408. Albatross Death Cult - Opening Night And The Week After.

 

 Dining out is theatre and so the opening of Alex Claridge’s Albatross Death Cult in the wonderful old and beautifully renovated factory building in Newhall Square - previously home to Atelier and Counter - was rather like the opening of a new play - full of anticipation, leading men and leading women, spectacle, perfection of delivery, special effects, a keen audience holding its collective breath. And the performance did not let artistes and diners down. 

  Thirteen dishes proved to be a number not at all unlucky. Alex Claridge was there with Marius Gedminas and the sous chefs meticulously plating up for the fourteen diners all perched around a wide aluminium-shiny counter - benign, empathetic diners expecting the best, the exciting, the delicious and they had little to complain about. Two fine little amuses gueles to start - a tart and a croustade showcasing hits of prawn and the gorgeous and unadulterated flavour of chalk stream trout served with its roe.

 An indisputable highlight was the fabulously textured and tasty mackeral sashimi of with caviar neatly followed up by presentations of apple and elderflower with crab and another gorgeous croustade of prawn head over a layer of the freshest, zingiest, most seasonal peas I have been presented with for years (ever since I gathered them in myself as a youth from grandfather’s allotments). These were very fine ingredients presented with the quiet passion which Alex Claridge exudes and the punters were having a ball.

    Oyster was next, simply prepared with a splash of vinegar and the pleasure of peach, and then sushi in the form of hamachi - Japanese amberjack - emboldened by sesame. Then firm lobster with a soup rich in the flavours of Siam and next quite superb mussels - the best I can remember being served in many a moon- enlivened with black pepper and the addition of Iberico.

  

 The fresh purity of Chalkstream trout was revisited next with the strong, hot, sour flavour of tom yum - so very good - and then an admirably light dessert of sushi rice cream and to end memorably - a tiny but celestially wondrous segment of Hokkaido melon which, Alex told us might cost £60 to £80 per fruit and when one sampled it one could see - or perhaps - taste why.

  

  I had wisely already made further reservations for this astonishing restaurant in the following weeks before some critic or the other popped up to rave about it and ensure that it is then booked months ahead. Indeed, I returned the following week to find the menu to contain the same dishes, perhaps even more slightly perfected than on opening night apart from the sad disappearance of the Hokkaido melon though it was replaced by a lovely cherry dessert. I can be smug that I am already one of the few, the happy few, who have dined at ADC and must wonder if this where Alex Claridge will finally find the Michelin star he has so long deserved.

Rating:- 🌞🌞🌞.

410. Oyster Club. Purnell’s Cafe And Bistro Coventry Closed.

   Passing the weekend with Lucy The Labrador in town I opted to have Sunday lunch at The Oyster Club by Adam Stokes as I have on a number of previous Sundays in town. Well, actually I had a reservation for 6PM so the use of the word ‘lunch’ is somewhat stretching things. 

  The town was busy with countless fathers being dragged around the city centre to whichever dining establishments were open so that they could pay for their offspring to wish them “Happy Fathers’ Day”. 6PM on a Sunday evening is usually a nice quiet, civilised time to dine at The Oyster Club, one of the very few well thought of dining establishments to actually bother to open at this particular time on that particular day of the week and the restaurant was as civilised as ever on this visit though noticeably busier than usual with a number of men being entertained by their grateful broods and then handing over their bank cards in the knowledge that their families had enjoyed the occasion at their expense. Happy Fathers’ Day indeed.

