205. Purnell’s, Lunar,Upstairs.

  As we know the hospitality industry suffered badly during the COVID-19 pandemic though there’s little doubt that a number of government measures saved many businesses which would have otherwise gone to the wall. But eventually business appeared to have returned to normal. Then the omicron variant originating in South Africa, more rapidly spreading it appeared than the then dominant delta subtype which had spread out from India, turned up. Right into early December the hospitality industry seemed to be holding up and diners were turning up happily to their favourite restaurants - there was quite a wait for reservation dates at some favourite establishments - and then Professor Christopher Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer for England and Chief Medical adviser to the government, spoke out about the potential dangers of the new variant and almost overnight restaurants experienced large numbers of reservation cancellations and the vital pre-Christmas trade took a spectacular hit.

  The situation was not helped by large numbers of restaurant workers actually contracting the condition and their employers being unable to staff their restaurants adequately. Thus on 21 December Purnell’s announced that it would be closing early pre-Christmas saying, “Due to current circumstances we don’t have enough staff required to provide the high standard of service that we consistently deliver at Purnell’s”. Clearly this represented a significant financial loss for the restaurant but as the restaurant was planning to close for its Christmas break on 23 December in any case, one supposes that matters could have been even worse.

 

  By 23 December early studies of the effects of the omicron variant were suggesting that it may very well cause a less clinically severe illness than the variants which had gone before and it was becoming reasonable to hope that the renewed threat to the hospitality industry might be short-lived and not as severe as the doom-laden professor was suggesting it might be.

   It was reported on 18 December that the Stoke-on-Trent native, Niall Keating, Executive chef at the Michelin starred Whateley Manor in Wiltshire, will leave his job at the end of December presumably to concentrate on his new restaurant, Lunar, which opened in November in the World of Wedgwood visitor attraction at Barlaston as well as other projects. It is excellent to find another accomplished West Midlands chef returning to his roots and further adding to the gastronomic wonders in the region. Which reminds me that I must get up to Stoke in the new year to visit Lunar.

  Posted on the Michelin Guide Twitter account today (23 December) is a reference to a Michelin inspector’s visit to Upstairs by Tom Shepherd in Lichfield (see Blogs 188 and 194) which is the second time in a period of a few weeks (last reported 12 November 2021 - see Blog 193). I have the feeling that the West Midlands may well have a new starred restaurant when the 2022 Guide is published and rightly so.

194. Upstairs To The Stars.

 

 

 It is not unknown for a restaurant to be awarded a Michelin star within months of opening and, though I do not normally feel I should delve into the strange psyche of Michelin inspectors, I can’t help predicting that Upstairs by Tom Shepherd in Lichfield may just be the place to do it. In fact I’m wondering whether this could be the best restaurant in the West Midlands (and I’ve been around this year) at present.

  On a repeat lunchtime visit to this exceptional restaurant (see Blog 188) I sat purring and groaning in delight at the culinary pleasures I consumed - no, basked in would be more apt - there. On my last visit I pleasured myself with the tasting menu but on this second visit I opted for the very modestly priced lunchtime menu of just 3 courses plus amuse gueule and bread. I was drawn to it by the promise of baked plaice, a fish of such loveliness that I could not resist.

  The starter of braised suckling pork belly with celeriac, apple and salsa verde was very fine, finished off as it was by a full bodied, bracing, gorgeously powerfully flavoured dashi broth. I have long grown wearied by the dubious delights of pork belly but few chefs whose establishments I have visited  have produced such an excellent dish as this from that once humble ingredient. The accompanying ingredients were spot on in flavour and texture. 

  And so to the main event. I spent more time purring in delight than I did in the eating. Roasted plaice with a little cylinder of butternut squash, pretty green and purple kale of an utterly optimal texture and, note, an exquisite Bourdelaise sauce (note it was plaice not à la Bourdelaise but with the sauce of that name - what a jolly jape, clever Tom Shepherd). Exceptionally beautifully cooked plaice with great accompaniments, a fabulous dish and all for the casual luncher. 

  

I was too overwhelmed with pleasure to remember to photograph the perfectly judged yoghurt parfait with blackberries, a blackberry ice cream and mint but it looked pretty and it was a delight to eat. 

  

 

 Of course Tom Shepherd is no stranger to Michelin stars as Adam’s continued to hold its one star while he was Head Chef there. The excellence of his food is also evidenced by the recognition this week by the revived Good Food Guide published in its online The Good Food Weekly. But as chefs and punters alike really know, it’s Michelin’s judgement that really counts.

  One final question (repeated from a previous Blog but now asked less whimsically) - is Lichfield the new Ludlow?

193. Birmingham Chef Into Semi-Finals Of Masterchef The Professionals.

  Birmingham chef Dan Lee (see Blog 192) who works as a private chef won through to the semi-finals of BBC1’s Masterchef The Professionals in a programme broadcast on 12 November. After a problematical start where the competing chefs were required to produce a high quality dish from preserved and tinned foods of their choice Lee went on to produce two excellent dishes in the next challenge in which his work was served to professional food critics, including William Sitwell. 

