21. Birmingham Joins The Ivy League.

  The Ivy Temple Row opened recently in Birmingham. A review of mine on the dislikeable but sometimes useful website, Tripadvisor, is depicted below and summarises the impression of a lunchtime experience there. I did not find it to be a terribly enjoyable experience but it was not intolerable though the volume of din to be heard in the place did indeed push the boundaries of my tolerance.

  The food was satisfactory but nothing more and painfully overpriced. If The Ivy had not arrived in Birmingham then those who enjoy good food would be none the worse off but it's a glitzy addition to the range of places where the gullible who prefer style to substance may like to be seen though Birmingham has no real celebrities of note so spotting such people in the place is an unlikely event. I suppose that if Birmingham gets Channel 4 to serve as its new base then the sort of people who work for that television station might feel at home in the place.

  The original, hoary centenarian Ivy in Covent Garden is most notable as a place to be admired in, its Birmingham offspring is more a place to be deafened in.

  My lunchtime companion and I have no plans to return. The review below expands on the subject a little more:-

20. Lunch At Pieminister.

Beggar Boy with a piece of pie by Giacomo Peroti

 I do like a good pie. Somehow it seems very English.

  So what could be better than a restaurant that specialises in serving pies? Let's head for Pieminister in Waterloo Street to find out. Fleetingly I think of Sweeney Todd and Bellowhead's song 'Black beetle pies' but such unpleasant fancies soon flee away as I arrive at the restaurant which specialises in minimalist decor and seems to attract far more male customers than females.

  Not much in the way of starters, somehow olives don't seem appropriate. And so straight to the main course - a chicken and ham pie on a bed of mash with accompanying mushy peas. I might have liked simple chips with my pie and peas, not modern chips with the skin on, but classic beautifully cooked chips, soft on the inside and crunchy on the outside, but such was not available. But let's be honest, how can you better classic pie and mash? And the pie was fine. The classic chicken and tarragon combination with just the right amount of tarragon so that the powerful herb enhanced the flavour without killing it straight dead. The mash too was fine - proper mash not some near-liquid purée with all the body squeezed out of it - and the peas were admirable, perfectly minted, I wondered if there was a hint of vinegar which would have been spot on.

Pie, mash and mushy peas

  I had a vanilla milkshake with the meal which served as an accompanying drink and a pudding. The milkshake was inadequate in size and overpriced but I guess Pieminister has to make its profit somewhere or the other.

  The service was excellent and all in all the experience quite pleasurable and if it survives I will be happy to lunch at Pieminister again.

  Pieminister had begun as a business for 12 years prior to its opening in Birmingham and had been started in Bristol with other branches in Exeter, Nottingham, and Leeds. It's pleasing to have a chain of restaurants that specialise in food with a distinctly British character rather than yet another tedious burger joint but the restaurant could have looked more British. And going out to eat should have a little bit of excitement to it but there is really no thrill to going to Pieminister. Perhaps things could be made to be a little less routine by having special pies of the day to add an air of immediacy to the menu. 

  Nevertheless, a visit to Pieminister is a perfectly satisfactory experience. You could say, "The pies have it, the pies have it".

Children eating a pie by Murillo 

19. Folium Opens, Wilderness Wanders, Edmund's Closes And Turner On The Move.

  Dining out in Birmingham has been very interesting in the last few months. 

  Folium opened in Caroline Street. I've had two excellent lunches there so far. Ben Tesh is producing some wonderful food and the place is bright and modern and comfortable.

  What a pleasure indeed was the salt marsh lamb. A fine start to Folium in its Jewellery Quarter home.

  A little further into the Jewellery Quarter a surprise temporary home for The Wilderness. With work on its new Bennett's Hill home delayed, Alex Claridge is cooking in the previous location, down an alley in Warstone Lane, of Two Cats and, more historically, The Toque D'Or. The all-black decor follows the rule that less is more and Claridge's whimsies are no worse showcased in this perhaps slightly claustrophobic environment than anywhere else. Claridge' food is magnificent and full of humour. His Big Mac appetiser does to steak tartare what it has always been asking for. His lamb (charcoal, cucumber) is perfect and his 'Quail, Tamarind' (NAFB - the waitress will tell you what it stands for - not only is Claridge a gastronomic genius but also one of Britain's great comedians) gives us one of the most memorable 'curries' ever served up in Birmingham. Notably, all tables were taken at a mid-week lunchtime.

  Perhaps The Jewellery Quarter is the new Ludlow.

  Having mentioned the Toque D'Or there comes the sad news that Didier Philpott's later restaurant, Edmund's in Brinkley Place, closed suddenly and is to be reopened as Maribel where the Head Chef will be, of all people, Richard Turner, who closed his own Turner's At 69 shockingly suddenly in January this year. I liked Edmund's though it's fate always seemed sealed by how few people were lunching there whenever I went. Philpott's cooking gave us perfectly fine and accurate French cuisine better than that served at the persistently 2 Michelin star Champignon Sauvage in Cheltenham and I shall miss it.

