537. Sunday Lunch At Samo.

 

  Chef Elliot Brown opened his restaurant Samo in March 2026 in the Great Western Arcade. The location had previously been home to Land before it moved a short distance along the arcade and prior to Land’s occupation of the site it had been home to Bistro 1847 where once in his salad days Alex Claridge had served vegetarian dishes. Brown has a distinguished curriculum vitae, having trained at the Hotel du Vin and then at Simpsons when Leo Kattou, now at the Bower House in Shipston on Stour, was Head Chef there. Subsequently Brown worked at Aktar Islam’s short-lived Legna and then at Tierra Tacos and Trentina both in the Jewellery Quarter and then he had gained experience with Italian-style food at Tropea in Harborne. Brown is assisted in the kitchen by Greg Shephard, his sous chef.

  Brown’s intended style for his own restaurant was a wise choice - ‘modern bistro’ - with an emphasis on the seasonality of ingredients. My first visit to the new restaurant was for the first Sunday lunch to be served there and it proved to be a very pleasing experience. It really was very good. I was the first diner to arrive for the particular sitting and I received a pleasing welcome and then sat back to enjoy an anis aperitif while the other diners trickled in. The middle class on a Sunday don’t like to hurry themselves.

  As starter I chose an impressive-looking and tasty prawn cocktail surmounted by two king prawns looking accusingly with their dead eyes from the rim of the dish. There was a very generous portion of little shrimps and the Marie Rose was well made.

  But of course I was there for the roast beef and out it came - tender, pink and blushing. There came with it a fine crusty Yorkshire pudding and a banquet of vegetables - very edible beef dripping roast potatoes and slices of roast turnip, gorgeously - yes, gorgeously, that’s the very word, buttery mashed swede with creamed leeks and cabbage and, as an extra, cauliflower in cheese sauce. More vegetables than I could manage but I made a good attempt and there really wasn’t very much left on my plate by the time I surrendered it to be taken to the dish washer, be it machine or human.

    I was kidnapped by the lovely creamy rice pudding with compôte when I read the dessert menu and my choice was fully vindicated by the intense enjoyment it gave. Modern bistro had rendered classic, fine English Sunday lunch. And I had been seated at a window table and what a relaxing time I had watching the Sunday afternoon shoppers pass by. Brilliant!

Elliot Brown & Greg Shephard

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛🌛

29 March 2026.

431. Trentina.

  The Good Food Guide added Trentina, an Italian-style restaurant located in Mary Street in the Jewellery Quarter, to its list of recommended restaurants as a ‘local gem’ on 4 August 2024. It described the restaurant as, “a truly local diamond, a cheerfully informal addition to Birmingham’s Jewellert Quarter scene. Inside it looks and feels sparsely contemporary”. The Guide goes on to say that “Here you will find big flavours on a short menu that leans heavily on the pasta roller….”.

  It’s always difficult to find somewhere to eat on Sunday in the city centre but Trentina opens then and so, off I went. Autumn was well and truly entrenched and the continuing rain that had infested us for months coupled itself with a greyness worthy of Gandalf but Trentina was pleasingly easy to find, on the corner of Mary Street and Caroline Street, in the very heart of the Colmore family names system of roads, and was warm and welcoming on arrival, both from the front of house staff and the restaurant’s heating system.

  I sat opposite the bar on a not terribly comfortable wooden banquette but as my lower body gradually accustomed itself to the vaguely masochistic seating I had chosen, the discomfort was gradually dispelled by a pleasing gin and Sicilian lemon tonic and a perusal of the promising menu. I discussed the options with the helpful and pleasant front of house young lady and opted for nduja and mozzarella arancini and then the pleasingly decorous mafaldine ribbon pasta with pork shoulder, finely chopped leek all enlivened by sofrito.

  The arancini were magnificent - impressively large and even more impressively, gorgeously crispy and tasty with the rice being beautifully textured. The starter was a meal in itself.

  The freshly prepared pasta was excellent, irreproachably textured and accompanied admirably by the pulled pork and the perfectly pitched flavour of the sobrito. This was a generous portion to which I failed to do full justice but I enjoyed it very much.

  The desserts on offer were variants on the theme of soft icecream and I opted to have it as an affogato which closed the meal very nicely, especially with an accompanying limoncello. The Good Food Guide’s label of this restaurant as a Local Gem is very apt. If I lived in the Jewellery Quarter I can  see myself happily visiting there not infrequently.

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛🌛

416. Events, Dear Boy, Events. 2024. Part 2 July To December.

 See Blog 400 (January to June).

