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? 

407. Rough Cut At The Wilderness.

 

  After a week in the West Country it was back to Birmingham and I was soon back in the swing of things with a trip to The Wilderness to experience in its opening week its radical new approach and the remarkable Rough Cut menu. There was much to get excited about and there was some fun to be had from carrying out instructions and writing scores and comments about the meal on to sheets provided. There’s a worry that Chef will hate you if you are too negative about a dish, even if you’re trying to be constructive and honest, or if one is gushingly positive, which you may indeed feel quite legitimately about a particular dish, that one may then just be seen as being ridiculously sycophantic. A balance is needed and restraint.

  That said, there was little to be negative about.

  These were experimental dishes created to help fashion future menus at The Wilderness and, I expect, also at Albatross Death Cult. They are very much of the mid-2020s - British-Japanese-European which is just about the era we are dining out in at present. They were full of Flavourshock, mostly not too shocking but one at least a little too shocking in flavour. The chefs were having fun creating them and and the diners were having fun seeing where these chaps were going with all this.

  My dining companion and I scored the dishes highly. I stumbled at one hurdle - I found the BBQ lobster a little tough and fell at another -  the flavour of the lovely mangalitza was lost to the overwrought char siu. Exquisite ingredients need gentle handling and little apart from themselves on the plate to ensure they can give the diner what they’re looking for.

  Dessert was new to me - exquisite, thin slices of red and white strawberries embellished with a cold tomato consommé. I’d eat that everyday. And then the Thai Green curry Mr Whippy-style ice cream with yuzu jelly. That ice cream is magnificent.

  I look forward to the next stage of evolution of The Wilderness. Ever original, ever tantalising, always exciting, ever delicious, occasionally challenging, always thrilling.

Rating:- 🌞🌞

415. Zoomers And Flavour Shock.

 

  I am an old man who likes to dine out in good food restaurants. I am a student of food trends but only because one may eventually tire if one eats too much of the same sort of thing time and time again and consequently I want to have something different which therefore necessitates knowing what the latest food trend is, and sometimes these trends come thick and fast. I am not a dining expert, though my experience is quite broad especially in the West Midlands, and therefore I sometimes discover that I’ve missed something that perhaps I should have picked up on some time ago.

The 6 dining trends

  Today was one of those days. I saw something on the internet where, some months ago, The Caterer was reporting predicted food trends for the coming year and top of the list was Foodshock. Nope, I didn’t know what that was. I’ve tried reading about it but it’s all still very vague to me. Apparently it’s all about what Generation Z (is that pronounced Zed or Zee?, perhaps someone will tell me) wants. I get terribly confused about which Generation is which but, no doubt to their pleasure, Z seems to be those who will be entering the early stages of Middle age. 

  It’s the work from home generation who have never known physical work though they may have paid a lot of money to carry out physical activity in a gymnasium with a ‘trainer’ or even a ‘personal trainer’ to oversee their exertions. They’re moving out of their flats in cool neighbourhoods because the demands of parenthood, to which they’ve come relatively late, have landed on their doorsteps and they’re moving into houses, preferably in better neighbourhoods, which their swollen salaries earned from sitting in front of a computer and answering text messages and phone calls and sitting in Zoom meetings, have enabled them to purchase. And of course they can afford to dine out, quite frequently in quite expensive, even the swankiest, restaurants in town and in the coolest suburbs, where they mingle with aging hipsters, all of them swigging their negronis.

  Anyway, I read that Flavour Shock is just what Generation Z is looking for. I hope they recognise it when they find it. I think I have. Last week I went again to Albatross Death Cult and I think that glorious restaurant must be a very real manifestation of Flavour Shock. Apart from myself it seemed that all the other diners there were of either Generation Z or late Millenials. I doubted that there was anyone there under 35 (though a flamboyant gay character who held his wine glass as far down the stem as he could manage but with the added affectation of holding his little finger out while holding his glass - rather as middle class Edwardian woman once did with their tea cups - looked nearer forty despite his lustrous hair. I enjoyed watching them all and chatting with a lovely couple obviously in their mid-thirties - he with early streaks of grey appearing in the hair over his temples - who had found life in Birmingham cheaper than the capital from which they had moved and had been to most notable restaurants that one could think of. 