  Turner of course went through revisions of his menus at Turner's eventually ditching his multi-course tasting menus for a return to the pleasures of a la carte. Now an article in the Birmingham Post tells us that Turner will be presenting an 11 course tasting menu at a cost of £85 in Maribel but that there will also be a three-course a la carte menu which in my view is a relief.

  Finally The Post tells us that Aktar Islam, his days at Lasan numbered, is planning 2 new restaurants in the coming months - the Opheem in Summer Row which will feature 'progressive Indian cuisine' and  also in Summer Row will be the Mi Amore Ristorante Pizzaria to open in May. Oh good, another Italian-style restaurant - as Claridge would say, "NAFP", the last initial standing for 'pizza'.

18. Richard Turner Closes Turner's at 69 and Ben Tesh Opens Folium.

  Richard Turner closed Turner's at 69 in Harborne on 15 January 2018. Turner had opened the restaurant, known simply as Turner's for most of its life, in 2007 and it won a single Michelin star in January 2009. The restaurant was highly thought of throughout its existence but in August 2016 Turner changed the restaurant's style to some extent and the restaurant lost its Michelin star in the 2018 edition of the Michelin Guide. At the beginning of 2018 Richard Turner has announced that he closed the restaurant on 15 January 2018. This is despite the fact that Harborne has a busy dining scene with the opening of Jamie Desogus' Harborne Kitchen which one Harborne resident I know who likes to dine there describes as "almost as good as Purnell's but less expensive".

  Folium duly opened in November 2017. It got off to a slightly stuttering start in that I had a reservation there for lunch a few days after opening but my reservation had to be cancelled due to the non-appearance of a sous-chef. However I'm very pleased to be going to lunch there in a few days' time. I look forward to enjoying Ben Tesh's food having thoroughly enjoyed it in his former 'Pop up' restaurants. I'm pretty sure it will be worth the wait.

  Islam Akhtar, the chef director of the Lasan restaurant group, has stepped down from the role. He has made a number of television appearances including in three series of The Great British Menu where his soft shelled crab dish, which I ate at Lasan, won a place in the Banquet itself. Lasan was awarded a Michelin Plate in the 2018 Michelin Guide.

17. Ben Tesh To Open Folium In November 2017.

  At last the glad news that Ben Tesh is to open his first permanent restaurant which he calls Folium. Service gets underway in November and it all looks very exciting. The aim is to serve modern British dishes in "a relaxed and informal atmosphere"and the 28 cover restaurant will be situated in Caroline Street off St. Paul's Square in the Jewellery Quarter.

  If you look up the meaning of Folium the definition " thin leaf-like structure" appears. However if you look up the meaning of Folium in cooking then you come across a text "Discovering words in the kitchen" by Julian Walker which links the word to the section on Pastry. It reminds us tha Filo derives from the modern Greek word for a leaf but mentions that the 1390 Forme de Cury includes a recipe which involves the use of sheets of thin pastry called foyles which are described as being "of paper". The piece then goes on to link 'folio', a sheet of paper, with 'leaf' which is what is meant by the Latin word Folium. I'm not sure if Ben Tesh would have gone through such tortured thinking to arrive at his restaurant's name but it will be interesting to find out.

  Tesh's partner, Lucy Hanson, will front the house.

  If the food served in his "pop-up" days is anything to go by then Birmingham will soon have another immaculate and brilliant restaurant to add to its fame as a truly great Food City. I have already booked myself a table. See Blog 10.

13. 2018 Michelin - Turner's Loses Its Star.

  This year's entrants in the Michelin Guide were announced at a live event on Monday 2 October 2017 held at The Brewery in east London.

  Last year's event was held at the Institute of Engineering and Technology in Savoy Place in London and was streamed live and looked like a very uncomfortable affair (see Blog 4).

  The Michelin Guide Great Britain And Ireland 2018 will be published on Thursday 5 October.

  This year's event confirmed that it's really all about London and its elitist classes who dine there. A sushi bar off Regent Street which seats just 9 diners and where a meal costs £300 became the fifth U.K. Restaurant to be awarded 3 stars. Meanwhile Claude Bosi, previously of Ludlow, saw his restaurant Bibendum in South Kensington achieve 2 stars making it the 9th restaurant in London to be so rewarded. Six more London restaurants were awarded single stars meaning that there are now 70 Michelin starred restaurants in London. No London restaurant lost a star except that one restaurant in the city closed.

  Yes, it really is all about London. We one eye yokels (to paraphrase Giles Coren - see Blog 6) who live in the provinces, clearly can't recognise a great meal when we see one or smell one or taste one. What a load of rubbish. And yet we still think that Michelin is the be all and end all of judging food quality.

  Birmingham chef, Richard Turner, last year decided that he'd had enough and purposefully gave up ridiculously expensive tasting menus and flim flammery in the full expectation of losing his Michelin star for his restaurant Turner's At 69 and the result is that has indeed lost his Michelin star this year. I don't suppose it'll bother his regular customers that much.

  Otherwise the situation in Birmingham remains unchanged - Purnell's, Simpson's, Carter's of Moseley and Adam's all retain their single stars but no new restaurant has been awarded a star nor have any of those established on the list received an additional reward. Slightly further afield, Peel's at Hampton Manor and The Cross at Kenilworth both retain their single stars and in Cheltenham Le Champignon Sauvage retains its 2 stars.