  Sunday lunch at the Oyster Club usually involves me partaking of the excellently priced Chateaubriand plus all the trimmings lunch on offer there but on this particular day I wanted fish and nothing less than Dover sole would do. After a starter of pleasingly lightly battered tempura King prawns with a tongue tingling Gochujang dipping sauce which gave great pleasure, though one or two of the prawns were a little oily, there was presented a magnificent sole, meaty and of impressive size, quite adequately accompanied by nothing more than a wedge of lime and a fine beurre noisette with the right amount of saltiness and a happy texture provided by a multitude of capers and an insistent flash mob of delightful little prawns. Away you vegetables and you sea herbs, your presence is not needed here! The, I repeat, magnificent, fish was as much as any normal man could cope with though perhaps I might have thought of asking for some little buttered new potatoes (chefs - don’t sauté them please) but I was replete and the sole had not died in vain but such a fine chap had it been than dessert was out of the question.

  And to think, I had toyed with “going for a curry”

  Back to the Grand Hotel and the joyously sumptuous Madeleine bar for a couple of Vieux carrés which were rather good and rapidly served and, I thought, more paralysingly alcoholic than one might expect, which was rather good as there seemed to be no barmen there making the drinks. Great stuff. I do love Birmingham.

  There seems to be a little group of true gourmands in this city and they all tend to be attracted by special events at The Wilderness in particular, or perhaps Simpsons, and now Albatross Death Cult (I love typing the name, how will Michelin deal with it? - there’s no doubt that Alex is a real star). So at the public opening of ADC I was able to ‘network’ with the star Birmingham gourmands - dare I call them ‘epicures’ - who were present there and heard news that had previously bypassed me. This was that Purnell’s Cafe and Bistro in Coventry had been closed for the past winter and had not reopened, nor was it intended to do so. It had been Michelin-listed and well thought of and its life was short. Adieu.

409. Folium - Quietly Sublime.

 

  I’m minded to write that Folium is Birmingham’s most underrated restaurant. One might ask how a restaurant listed by both Michelin and The Good Food Guide can be judged to be underreated when it has received these accolades but the problem is that Michelin lists Folium but has not added it to its galaxy of stars although, it must be admitted, the Good Food Guide does describe Folium as “very good” though that, to me at least, after just dining there again, is something of a litotes. I would describe Folium as being “quietly sublime”. It sits at the edge of the Jewellery Quarter tranquil and almost unassuming - its chef, the remarkable Ben Tesh, painstakingly putting together his dishes, meticulous, spot on, no hint of inaccuracy, beautifully presented and the restaurant fronted by an ideal hostess, Lucy Hanson. 

 There are no dramas, the food comes out smoothly and timely; the finely balanced menus delivering signature dishes gladly revisited alongside more recent pieces of inspiration which are made up of delightfully matched ingredients, wonderfully fresh and calmly combined with each other to deliver deeply felt flavours and well matched textures.

  To start the now familiar but never tiresome little burnt onion flavoured crispy tube with its accompanying little spot of wildly beautiful chicken liver parfait. Then the delightful home baked sourdough loaf, tasty, crispy crusted and happily married to the cultured butter and salt served with it. Lucy says her day starts perfectly with this loaf as breakfast - a start to be envied by those of us who do not have an early morning access to the bread.

  Also familiar the gorgeously powerfully flavoured roast chicken dashi poured over a warm savoury custard and covered by crispy shavings of black truffle. Next, fabulous line caught mackeral covered by a pleasing kelp jelly which enhances and cuts through the mackerel’s flavour.

  Next, one of the great dishes of the year - lobster cooked with pinpoint accuracy - as tender as one could ever want lobster to be - served with fine lobster ponzu and a little beignet-style ball of “fried bread” to mop up the sauce. And then an even more exciting dish - a perfect dish, totally unimpeachable - of turbot cooked neither a second over or an second under with white asparagus - equally perfectly cooked - and a gorgeous salted butter sauce. This is a lovely dish and I doubt that any chef could better it. This is a dish for the culinary Hall of Fame.

   The first dessert was brilliant - explosively refreshing - mouth cleansing frozen yuzu with marshmallow and served with puffed buckwheat for a crispy texture. No man nor woman would complain if they drowned in a bath of this dessert. And then the joy of toasted hay ice cream with more buckwheat-derived texture and all enhanced with the flavour of miso.  

