Linda Greaves, the fashion icon who is single-handily propping up the economy and who also happens to be my incredible Mother-in-Law, has a theory that the combination of Brummie cakes and a glass of cold white wine on the terrace of Trillium might be the best light lunch going. She tells me this over a long lunch with her daughter, whilst eating a Brummie cake and trying to recall the name of the place that she used to pop in for a scallop and a glass of white wine at, which might not be as good as Trillium but would reinforce the point if she could remember it. She has halved her Brummie cake – which to me is basically a scone that watches The Osbournes – and is working the inside of the tin out so that she gets the precise ratio of clotted cream and bacon jam onto it. I do the same, not caring whether the clotted cream goes on first or second because I have a life. It’s outrageous. I love it. Sure, a big boi like me needs more than one or two of these for lunch, but Linda is on to something. A portion of these and a cold glass of wine is the perfect lunch if you like your clothes to fit. Three portions of these and four glasses of wine is the perfect lunch if you aspire to be me.
This is my third time in the restaurant since they opened 8 months ago. We came in December with the inlaws two days into opening, then I had lunch with a lovely man who may or may not have worked for a tyre guide. I’m now here impromptu on the counter, gatecrashing Sophie and her moms shopping/lunch trip because my best mate developed a very expensive horse issue thirty minutes before he was due to arrive in Birmingham. I get a negroni to play catch up, tuck into the excellent Spanish white that Linda has ordered and help myself to an olive or two. We get all the snacks; the Brummie cakes, oh those Brummie cakes, and the potato scallop, the giant gourgere that is bursting with cheese custard, and the bread roll with the chicken fat, malt vinegar, and pink peppercorns which I’m still proclaiming to be better than oil and balsamic. They have a new snack today; a tostada with barbecued matsutake, yeast crumb, and gherkin relish. I don’t have one but it apparently is excellent. Sophie describes it as ‘deeply savoury’, proving that she is way better at this than me.
In keeping the lunch light we ignore the advice to have a couple of small plates and a bigger one, and instead opt for five of the small plates between the three of us. It is plenty. There is prettied, whipped, and polished hummus with wild garlic oil and something called crudites, which is what I gather skinny people eat instead of chips. There are three queenie scallops, a little punchy at £28, impeccably cooked and drowned in XO butter, and another dish of raw prawn carpaccio with jalapeño, a jammy mojo sauce, and little potato crisps for texture. The latter in particular is an excellent dish, hard hitting and yet still balanced enough to let the Sicilian prawn sing.
The lunch’s best two courses are genuinely two of the best things you can eat in Birmingham right now. I go a little gooey eyed over Charentais melon with robust pata negra ham, burrata, pickled chilli, and mint. It’s the simplicity that does it for me; taking something from the eighties and making it sing with some truly outstanding produce. Likewise for the tempura monkfish, with soft, delicate cuts of the fish that point towards the cheeks, though I’m likely wrong, with smoked and fatty cuts of ham, peas, lettuce, and pickled onions. It eats like a dream, a little like battered fish and mushy peas but way more elegant.
We finish with a little whisky and a fortified champagne cut with brandy that’s every bit as delicious as it sounds. Linda pays, confirming her spot as greatest Mother-in-Law in the world, though I’m guessing that the above works out at roughly £100 a head. We all loved it; the dynamic has changed slightly and everyone seems more at home with the environment, and it’s great to be in a room that’s cooking at about a one star level without taking itself too seriously. I’ve moaned about the decline in city centre eating way too much of late, and whilst I stand by it, the cooking here is as good as anywhere in the city that’s not Opheem. They want a star. They might well get a star. Trillium is that good at present.
10/10
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