I think Michelin should make everyone an inspector for three days a year. One restaurant for lunch, another for dinner, the same two restaurants split over the year, tasting menu in both with the second cheapest bottle of wine each time, enjoyed alone with a pad, a pen, an out of date iPhone, and a pocket full of business cards to warn said restaurants that you’re the fake Michelin, not the real Michelin. Or AA as I call them. Experiencing dinner alone takes away much of the reason we go out to eat; the companionship, the conversation, the ability to split a bottle of wine, and reduces it to what is in front of you. The food. The service. And the important part for the three visits; how consistent said restaurant is. The bits the guides care about. And for Michelin it would stop the people telling them to award stars to places that they’ve swept up in emotionally, via first dates, engagements, or their favourite Nirvana song being played during the meal.
Every year Michelin announces its ceremony and every year they get told the same few places should get a star. I’ve eaten in them all alone for varying reasons. Of those usual suspects, one hasn’t because consistency has always been an issue, whilst another with a young chef already on their radar is better placed than he has been since he opened. And then there is Harborne Kitchen. Harborne Kitchen should have had a star years ago. The cooking is consistently one star and the service up there with the best in the city. Why Harborne Kitchen doesn’t have a star is a mystery I expect to feature on a Netflix miniseries.
We went recently. Superb cocktails in the front bar, glass of fizz, then into a buzzy restaurant for snacks. Arancini filled with crab and little tartlets of beetroot, both familiar to anyone who has eaten here before, along with a new snack destined to be a future classic; toasted brioche with cheddar mouse, crispy chicken skin, and candied walnut. Crikey it’s good. I think it’s my favourite snack I’ve eaten here.
The order of the dishes has improved. They coax you in, allowing the diner to gently wind-up before the big flavours come hitting. There’s a terrine of potato that’s really just four posh chips, jenga’d up for dipping in an onion purée topped with herrings roe. A superb course, even if I happened to prefer it with proper caviar. Then a thick slice of tomato studded with a little lardo and smoked bacon, some lovage oil and a tomato ponzo that’s so fresh and clean OutKast wrote a song about it.
It’s time for fireworks, albeit fireworks I’m familiar with, like the fireworks at the cricket ground on burny-burny-bang-bang night. Malloreddus, a Sardinian bastardisation of pasta and gnocchi, simply served with a light butter sauce, black truffle, and Parmesan. A simplicity rarely seen in the top Birmingham restaurants, it’s nigh on perfect.
What follows are two new dishes. Cod, with smoked bacon and peas, pinned together with a fresh butter sauce cut with roe. Even better, beef, both as a crimson sirloin and cheek stuffed cylinder of deep fried potato. There’s an onion roasted in, I think, beef fat, and a burnt onion purée with, I think, miso. If you’ve read that thinking there is lot of thinking it’s because I ate it all very quickly with little care for the technicalities. Great food does that to you.
We’re stuffed. So stuffed we retire to the bar to share the Tunworth with earthy amaranth (surely one of the cities cleverest cheese courses), the almost-too-subtle yogurt sorbet pre-dessert, and the stellar yuzu and white chocolate meringue with yuzu sorbet. Another dish I was yet to try, and the ideal way to finish a superb meal. £100 for the full tasting right now feels like a steal for the quality of cooking.
There is perhaps a little more explanation for the slightly rushed last paragraph. We did the wine pairings; one classic, one fine, the forty quid difference an absolute no brainer for those who appreciate their crushed grapes. Some outstanding wines, expertly explained and generously poured. It’s the type of thing that Michelin look for when awarding stars. Surely it’s time now. They’ve been this good long enough.
10/10
