399. Le Petit Bois Adieu!

  In Blog 391 I reported, with a heavy heart, that the delightful Moseley restaurant, Le Petit Bois, was to close on 27 April. It’s a lovely place and I was determined to have one more throw of the dice in this comfortable, bright, perfectly sized French-style culinary establishment, more like dining in someone’s cosy home with its perfectly judged front of house service than a restaurant. Everyone else who had ever known the place, and some who had not, had clearly got the same idea and the diners kept coming on this penultimate evening of service. What an atmosphere and the opportunity to greet one or two diners I had met there before, all wanting to wish good luck to Chef Ben Taylor, Zsofia Kisgergely and their fine staff, made this an evening to look back on with a warm feeling and a smile.

  And so to the food - a pleasing and sensibly limited à la carte menu chalked up on a blackboard, all very tempting and at a very affordable price. 

  From the Specials menu, mounted on the wall opposite the main menu, I chose the warm salmon with a beetroot salad. This was one of the loveliest salmon dishes I can recall eating - at first glance simple and pleasingly uncomplicated - but this was the most toothsome of salmons, the beetroots were nicely cooked and a perfect foil for the salmon and there were little bursts of horseradish working along with the beet. What a great pleasure.

  For the main, I thoroughly enjoyed the, again, beautifully cooked fillet of cod served with an extremely tasty lobster bisque - the dish shouted lobster - and four plump mussels with a side of haricots verts to give some bite to it all.

  Finally, a magnificent - in size and quality - crème brûlée served with a delightful walnut biscuit. This was an exceptional dessert. Undoubtedly Chef Ben Taylor and Le Petit Bois was going out on a high.

Ben Taylor

Zsofia Kisgergely 

  And so Adieu! to Le Petit Bois. We shall not see its like again though we hope we will. 

391. The Oyster Club by Adam Stokes; Le Petit Bois - Adieu!

 

  If you have an upper echelon restaurant in Birmingham and you want a captive audience, it’s quite a good idea to open on Sunday as so few of your rivals are usually open for service then, closed possibly until Thursday, and there actually are potential diners out there who want to go out (or need to go out because they’re visiting the city) to dine at a good restaurant in the city centre.

  Adam Stokes has long got the message and therefore he has opened The Oyster Club by Adam Stokes on Sundays, including the evenings, for some time now. It’s true, I have never been there on a early Sunday evening when they have had to fight off hungry potential diners all demanding a stool at the oyster bar or a table in the restaurant downstairs, but there is a decent trickle of customers coming through the doors and they all seem to enjoy their Sunday dining experience there. 

  As reported in Blog 380, I had a visitor from the distant Antipodes and given the central location I had put him up at the Grand Hotel (and used his visit as an excuse for myself and the dog to take a room there ourselves for three pleasing nights) and Sunday dinner was needed. About a minute’s walk away from the hotel is The Oyster Club and I had no hesitation in resolving to take my visitor there to assuage his hunger. It was either there (he deserved an English Sunday roast in the restaurant’s grand Chateaubriand style) or perhaps as an alternative, good old fashioned Birmingham Indian food in the stylish setting of Itihaas - in the end, the Sunday roast won out. 

  We were not disappointed. The ‘roast’ is usually so filling that I normally eschew a starter but my guest, still young enough to have an admirably robust appetite, mentioned, somewhat longingly I thought, the new scallop dish on the menu, and so I thought it only polite to let him order it, especially after it had been somewhat lovingly described by the waiter,  He was disappointed and neither was I by my choice of excellent tempura prawns - tasty, meaty and lightly crispy coated. The accompanying dip was appropriate and pleasing.

    I have reported on the Sunday roast more than once before in this Blog. Suffice it to say that the Chateaubriand was generously portioned, cooked perfectly, exquisitely tender and full of flavour. It was difficult to criticise any of the accompanying vegetables and extras though I note that restaurants in recent times do not seem to consider that horseradish sauce should have a good kick to it - I suppose it’s arguable that the diner’s tastebuds should not be rendered instantly paralysed as the horseradish enters the mouth especially when the beef is so sublime but still, I do like a good punch from the stuff. Enjoying a full bodied horseradish sauce is one of those things that makes an Englishman.

