In June 2020 Jay Rayner wrote about Land, and then, somewhat more importantly, in August 2022 so did I. I have no idea what Jay (lovely man, big hair, big shoes, etc) ate, nor can I be arsed to look to look it up, but I know what I had; little tartlets, and tuiles, and inspiration that ran across Europe and into the far east like an episode of Race Across The World, finished off with a sweet and bright strawberry dessert that kissed away summer with a big juicy snog. I loved it, just like the man with the big hair and the big shoes did, and especially in the way that people who live a plant based diet do. Land, it is very much safe to say, plays a very important part of the Birmingham restaurant dynamic, from a tiny space in the very pretty Great Western Arcade.
That menu is unrecognisable to the one we are served on a blustery October afternoon. The descriptions have always been vague and ingredient led, though now they point directly to the Far East. Dishes such as ‘Rice – Onion – Hoisin – Chive’ don’t need to spell this direction out, but it is clear to anyone who knows a fathom about cooking. We start with cocktails and order the short menu along with a nice bottle of French Pinot Noir priced very competitively at £44. The opening bite of a crispy leek cone with squash, pesto, and chilli might kill all of my Eastern promise, but it’s a highly technical, extremely tasty bit of cooking. Then, for me at least, one of the highlights of the meal; a kimchi soup that attacks the tongue with salt and fire before settling into a deep, almost medicinal warmth. It has candied nuts at the base to loosen-up the head-clearing slap to the chops, and some milk loaf to clear out the last drops of the bowl. I find the sunflower seed butter a little margarine-like greasy, but both Sophie and her mother love it, so what do I know.
The aforementioned rice onion etc course is a take on congee, the rice porridge beloved of Hong Kong that I’ve never fully understood why. Here they inject more flavour at every opportunity; slowly cooked onions, a little hoisin, and a chive foam, taking something profoundly beige and injecting some much needed life into it. It’s followed by a course of staggering simplicity that is good enough to grace just about anywhere. Medium-firm tofu. Itself a wobble of wet plaster with nothing more than a whisper of soya, taking on the identity of a goma dare that punches with sesame nuttiness and umami. Add a flourish of crispy nori and what you have is all clean lines and purpose, and quite possibly one of the very best things I have eaten this year.
In writing this I’ve realised the similarities between Land and a certain Ynyshir. Gareth may be known for his aged wagyu and fish, but ask any of the team who worked for him and they’ll tell you that he used sauces to throw the big punches. In that respect Land might be a plant-based kitchen but they do exactly the same, taking something like beetroot and enhancing the earthiness with a kasu sauce that retains much of the yeasty and floral nature of the sake lees. I hate beetroot on any given day (blame my mom for putting the pickled stuff on everything), but even I enjoyed the balance of the vegetable, sauce, puffed grains and little blobs of black garlic to give it shade. Linda and Sophie both take the supplementary tempura cauliflower with gochujang glaze and spring onion puree. Both loved it. There is a dessert of apple cake with an ice cream of oolong tea and soy caramel that divides us; I think it’s a gloriously savoury way to finish the meal, but Sophie thinks there is too much soy present. Given this is my blog and not hers, you’ll have to take my word for how good it is.
Three short tasting menus, three cocktails, a bottle of wine, two supplements, and three glasses of dessert wine leaves us with a bill of just over £350, which seems excellent value in this present climate. I loved the meal at Land; they are going in a direction that suits them, one that leans into their interests as chefs and gives them the palette of colours to add interest to an otherwise limited base. They have a clear identity of who and the confidence to run with it. At Land, the point isn’t what’s missing. It’s what they manage to do with what’s left.
9/10