7 July - The Good Food Guide announces the inclusion of 4 West Midlands restaurants in its pages - Adam’s (Birmingham, rated ‘Very Good’), The Slamwich Club (Stoke-on-Trent, rated ‘local gem’) and Sam and Jak (Cirencester, rated ‘Good’) and Docket in Whitchurch, rated ‘Very Good’).

14 July - Laghi’s in Five Ways announces that it will close in 10 August after serving Italian dishes for 7 years as well as having hosted a recent collaboration with Stuart Deeley, Executive Chef of Smoke at Hampton Manor.

14 July - The Good Food Guide announced three new West Midlands additions to its website - Txikiteo in the Jewellery Quarter, The Venture In at Ombersley and Little Dumpling King in Stoke-on Trent.

24 July - Only 3 West Midlands restaurants are named in The Good Food Guide’s list of Best 100 Local Restaurants - The Kilpeck Inn in Herefordshire, Chapter in Edgbaston and Tropea in Harborne.

4 August - The Good Food Guide finally adds Simpsons to its list of recommended restaurants with a startlingly ungenerous ‘Good’ rating as well as adding the Italian-style Trentina located in Mary Street in the Jewellery Quarter which it rates to be a ‘Local Gem’.

16 August 2024 - Good Food Guide adds The Bell at Selsley in Selsley near Stroud in the most southerly part of Gloucestershire, not far from the border of the West Midlands and the West Country.

28 August 2024 - The Michelin Guide includes Albatross Death Cult as one of only 6 British restaurants in its August list of recommended restaurants.

13 - 15 September - The 30th anniversary Ludlow Food Festival is held in Ludlow Castle. This was the very first food festival in Britain and many others were to follow suit but few had a medieval castle in which to stage theirs.

16 September - Alan Pressly takes over as Head Chef at the still Michelin-listed Forelles restaurant at Fishmore Hall in Ludlow. He succeeds Nicky Hull-Saldhana who took up the post on 25 June after Phil Kerry had resigned at the end of May and two further head chefs (one stayed at Fishmore for just three days) had passed through the kitchens.

18 September - Angela’s Trattoria opens in the site of the recently closed Laghi’s off Five Ways (Angela is the 83 year old grandmothers if the owner of Laghi’s. The style is Italian and Angela oversees the production of the pasta.

Angela

20 September - Brad Carter announces that he is no longer involved in the project to open his first London restaurant at Undercroft in Hanover Square -

25 September - The Michelin Guide includes Native in Tenbury Wells (located at the site of the former Penson’s) as one of 14 restaurants in its September list of recommended restaurants. Executive Chef Ivan Tisdall-Downes.

11 October - Good Food Guide adds Upstairs By Tom Shepherd to its list of recommended restaurants and rates it ‘Very good’.

14 October - Glynn Purnell announces that he has closed Purnell’s with the last diners having been served on the evening of Saturday 12 October.

17 October - The Birmingham Post publishes a page-sized article on the closure of Purnell’s and the threat to the hospitality industry in Birmingham.

23 October - The Michelin Guide posts a Tweet about James Sherwin’s Wild Shropshire restaurant in Whitchurch.

24 October - The Birmingham Post publishes an article in which Andreas Antona speaks of his fears for the future of the hospitality industry.

25 October - Tom Shepherd announces the appointment of  Michael Blades as HeadChef of Upstairs By Tom Shepherd in Lichfield.

30 October - In response to the Labour government’s budget measure which massively raise employers’ national insurance contributions for employees as well significantly raising the minimum wage, Alex Claridge of The Wikderness tweets an angry message about the actions of the Labour government -

25 & 26 November - Two sous chefs at Simpsons, Evan Holliday and Jordan, fail to make it to the semi-finals of the 2024 BBC television competition, Masterchef The Professionals, having successfully won through to the ‘Knockout’ round.

Evan Holliday

Jordan Johnson

27 November - Michelin publishes its November list of new additions to the Guide and none are Wesr Midlands region restaurants.

28 November - Hampton Manor announces that Executive Chef Stu Deeley has left employment at Smoke though he will return to prepare a New Year’s Eve dinner for guests staying at the manor. Smoke is to close in February 2025 and reopen shortly afterwards as Kynd, overseen by Chef Director of Grace and Savour, David Taylor. Deeley is planning a short break around the time of the birth of his third child before commencing a new project.

1 December - The Good Food Guide added Folium (‘very good’, food rated as ‘exceptional’), Native (Tenbury Wells) (very good) and The Bookshop (Hereford)(good). How, one wonders have the inspectors not managed to include Folium in the guide before now?