And here we all were experiencing the big flavours of the small plates that Alex Claridge and his crew had come up with. Each dish could be described as delivering a flavour shock so I guess that dining at A_D_C is the best way to experience flavour shock. And I like it. Riverine Rabbit has the same effect, though perhaps slightly less extreme than the effect at A_D_C and with them being my favourite restaurants in the city at present, I guess I could claim to an honorary member of Generation Z, as immersed in Flavour Shock as anyone in the city (though I am at least double the age of any genuine ‘Zoomer’).

The Albatross menu on this occasion was very similar to that previously reported though there were one or two changes - out had gone the lobster dish to be replaced by gorgeous cod with yuzu and miso but not one course out of the sixteen served, failed to give pleasure, frequently extreme pleasure..

Cod, yuzu, miso  Flavour shock

Sea bass, jalapeño, cordal olive. Flavour shock!

Plump, meaty mussels, back pepper & iberico. Flavour shock!

sushi rice cream, nori tuiles. Dreamy, dreamy dessert.

And now, I’m wondering, after Flavour shock, what comes next? Regardless, for the present, we’ll eat what we are given and will certainly be glad of it. But I must look up what Irresistible vegetables is going to mean for me.

414. The French Pantry, Ludlow

 

  The French Pantry in Ludlow is very well loved by those who dine or lunch there and I think it must be one of my favourite restaurants in which to eat of all the places I have visited in the West Midlands. I have described it before and will not go over old ground but I have to say it is one of those restaurants which I truly look forward to dining at with great anticipation. Lacking in any pretention, it serves delicious, rustic French food which takes into account British tastes - it is not extreme Français but, having a French Chef Patron its authenticity can hardly be questioned. The helpings are generous, the presentation is rustic, the food is delicious and the overall delivery gives great pleasure.

  On this occasion, it being one of those rare hot, bakingly sunny, English summer days where you feel a thunderstorm can only be a few hours away, despite lusting after the magnificent French onion soup and perhaps the signature Olivier’s coq au vin, I opted for the two rather more summery sounding specials as starter and main course.

  The opening quiche Lorraine was lovely and highlighted just how awful supermarket quiches, which I am apt to buy, really are. The custard was tasty and nestled in a pleasingly textured pastry and the ham inside was full of flavour and the cheese, which I assume was Gruyère, had a bite to it that made this quiche a thing of gustatory beauty.

  Then the special main course on offer - salmon almondine - a beautifully cooked and generously sized piece of salmon, again tasty beyond the normal, with a beurre blanc. The sliced almonds gave a soothing texture to complement the meat of the salmon - dishes have not become classics for no reason one thinks - and the accompanying broccoli was cooked to be nice and tender though broccoli aficionados might have judged it overcooked, and they would be entitled to their opinion I suppose. This was a very enjoyable, seasonal dish and brought me great happiness but also rendered me too full to feel capable of managing a dessert though the tarte tatin was alluringly beckoning to me. 

  I love the French Pantry. Au revoir but I’ll be back!

  Rating:- 🌞.

  Meanwhile, I see that sadly, the Good Food Guide has removed Forelles from its online list of recommended Ludlow restaurants. Let us hope that the new owner sees sense and takes action to enable the restaurant to return to its former glory and its place in the Guide.

10.10PM, 26 June. Night falls over Clee Hill as viewed from Forelles.

413. Purnell’s.

 

  It had been at least six months since I last visited Purnell’s. This is unusual as I have dined/lunched there countless times since 2008. The reasons for my prolonged absence had been a less than perfect dinner I had held there in May 2023 to celebrate my birthday, the increasingly unchanging nature of the menu and the presence of a number of other fine restaurants which proved more alluring. The thrill of Purnell’s had faded, the wit of the dishes had shrunk away, the lure of specialness was lacking. In short, Purnell’s personality had become middle aged and unrefreshed. Head Chef Luke Butcher departed from his post at the end of December 2023 and recently two longterm Purnell’s kitchen staff (Sam Luck and Tom Blakemore) were appointed to be dual heads. Perhaps this was to be the start of a new era. I was interested to find out. 

  The meal began, comme toujours, with gifts from the kitchen, and included a new tarted up version of the once clever squid ink meringue ‘edible charcoal’ which mainly involved putting little spots of the delicious chorizo mayonnaise straight on to the meringue rather than the diner being presented with a pleasing small bowl of the mayonnaise in which to dip the charcoal.Not only had the amount of mayonnaise provided as a ‘gift’ been severely cut back but also the number of ‘charcoal’ blocks had been reduced to the bare minimum - that is - one per diner. Gone too were the rather comforting black potatoes. The minuscule amounts of chorizo mayonnaise resulted in the diner having very little opportunity to enjoy the pleasing flavour of it and, in parallel I suppose, reduced the amount that needed to be made to produce it and hence reduced the cost of ingredients to the kitchen. 

