p per half dozen and some leeks (with Calcot onion and pancetta) which were ridiculously overpriced for what they were (also £5). Things were not going well.

  However we battled on, choosing with a certain amount of thrilled anticipation, to share a tarte tatin served with vanilla ice cream (£24). I failed to photograph the dessert but it was not a happy creation. Instead of slices of apple a large lump was placed in the centre of the pastry which was a little flabby and the whole had not the unctuous stickiness to which I had so looked forward.

  There’s little more to say. This had been a meal riven through with disappointment for which we paid a not inconsiderable sum.

  As a footnote it’s worth noting that a couple of days afterwards there was a rare tweet from the West Midlands by a Michelin inspector who must have lost his way to Dublin where you would normally expect Michelin inspectors to be enjoying themselves and that individual had clearly been at the Oyster Club shortly after us. From the comment, I must conclude that I chose the wrong dishes. To be fair, my companion had thoroughly enjoyed his starter of whole roasted king prawns with spiced lobster bisque (£18.50).

  The next day, again with pleasurable anticipation, I returned to Henley-in-Arden to pay a second visit to Glynn Purnell’s new country version of his former bistro in Newhall Street which is labelled ‘a pub’ but is really a very nice, quite large modern restaurant off a small olde worlde bar (see Blog 230).

  While quaffing a couple of the old Ginger’s Bar classic cocktails, I studied the menu and badly needed to relive the joy of consuming the Cheddar custard and sweet and sour tomatoes followed by the Wiltshire pork cutlet but girding up my inner strength I decided I really must try some other dishes and therefore chose a pleasing starter of Atlantic prawns with caviar, little cubes of apple and croutons. Then I chose perhaps slightly over-cooked but generously portioned roast chicken with a lovely side dish of tubetti pasta with a generous covering of pecorino, wild garlic and a deliciously sweet scorched pickled lettuce. Chicken is chicken and this was not the most exciting of chicken dishes I have had but it was very pleasing.

  I requested crème caramel for dessert but I was informed that chef was not happy with how they had turned out that evening and with time running short before the next hourly train back to Birmingham I thought it best regretfully to pass on the course and head uphill to Henley Station.

  Henley has a lovely old station and is a bit of tourist sight in its own right. It presently has a series of posters on display, one for every station on the line, and the Small Heath Station poster is fun depicting as it does the theme of Peaky Blinders.

  The present series of the BBC television programme Great British Menu 2022 has finally come to an end with chefs from Wales, London, Scotland and Northern Ireland winning to cook dishes at the banquet which was this year mainly to indulge a number of BBC luvvies on the occasion of the Corporation’s centenary. 

  The new panel of judges has been disastrous with the chef Tom Kerridge dominating the other judges with his opinions which are of course a chef’s opinion which, as we know from previous years, is a completely different viewpoint from that of the people who eat the food. While Nisha Katona has made some useful contributions that is something that can not be said of the ninny who is there to tell jokes (and little more of him is expected) and who should go the way of the previous comedian who hosted the programme and was seen for one season and never seen again. Andi Oliver on the other hand has been an excellent host and it was warming to see her great the two previous long-running judges, Oliver Peyton and Matthew Forte, who knew what they were talking about and made watching the programme worthwhile.

  It is pleasing to note that the Central region finalist (though an East Midlander), Sally Abé, as runner-up, did prepare food at the banquet in the food of the canapés and pre-desserts and rather good they looked too. She carried out her tasks calmly, charmingly and pleasantly and was it a delight to watch her work surrounded as she was by the broiling gallons of competitive testosterone put out by the male competitors.

Sally Abé.

230. The Mount.

 

  Amid much publicity and general food-loving public anticipation, Glynn Purnell’s first ‘pub’, The Mount, (see Blog 223) has finally opened across the road from the excellent Cheal’s of Henley on the main street of Henley-In-Arden. And so, on a bright, warm spring day here I am. And I love the place.

  As I walked down the road from the station the restaurant came into view. There was a flashy car parked outside and a minor madding crowd sitting outside drinking in the sunshine as well as drinking materials rather more liquid. There was a vaguely thrilling atmosphere before I even entered the building. Great stuff - it had the sort of excitement about the place that Glynn Purnell is so clever at conjuring up.

  A good welcome and I was guided to the dining room at the rear of the pub - the place was definitely bigger on the inside than on the outside. The first person to greet me was Chef himself and it was delightful to have a few words with him and shake his hand. He was clearly delighted with his new venture and, from what I could see, quite rightly too. The dining room was bright and modern with a lot of  pleasing art on the walls including some splendid flamingo pictures which could only find a place in a Purnell restaurant - quirky and playful with a twinkle in the eye humour. 

  And what a relief, the joy of Purnell’s former Gingers Bar was restored to me. The cocktail list had some  Gingers Bar classics on it and I enjoyed my scorched lemon and vanilla margarita so much that I lost all control and ordered a second. O, what pleasure.

    And so to the food.  My starter was fabulous - excruciatingly tasty Cheddar custard with equally excruciatingly tasty ‘sweet and sour tomatoes’ and pickled shallots and rocket (which of course I loathe but which fitted in perfectly with this dish). There’s no doubt - new kitchen but Glynn Purnell has not lost his touch.

  Then the main course of Wiltshire pork cutlet, tasty, tender, satisfying, perfectly cooked to my taste and served with delicious mash and charcutière sauce. What real pleasure. Then a pleasingly light dessert of mango parfait with grilled pineapple. All in all, a highly enjoyable lunch. This is a great addition to Glynn Purnell’s list of achievements. As I departed, Chef said farewell and it was a pleasure to have another short chat and hear how pleased he is with the new location which has attracted a scramble for reservations and to hear that he is opening a tapas bar in Edmund Street in a couple of months. That’s another interesting and exciting place to line up to visit.in the near future 

  

Chef and front of house? Why not?