  My New Zealand friend enjoyed his meal, as I did mine. Here’s to many more at The Oyster Club where the lights are on on a Sunday evening when the lights others are out and their doors are locked. 

  Rating:- 🌞

  Sad news was delivered this past week that Le Petit Bois in Moseley will close permanently on 27 April. It is a charming and delightful small restaurant which I have visited several times. How lovely to have an unpretentious, rustic French dining establishment available to enjoy - rather like The French Pantry in Ludlow where I had lunch recently - and how sad to have to say Adieu! The owners, Ben Taylor and Zsofia Kisgergely, have stated that the closure is necessary because of the present high price of ingredients  but it may also be related to the decline of Moseley which looks a little sad and dilapidated and of course list Carter’s of Moseley last year.

  As the tweet says, perhaps some ambitious chef might consider keeping rustic France in Birmingham by opening a bouchon serving Lyonais dishes especially as Birmingham is twinned with Lyon. Bouchons are catching on in London and who knows? may become all the rage. Consider, chefs, setting up in the south west of the city, where there is no real competition - increasingly trendy Kings Norton with its medieval church and buildings and village green or even booming Longbridge town. You may well find you’ve got ready customers in the area.

See Blog 260.

260. Le Petit Bois

 

  After two lunches at le petit bois travelling restaurant at Herbert’s Yard a couple of weeks (I finally girded up my loins and, at a beautifully sunny English summer lunchtime headed for Moseley, to actually dine at the pretty Gallicly blue le petit bois (the lower case seems to be correct).

  A relaxed, perfectly judged welcome and I was seated in the extremely comfortable chairs at the very adequately sized table in the charming, bright, nicely sized restaurant and making my choices from the sensibly sized but highly interesting menu which included a clever ‘scallop of the day’ option.

   

  And indeed the scallop of the day option was too powerful a temptation to resist and by choosing it I was rewarded with a lovely plate of nicely cooked coquilles with a crispy bacon, a minty pea purée and much accompanying esteval joy. I had already been primed for pleasure by having been served a fine small baton with delicious chicken skin butter and a delightfully cooling, Bourbon and Cuantro-based brise d’été cocktail.

  The main course of hake with peas and wild mushroom macaroni reinforced the metaphorical breeze of summer wafting through the restaurant - quite, quite delicious - few chefs can serve their fish as perfectly as was this piece of hake with the most triumphantly crispy skin I have been served on a piece of fish for years.

  And to finish, a dessert created by the Devil himself - French Colonel - two gorgeous quenelles of light, refreshing lime sorbet made thoroughly wicked by having French vodka poured over them. What a dessert!

  Light and easy and alcoholic just as I like a dessert to be. Perhaps there should have been a biscuit or something with texture to accompany it but frankly I liked the Colonel just as he was 

  For those who wish to indulge themselves to the highest degree, a magnificent fruits de mer platter is available for a minimum of two people (£120 and by the looks of it worth every penny). A pair of ladies celebrating a birthday gave me an opportunity to witness the platter in the flesh (or perhaps, the shell) and I am glad to say they made short  measure of it and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

  The restaurant, owned by Ben Taylor, the Head Chef, and front of house manager, Zsofia Kisgergely, is the successor to their previous Moseley restaurant, Little Blackwood, which they opened in 2018 but which, like other dining establishments, was severely affected by the lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic to the extent that it was not financially viable to keep the restaurant open with it shutting in March 2022.. Much of the problem underlying the restaurant’s closure had been related to a dispute with the landlord of the property and after a resolution of the issues Taylor and Kisgergely were able to take possession of the location once more.

  The restaurant’s website says that, “Le Petit Bois is your French country kitchen, in the heart of Moseley” and Taylor and Kisgergely appear to have been very successful in creating this atmosphere in this charming bistro.

Rating:- 🌞🌞