157. Vingt Sept Noir.

   Alex Claridge and his publicist have posted notice of the reopening of The Wilderness, as this pandemic fades to a close struggling as it is in its last gasps to attack us with fresh not-very-impressive mutants or variants, now ennobled and at the same time made politically correct by giving them Ancient Greek names rather than labelling them with the names of the countries where they were first detected. The main focus of Claridge’s publicity is that the restaurant is even blacker than before and that has everything to do with decor and nothing to do with race.

  The photographs released do indeed make it all look rather, shall we say, noir, actually très noir, and there are new black chairs and we are promised new menus which we hope are not too noir. Naturally being a Claridge enthusiast ever since the days of the ants getting to the cheese tart first I am keen to sample the new menu, which I have not looked up on the website since I shall be there myself in a handful of days time and I like surprises (well most surprises at any rate). You have to have a little uncertainty in your life and a Claridge menu gives one the opportunity to have some (uncertainty that is).

K

  Which brings me on to the decor in 27 Warstone Lane over the years. That of course is the current location of The Wilderness in the Jewellery Quarter and has been for rather longer than Alex Claridge originally intended. This building has a peculiarly interesting part to play in the gastronomic history of Birmingham. From 1997 to 2000, No. 27 was the home of Restaurant Gilmore where chef/proprietor Paul Gilmore won a Bib Gourmand in the Michelin Guide Great Britain and Ireland editions 1998 to 2001. He moved on from Birmingham to open the Restaurant Gilmore at Strine’s Farm in Beamhurst near Uttoxeter in November 2003. In 2015 he became Chef/Proprietor at The Wheatsheaf at Stone near Stoke on Trent and is now the sous Performance and Nutrition Chef at Wolverhampton Wanderers FC training ground.

Paul Gilmore

  When Restaurant Gilmore closed, No 27 Warstone Lane then became home to La Toque D’Or from 2001 to 2006. Chef/Proprietor Didier Philpott ensured that the building continued to be the location of a Bib Gourmand holding the accolade in the 2003 to 2006 editions of the Michelin Guide.

  After the closure of LaToque D’Or, the building then became home to a Nepalese-style restaurant and afterwards one serving Caribbean-style food. I do not know the names of either.

  Two Cats Kitchen was opened by Chef/Proprietor Niki Astley in 27 Warstone Lane in July 2015. He labelled his cooking style as being ‘New Baltic cuisine’ reflecting the then trend for Scandinavian cuisine and tying it to the nationality of his partner Diana Fjordarova who is Latvian. He had previously operated a series of ‘pop-up restaurants’ which was also then a fashion for chefs waiting to establish themselves in their own restaurants, the ‘pop ups’ being titled Two Cats Roaming. He said that he intended to “shed light on Baltic-Russian cuisine by recognising traditional dishes and attempting new ones”. Such dishes included ‘Beetroot and buttermilk gazpacho’ and a dessert of celeriac ice cream, pears, birch biscuit and verbena. In March 2017 Astley announced that the food he was serving was “too niche” although the restaurant had received recognition by Michelin and thenceforth the food served in Two Cats would represent ‘a wider culinary exploration’ but the restaurant finally closed on 30 September 2017, Astley attributing the closure to “volatile trading conditions”.

Niki Astley

The interior of no 27 as Two Cats.

  It is to be argued that the interior of no 27, with its stained glass windows and attractive tiled floor is really too pretty to be converted into a blackout shelter but a restaurant is what the chef and restaurateur are and we may prefer one look or another but no 27 is a fine old industrial building which has seen many changes in its life and Claridge’s desire for darkness is just another stage in its existence which has seen it home to four Michelin-listed restaurants in recent years.

  After the closure of Two Cats, it was announced that no 27 would be home to a restaurant to be titled Grit, in itself not an entirely appealing name when applied to a restaurant. The restaurant was to have retained its links with Niki Astley and the chef there was to have been Graeme Jackson, a Canadian who had worked at Two Cats with Astley, alongside Isadora Gavilet who had worked for a time at Adam’s. However the proposed restaurant never opened and no 27 Warstone Lane found itself home to The Wilderness in March 2018. Claridge had intended it as a temporary home for his restaurant pending the completion of work on his proposed new restaurant in Bennett’s Hill but he decided to open Nocturnal Animals there instead before closing it and recommencing  work on it to relocate The Wilderness. This work was affected by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and so, for the present at least, no 27 remains home to The Wilderness. And its blackness.

81. Great British Menu To Return Fronted By A Comedian.

 It was announced recently that BBC2’s annual Great British Menu will return to our television screens this spring for its fifteenth series with some changes made to it. For the first time the programme will be hosted - by the comedian Susan Calman  - which will inject a piece of downmarket triteness (and somewhere no doubt inclusivity with which the BBC is currently obsessed) not previously witnessed in the history of GBM.
  The already rather stretched competitors will also now be expected to deliver 6 courses with an amuse bouche and a pre-dessert being added to the list of their labours. I assume that this gives 6 chefs the chance to present a dish at the final Banquet which this year has a children’s literature theme. Well, that is probably appropriate. Sometimes one wonders if fine dining really is something like a Mad Hatter’s tea party and it’s true that the BBC really is the nearest thing that we British have to a modern-day Wonderland

Andy Waters

  One question I recently realised that I needed to ask myself was “what happened to Andy Waters?”.
  Andy Waters had had links with Birmingham and the West Midlands for a long time. He started work as a commis chef at Chewton Glen in Hampshire and then came to Birmingham to work at The Plough and Harrow in Edgbaston for 8 years. Subsequently he worked under Paul Bocuse in Lyon in France and then returned to the West Midlands to work at Simpsons when it was situated in Kenilworth and where he was working with Glynn Purnell and Luke Tipping and then opened his own restaurant, Edmund’s (named after his late father who had died tragically at the age of 32), firstly in Henley in Arden in 2002 and later, in 2009, moving it to Brindley Place in Birmingham city centre. He also opened a restaurant at The Queen’s in Belbroughton in Worcestershire.
  Waters sold Edmund’s in 2012 - it became Edmunds Bistro de Luxe with Didier Philpott as Head Chef (he had been Head Chef at his own Toque D’Or in the building in the Jewellery Quarter that was subsequently to become the present home to Alex Claridge’s The Wilderness) - and opened a new restaurant, Waters On The Square, at Five Ways in 2012. However he closed this in 2014 after being approached by Genting Group to become Head Chef in a restaurant it was opening at Resort World at the National Exhibition Centre near Birmingham Airport. The new restaurant was named Andy Waters. Waters ended his association with the restaurant in November 2018 and Aaron Darnley became the new Head Chef there, the restaurant’s name being changed to Sky By Waters.

Didier Philpott at the renamed Edmund’s Bistro de Luxe

 Andy Waters took up the post of Head Chef at Pebble Beach restaurant in Barton on Sea in Hampshire in October 2019 where his menu features modern British dishes.