I feel like I’m on one of those generational runs at the moment, like Phil Taylor, the last four Beatles albums, Blackadder, Man Utd in the early nineties, and the John Lewis Christmas ads. Where I can do no wrong with what’s for dinner, where every meal is a great meal and there is not a dud in sight. Maybe it’s luck, or maybe it’s a conscious choice to spend my money more wisely. The want to get to every new opening is waning; the need to get to everything first is gone. There are ones I’ll get to out of curiosity in due time; Samo, Joey’s Smokehouse, the Vietnamese restaurant that Trung told me about, and the Greek in Moseley, but do I need to go Sticks’n’Sushi, F1 Arcade, and the like to drop a ton telling you that it isn’t very good? I suppose I should. Maybe you can just take this as a forewarning and we’ll all move on with our lives.
We had an inkling that the Old Wharf Inn was going to be great, though maybe not as great as it turned out to be. The signs are all there; the number 33 spot on Good Food Guides Best Pubs list, the recent listing in the same guide, and that menu that reads beautifully from top-to-bottom. The pub, a handsome space in the old town of Stourbridge, is large and welcoming, filled with tasteful art, and big wooden tables. Outside is a never ending terrace that leads on to the canal basin. We get a negroni – an extremely well made negroni – and set to work.
From the off it is brilliant; slices of bread and rounds of salami, the former from Peter Cook, the latter Aubrey Allen, then the most perfect pie with hand raised water pastry packed with turkey and ham hock. It’s the kind of pie that makes you not want to eat three courses, but just settle down for the afternoon with this and a pint. The last bite was very nearly as good; a little toasted brioche with brown and white crab, lemon mayo, pickled cucumber, and salmon roe. It’s a busy couple of mouthfuls that has lots going on around the crab, yet works because it leans heavily into the acidity.
Three starters between the two of us were ordered given the specials board through us off track. That special is the least special of the three given that the other two are very, yes, you guessed it, special. It is grilled green onions, grilled tropea onions, romesco and hazelnuts. Delicious, however did need a steak knife to cut threw the little stringy green onions. And then it gets serious, albeit in a playful, we’re-still-a-local pub kind of way. Chicken thighs, bone-in, as my wife enjoys, dusted with birds-eye chilli, garlic, smoked paprika and vinegar and softly roasted. Add a sweetcorn puree and the most brilliant of candied jalapeños and you have an excellent starter, though they could add chips and quite easily have an excellent main. And then there is the spinach and ricotta ravioli; pasta made with an excess of yolks as it should be and drowned in glut of brown butter and crispy sage. Delicious. They know what they are doing here.
I could rave long about how good my main is; from the softly cooked slab of bacon, to the potato terrine full of deep bovine funk, to the play on brown sauce, and the fried egg, but really this is all about Sophie’s main. Lemon sole, a big boy at that, baked so that the protein has only just set, topped with a jumble of shrimp, herbs, chillies, peppers, butter, lemon and probably a lot more. It’s light and yet in your face, a bit like Kevin Hart, and for a second we could be in Bentleys, or Scott’s, or anywhere else that understands the beauty in cooking fish this well. It comes with ratte potatoes and tenderstem broccoli which are to the plate what Xavi and Iniesta were when playing with Messi. The strawberry pavlova I had for dessert was massive. Macerated strawberries, a little coulis, meringue, cream, mint, maple syrup. It’s busy, maybe a touch overly so, but what pulls it together is the almond brittle that adds crunch and a touch of needed bitterness. Sophie adores her baked peaches with ginger and maple, which is handy given it’s the only dish I forget to picture.
Did I mention it’s cheap? Well, maybe not cheap, but certainly where it needs to be. Starters are all low teens, my pork main £22, Sophie’s fish about thirty-ish, and both desserts nine each. I should also mention that Jimmy who served us is a total legend, and that the family also own the wine merchants up the road which means that the perfectly curated list has some total steals on it, such as the £30 rioja we drank. It is all superb. Easily Top 50 Gastropub stuff and if the region had more judges other than little old me, maybe the top twenty position it deserves. Go before word gets around, it’s a bloody great pub serving some rather wonderful food.
9/10
Sign up to the newsletter here
https://blog.us14.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=08c98db0e9d6eb9e5b54695a1&id=eda85ee6f4
