By the time our booking came around I wasn’t really looking forward to dinner at Folium. It was my fault: I’d made the schoolboy error of going out the night prior at 5pm sharp, returning home not far from the start of the next working day. What had started as a polite dinner with wine, descended into a full blown assault on the liver by grown men who really should know better. We’d found out a national chain of cocktail bars was offering a deal that essentially swapped turnips for drinks, resulting in two carrier bags full being lugged from Five Ways to Brindley Place and then on to the business district. Too many cocktails were consumed, one of the group may have been sick, another struggled to find a taxi willing to take him home. Turnips, eh? Who knew they could be so interesting.
There are better uses for the turnip, as I was to find out the following evening after suffering a hangover so severe not even a lunchtime curry could cure it. Try spiralising it into ribbons, blanching in parmesan stock, and then dressing it in an emulsion of the same cheese. Bury flecks of Hen of the Wood mushrooms and lardo in amongst the twisted pieces of faux pasta, and crown it all with a flurry of grated black truffle. This is what we should be doing with turnip; not swapping them for poorly made Zombies. It was a stand-out dish in a meal that hardly ever missed a beat, later to be described by Claire as one of her favourite dishes of the year. And this must be true for she pilfered several forkfuls of mine. It had bags of flavour; reminiscent enough of carbonara for it to feel familiar without the nostalgia attached.
This was course two of six at Folium, a restaurant we’d been meaning to get to for ages yet had never quite gotten around to it; a mistake we won’t be making again. The room is modern and sleek, making the most of the large windows that peer out towards St Paul’s Square. The centre is dominated by a drinks station; the space to the left the pass from which chef Ben Tesh is hard at work. We start with the most delicate of crab tarts given an extra fatty layer from grated duck liver, and move on to layers of cod skin cleverly crafted to look like oyster shells, which are to be submerged in a piquant tatare of oyster emulsion. The sourdough which arrives shortly after these is a work of art; a tight, chewy, crust holding a crumb that is light with uneven pockets of air. So good that I forgot what the butter was like. I’m calling it now: this is the best bread in Birmingham. It is a great start and we haven’t even started properly yet.
The menu starts with smoked eel hidden under a cloud of potato seasoned with chicken skin. The dish has swagger and big hitting flavours. We have the turnip course and then a glistening fillet of turbot. The fish is glorious, dotted with a gel of champagne vinegar, with potato puree and a dashi poured tableside. The genius addition is hay smoked butter that adds a perfumed richness. It has acidity laced throughout. It is an absolute stunner. Lamb follows this, both as a piece of pink saddle and slow cooked neck that it is sweet and soft. We get jerasulem artichokes in various forms including a blob of the silkiest puree, and sea vegetables carefully tweezered into place. In the middle is a sauce that speaks of time and precise seasoning. I ask for another piece of the bread and ensure the plate returns back to the kitchen clean.
The first of the dessert courses is a herbaceous green granita spooned around an unsweetened ice cream of sheep’s milk yogurt and aerated pieces of white chocolate. It’s over-shadowed by the last course: a chocolate creameux covered in a drift of cobnut crumb, with a salted milk ice cream and shards of milk skin tuile. I can’t pinpoint what chocolate bar this reminds me off, but who cares? It’s addictive with a pleasing salt content. It is also one of my favourite desserts of the year.
Service, led by Ben’s partner Lucy, is excellent, with a young and enthusiastic team. Wine is topped-up accurately, dishes explained with real knowledge. It makes the bill – just shy of £200 for two with a bottle of Beaujolais and a glass of dessert wine – feel real value. They have something special going on here, confirmed just 36 hours later when Marina O’Loughlin writes a glowing review in The Sunday Times. It makes this post somewhat irrelevant. Don’t listen to this minor blogger, read the words of one of the finest restaurant critics instead. She thinks that Folium is brilliant, as do we. You really must go.
9/10
Transport provided by A2B Radio Cars
Pictures by Claire