  The first challenge saw him serving up a dish felt to be disappointing and unambitious which was made up of spaghetti, a tomato and basil sauce made from tinned tomatoes, olives, anchovies, preserved lemon and capers and then, with something to prove, his two course meal for the critics started with salmon kinilaw (a Phillipines version of a ceviche), marinated and compressed cucumber served with crispy salmon skin, coconut, kombu sauce and chilli oil. This was warmly appreciated by the critics and judging chefs. His main course was a fine-looking and perhaps too slightly generously portioned soy marinated beef with pak choy in oyster and soy, a spring onion mash, pickled shiitake and crispy lotus root, all of which he felt, reflected his Irish-Chinese heritage. The dish was very well received.

  So Birmingham and the West Midlands has one of the first two chefs through to the semi-finals which seems like a very fine start to this series of Masterchef. I have to say that Dan Lee’s food does indeed look very appealing. There are so many promising chefs in the area that it seems reasonable to conclude that dining round these parts is going to be a continuing pleasure for years to come.

Michelin Guide Twitter watch.

12 November - Upstairs By Tom Shepherd, Lichfield - new restaurant. See Blog 188.

188. Upstairs By Tom Shepherd.

 Tom Shepherd, who grew up in Birmingham and was Head Chef at Adam’s from 2017 to 2019 (see Blog 165), recently opened his first restaurant, Upstairs, in Lichfield. The name derives from the restaurant’s location which precisely is on the first floor above his father’s  jewellery shop. As well as working previously at Adam’s, Shepherd had in the past worked in the kitchens of Restaurant Sat Bains, in far-off Nottingham, with Michael Wignall as Senior sous chef at the two-starred Latymer restaurant in Pennyhill Park Hotel in Bagshot in Surrey and as sous chef at the Samling Hotel in Windermere. He is therefore a man who is not without credentials.

  His new restaurant is relatively small with 28 covers but it is planned that a roof terrace will be opened in 2022.

  In between his departure from Adam’s and the opening of Upstairs, Shepherd had been running Dine At Home which involved the delivery of a three course meal kit to customers’s homes with the contents of the kit changing on a weekly basis.

  And so, naturally, off to Lichfield I went.

  After days of black skies and almost incessant rain this was a fine, sunny, chill,  blue skyed sort of autumn day. Lichfield could not look finer. The three spired cathedral beside the river could not have looked more magnificent. Dr Johnson rested on his plinth and at a respectful distance Boswell looked out over the market place. In their time neither of them could have heard of Michelin stars but there were enough old inns in the town to have kept them comfortably satiated. 

    I found Shepherd’s father’s jewellery shop and the entrance - a flight of stairs of course - up to the restaurant. A clean, modern, fresh, bright, tasteful, pleasing dining room, a piece of work by the same designers who had provided the decor for Craft Dining Rooms, with an open kitchen. And that was not the only connection - Craft’s manager had moved jobs to work in Lichfield and an excellent job she was doing.

  I was tempted by the excellently priced lunchtime menu, not least because it included an alluring-sounding roast plaice but I felt I must not miss the opportunity to try as much as I could without overwhelming my elderly digestive system and so I chose to eat the dishes on the five course menu.

 

 After two pleasing amuse bouches which included an admirable red cabbage gazpacho aptly accompanied by a mild horseradish ice cream, it was down to business with a first course of a splendid and beautifully cooked scallop, as accurately prepared as we might expect from the former Head Chef of Adam’s, served on a bed of celeriac with dashi and little cubes of apple. The flavour of the scallop itself had me purring with pleasure.

  Then to my least favourite dish, not because it was not well executed but entirely because I dislike poached egg, Arlington White hen’s egg served with beetroot. The main course was made up of excellent quality aged sirloin - full of a wonderful flavour and cooked to perfection - accompanied by Sand carrots and thin slices of sweetly pickled carrot with a Sauce Robert (a brown mustard sauce). I grew a little tired as I ate the course of eating nothing but beef and carrot, as delicious as they may have been and would have like another element to the dish apart from the sauces to break up the monotony of carrot-beef-carrot-beef-ad inf. But it was a fine dish beyond doubt.

  

  Next the menu signalled Transition offering “Thai green curry” which I found to be a highly memorable dish for all the right reasons. Anything with lovely creamy rice pudding and mango is bound to score highly with me. It one of those things, like Purnell’s 10-10-10 egg surprise, that you always want to see on the menu. The dessert proper was a fine piece of patisserie, an excellent Paris Brest, which either needed a little more pear to counter the caramel or perhaps just less caramel.

  Given Tom Shepherd’s background perhaps it is not surprising that I thought that Upstairs was like An acorn of Adam’s’ falling a little way from the tree - Upstairs may have fewer covers and a smaller area but the decor is as smart, the service is pretty well perfect (happily a little more relaxed than Adam’s but pretty spot on with everyone dressed immaculately) and the fine dishes are accurate and well thought out. The place was full for lunch and everything seemed to be running as smoothly as any long established restaurant can manage. A great start. Could Lichfield be the new Ludlow?

  Meanwhile there have been developments in the kitchen at Adam’s. Kieron Stevens (see Blog 165), who took over from Tom Shepherd as Head Chef there in 2019, left the post on September 2021 to work as Executive Chef at the JM Socials restaurant group in Cheltenham. On 28 September 2021 it was announced that James Goodyear had been appointed to the post of Head Chef at Adam’s. Goodyear had previously been Head Chef at the Michelin-starred Hide restaurant in London and was a Young National Chef of the Year finalist in 2014. Goodyear described his style of cooking as “European modern fine dining” and has expressed the opinion that the new post gave him the opportunity to return to his roots.