  So no real advance in the Michelin stakes for Birmingham and the West Midlands but what can we expect from a publication so centred on London and the south-east?

  But spare a passing thought for Manchester which likes to fantasise that it is Britain's "Second City" (which it isn't of course) - the 2018 Guide has not brought it any stars and so the city has not had a Michelin-starred restaurant for 40 years! Doubtless the Conservatives attending their party conference in Manchester this year will be looking forward to 2018 when it will again be held in Birmingham, Britain's real second city and gastronomic second city as well.

So, well done again Birmingham, given the uphill struggle in the face of Michelin inspectors who think that civilisation begins and ends in London, there's much to be excited about still when it comes to food in the city.

16. A Birmingham Banquet 1896

  I was delighted to have obtained recently a menu of a banquet held for the Annual Provincial Meeting of the Incorporated Law Society of the United Kingdom which took place in the magnificent Grosvenor Rooms of Birmingham's now being restored Grand Hotel on Tuesday 13 October 1896. The banquet took place in the presence of the first ever Lord Mayor of Birmingham, the Right Hon. James Smith (pictured below) and so it took place at a time when Birmingham was really finding its feet as a great English city. The legal profession attending the banquet clearly represented the elite in the city if the magnificence of their menu is anything to go by and the menu tells us what the "foodies" of the end of the Victorian age were being offered to eat by the chefs of the time. It's fascinating to compare it with the "tasting menus" of today which, after all, are mini-banquets of the 21st century.

  As the photograph below of the Grosvenor Rooms shows, they were dining in sumptuous surroundings and the food needed to match the place where it was being eaten. What else should a late-Victorian foodie expect?

  And what a menu! I presume that the menu offered two or three choices for most courses:- 

  Torte Claire

  Purée Tomate

  Clear Turtle soup

  Tomato purée

      ------

  Soles au Vin Blanc 

  Éperlans Fris, Sauce Tartare

  Sole in white wine sauce

  Fried smolt with Tartare sauce

              ------

  Ris de Veau Braisé aux Champignons

  Côtelettes de Mouton a la Réforme

  Calf sweetbreads with braised mushrooms

  Lamb cutlets in Reform Club sauce

                ------

  Hanche de Venaison, Sauce de Vin d'Oporto

  Dindon Bouilli, Sauce au Céleri

  Jambon de York Braisé

  Haunch of venison with Port wine sauce

  Boiled turkey with celery sauce

  Braised York ham

              ------

  Grouse

            ------

  Pouding Mousseline 

  Géléé aux Fruits

  Genoise Glace au Pistache

  Plombière á la Nesselrode

  Mousseline

  Fruit jelly

  Genoese pistachio ice cream

  Nesselrode ice pudding

           ------

  Crevettes au Diable

  

  Devilled shrimps

       ------

  Desserts

     ------

  Café

  Coffee

  The dishes listed on the menu are fascinating - on one hand there are dishes which could not possibly be served now - turtle soup for instance since turtles are protected internationally and killing them to make a soup would be illegal - and then the pre-nouvelle cuisine dishes heavily dependent on the recipes of Escoffier and his cuisine of sauces.

  Two dishes were of particular interest to me and I had to look them up to see what they were - the côtellettes de mouton à la Réforme and the Plombière à la Nesselrode.

  The Reform Club sauce was invented in the 1830s by Alexis Soyer, head cook at The Reform Club in Pall Mall, who created it when a troublesome club member arrived at the club late one evening and there was a need to create for the hungry member a dish out of whatever ingredients were available in the kitchen at the time. The sauce is produced from a sauce poivrade - a pepper sauce - with juliennes of gherkin, mushrooms, hard boiled egg white, pickled tongue and cooked truffle.

  Nesselrode pudding. Mmmmm....... This stupendous dessert was created by Carême in 1814 for the diplomat, Count Carl von Nesselrode. It became the popular ice pudding of the 19th century and was particularly admired by the English upper classes. It was usually made in a dome-shaped bombe mound to make it resemble a pudding boiled in a basin. The dish is made from simmered chestnuts with sugar, vanilla, egg yolks, chestnut purée, cream and Maraschino. It is then frozen while currants and raisins are boiled in syrup and added to the mix with chestnut cream and whipped cream. Personally, knowing that Nesselrode pudding was in the line-up, I think I would have skipped all the previous courses, as delicious and as extravagant as they may sound, and then consumed vast quantities of this gift from God.

  Purnell's, Adam's, Wilderness, Simpson's, Carter's - no matter what your view of food is - get serving the Nesselrode pudding and make the diners of Birmingham very happy! Come on, you know you must!

  The menu also includes the wine list (below) and a page dedicated to the price to be paid for such a sumptious dinner - the after dinner speeches. Finally, on the back page there's a list of music played during the banquet.

  The meal is a contrast to what we think is right for our day and age but I wouldn't mind travelling in a time machine to 13 October 1896 to The Grosvenor Rooms and trying it all out.