  To finish and to wave me on my way, old dainty friends by way of mignardises in the form of a sunflower macaron, its texture perfect, filled with earthy cep fudge and the signature whisky and peat butterfly bun - all the desserts and petit fours bringing the pleasure they should but light and easy on the digestion.

  Ben Tesh has perfected his restaurant over the years to a point where it could easily be said to be at the pinnacle of the city’s and the region’s culinary scene. The secret here is not razzamatazz but quiet, determined perfectionism delivering to the diner sublime, consistent cooking which results in quiet, immaculate dishes of the highest quality.

Rating:- 🌝🌝🌝

406. West Country Pleasures.

 

  The end of May saw my dog and I taking one of our trips to the West Country seaside at Weston super Mare. I started off by dining on well cooked cod and chips at Papa’s, the historic and atmospheric restaurant, busy and characterful. The fish was white and meaty and nicely cooked with a pleasing light batter. Sometimes the simplest pleasures are the best.

  Less historic and much more recent, is the Strange Catch which has seating but is not intended to be a restaurant. Again, very pleasing cod and chips are served there and the following evening I had a takeaway, dining yet again on this traditional seaside food. The chips were tasty and well cooked and the cod again was cooked in a pleasant, light batter and might have been even better cooked than that from Papa’s - nicely moist and again meaty even though both the fish and chips looked less golden than those served at Papa’s.

  One can not live by fish and chips alone and so off to lunch in Bristol the following day. On my last trip there I had lunch at Casa on Lower Guinea Street but this time I changed from Italian cuisine to Spanish tapas in the sister restaurant of Paco Tapas, Michelin-recommended as is Casa and next door, part of complex of swanky apartments located in a former hospital building. As is the case with Casa, Paco Tapas has modern, fairly minimalist decor - fresh and à la mode - though unlike its sister which is furnished with pleasingly ordinary tables and chairs, it has high tables and high seats - not uncomfortable but not being a bird, I prefer not to perch. Both restaurants have gleaming open kitchens with plenty of bright metal and young chefs going about their labours calmly and methodically and everything appears permanently under control. The Front of House staff was welcoming, helpful, patient, knowledgeable and unhurried.

  And so to the food - I opened with a pair of indulgently cheesy ham croquetas though the jamon was not the dominant feature it should have been. I also had some splendid charred padron peppers which kept things going until a plate of very finely cooked  Iberico pork chop arrived  - gorgeously tender though it was not quite as tasty as some Iberico pork I have had. To accompany it I had a helping of patatas bravas - a generous and tasty enough portion. 

  

  For dessert a sweet, but not excessively so, rather luxurious Pedro Ximénez flan - Spanish flans, which to be honest are not excessively familiar to me - are really a custard without the pastry which we might expect with a British flan and this was a pleasing example.

  This was an enjoyable visit with finely prepared and carefully cooked Spanish dishes. There was a pleasing absence of chorizo and an an equally pleasing absence of rusticity which is often very welcome but sometimes it is a pleasure to have something with a little more finesse - not just in the presentation of the food but also in the surroundings it is eaten in.

Rating:- 🌛🌛🌛🌛

  Having expressed a pleased relief for a lack of rusticity at Paco Tapas I now reverse my stance and express a delight caused by the rusticity of Ginger Pig Kitchen back in Weston super Mare which serves damn fine food though, like anywhere else, sometimes things are not quite what one is hoping for.

  Like many English seaside resorts, Weston has seen better, busier days when West Midlanders, in particular, and also the invading Welsh, would take their summer holidays in their tens of, if not their hundreds of, thousands in the resort with its fine, elongated beach and notorious tide which leaves exposed mud when it is low and can be splashing at the sea wall when it is high. On this present visit - a school holiday week - it looked as though things were picking up with more visitors to the town than I can remember seeing for a long time.