  While on the subject of reduced costs, the restaurant appeared to have fewer front of house staff and the theatre of presentation of dishes had been reduced. Perhaps this cost cutting is necessary as the restaurant was only half full on a Friday lunchtime when in the past it would have been a vibrant, buzzing place with not a table spare and waiters parading in and out of the kitchen on their way to and from serving the diners. I suppose many of the local office and business workers now “work from home” and on a taxing four day week so that while Purnell’s was in the right location for success in the 2010s, post-COVID that is no longer the case. Post-COVID Britain is a very different place from when Glynn Purnell, young and dynamic, first opened his restaurant in Cornwall Street.

  So what was the food like? As a starter I chose Loch Duart salmon served with a hint of heat from wasabi, apt sweet and acidic pickled cucumber and the summer splash of fresh peas and pea purée. The dish looked attractive and was enjoyable though it did not set my pulse racing as dishes at Purnell’s once did.

  My chosen main was supremely well cooked cod, with the air of the sous vide about it. This was served with excellent plump pickled mussels, Roscoff onion and pieces of green strawberries which played a role but not a large one. Again, a pretty dish which scored more points for its look than for its flavour, despite the necessary hits of acidity which helped it along. But, again, where was the thrill? My lunch companion thought I was being a little too downbeat but this is 2024 not 2007 nor 2014 and cuisine has evolved and Purnell’s is starting to feel just a little antediluvian.

   We also had roast Creedy Carver chicken - again nicely cooked, indeed perfectly cooked, meat served with two equally well cooked spears of Wye Valley asparagus, a blob of delicious black garlic purée and with a good chicken sauce and separately a bowl of chopped pickled cucumber which gave a sweet added crunch. 

   Purnell’s has long been a place where good pastry can be experienced and I enjoyed my tart of crispy pastry filled with blueberries, lemon cream and delicious blueberry sorbet. I do like a restaurant where the pastry chef produces, er … pastry.

  So, all fine dishes, attractively presented but not very different from those we may have found being served at Purnell’s ten to fifteen years ago. Is evolution needed there? I suppose if sufficient numbers of diners continue to eat there then the answer is “No” - but other cutting edge restaurants continue to appear in the city and will the Purnell’s brand be enough to compete with them?

Rating:- 🌞

412. Pleasure At Mortimers.

 

  Still in Ludlow, while Forelles seems to be in something of an existential crisis at present, the great joy of dining at Mortimers remains. The welcome is nicely judged, the preprandial drinks in the panelled bar (livened up on this visit by a remarkable pair of octogenarians elegantly dressed like something out of PG Wodehouse, she whose 87th birthday it was, giggling away charmingly like a schoolgirl being chatted up by a first boyfriend, and wearing a summery, sweet straw hat) so absolutely right with the only hors d‘oeuvres of which Ambrose Heath would have approved nuts and crisps (though I failed to follow his rules on the only aperitif which should be acceptable - dry sherry - opting instead for a cooling, relaxing Hendricks and tonic).

  And so, to the exquisite panelled dining room, where I was comfortably seated, watered, wined and delivered of the signature plate of three breads and three butters. I had opted for the extremely well priced 3 course lunch (£45 for three course plus bread) and was very happy with my choice of perfectly pan fried sea trout nicely balanced with pickled cucumber, soothed by herb crème fraiche and tickled by dill. 

  The main was an exciting prospect - pork tenderloin served as a generously sized portion. It was tasty but sadly much too dry - it really did need to have had a shorter cooking time. The accompanying herb mash and finely shredded, acidic cabbage were fine balances for the pork but perhaps more sauce would have helped to counter the dryness of the meat.

  I thoroughly enjoyed my dessert - a lovely light strawberry cheesecake with deliciously sweet strawberries, a nice base to it, delightful little meringues, red berry gel and good vanilla ice cream. The meal concluded with three mignardise just as it had started with three breads and three butters. An intentional symmetry I suspect and one I rather like.

  I do like Mortimers and now look forward to my visits there with considerable anticipation.

Rating:- 🌞