  It is a shortish distance from ultra-middle class, privileged, champagne-socialist Bristol inhabited as it is with the true ‘heirs of Blair’. Weston could not be more different - the holiday resort of the working class where one feels the burgers of Bristol would feel uncomfortable and would be roughing it if they ventured down the coast to see how the other half live, or in this case, holiday. The Ginger Pig Kitchen is unlikely to be for them and it’s easy to stumble into the middle class frame of mind when judging a restaurant though well heeled socialist restaurant critics like Jay Rayner, cosy in his self righteousness and sense of moral superiority, may feel they should stoop to show solidarity with the people at other times they may well sneer at. 

  I will try to view the restaurant in its context where the diners may not have the culinary sophistication which the middle class, their restaurant critics and the left wing newspapers they read, feel that they themselves possess but from the point of view of the restaurant which has a good chef and a clear understanding of what its clientele wish to eat at a price they can afford and which is several cuts above most other restaurants locally available to them.

  On my first evening of dining there I chose a starter of shrimp croustade. Sadly this did not work for me - the hot toast clashing with the chilled shrimps in Marie Rose and with shredded lettuce, cucumber and cherry tomatoes. Without the bread this would have been a version of a prawn cocktail and as such would have been very enjoyable.

  The main course was remarkably good - the locally sourced lamb was delicious and delightfully tender - the dining elite might have said that the lamb was not as pink as they would have wished but this suited me very much. The weather had turned warm in Weston and the well sautéed potatoes and roast vegetables spoke of winter rather than the passage of spring to summer but how was Chef to know that the weather gods had finally decided a little bit of sunshine, warmth and blue skies was due to us all? In this generously portioned vegetable extravanganza, I drew particular pleasure from the beautifully cooked leeks which were sweet and tender - simple pleasures but good ones. I could manage nothing more than an affogato for dessert but, as I’ve remarked before, it’s quite the perfect way to end a meal - dessert and coffee all rolled into one.

  For my second dinner at the Ginger Pig Kitchen I chose the prawn cocktail proper, served in a scallop shell, nicely immersed in a thoroughly enjoyable Marie Rose sauce and accompanied by fresh English salad. The Ginger Pig has kept the fine Berni Inn classic alive and well and living in Weston super Mare. I purred with pleasure.

  Feeling thoroughly maritime I stuck with fish for my main course and was served very satisfactorily cooked battered cod with, at my request, mashed potato - a man can not live by chips alone - and creamed crushed peas. This was lovely locally sourced fish with an excellent crispy batter and treated by Chef in a way that it deserved. I should have liked a little more butter in my mash - mash should be luxurious though not reduced to a purée with no body to it - the vegetable should have a texture and be allowed to keep its earthy flavours.

  Then, I returned for Sunday lunch. I did not resist the temptation to have another prawn cocktail and then I was served a grand, very kindly priced, roast beef main with all the, and one or two other, trimmings. The beef was as delightful as the lamb from a couple of days previous and again, I suppose, not as rare as some would have liked but thoroughly pleasing to me. With it came a successful cauliflower cheese, roast potatoes more accurately cooked than I have had in some other establishments, tender red cabbage not assaulted by apple nor cinnamon and all the better for that, a very precisely roasted half carrot with just the right bite to it, broccoli cooked to my taste , a delicious stuffing which I might not have been expecting with beef, an unimpeachable Yorkshire pudding and all brought together with a good, honest, silky gravy.

  The Ginger Pig Kitchen serves good traditional fare elevated to a higher level but without the overpriced pretensions that we often see. With the food goes the atmosphere and the feeling of diners enjoying themselves overseen by a restaurant manager who really knows how to do her job.

Rating - 🌛🌛🌛🌛

Back to Birmingham - 

  Michelin announced its list of newly recommended restaurants for May 2034 on 29 May.There were seven in all and one of them was located in the West Midlands area - Cuubo in Harborne which I recently visited (see Blog 403).