Saturday 25th August 2012

A busy Saturday. Food shopping. Then we were looking for a new mattress. This involved driving many miles to look at different outlets, before finally buying online. Drove through a very heavy thunderstorm at lunchtime. Otherwise there were a few showers and a temperature of 21C.

We went to Turners in the evening - a 1-star restaurant close at hand. We ate their tasting menu (because you don't have a choice on Saturdays). The review I posted on Trip Advisor is below (except they wouldn't let me use 'bastardisation' - they seem to think this is profanity!).

The backstory is that we’ve visited Turners many times over the years, from when Richard Turner began cooking there until soon after he won the star; at that point, though the food remained good, portion size decreased until the point when we took a Chinese guest and left hungry.

We thought we’d try again, though I think that the compulsion to have the tasting menu on Saturdays is misguided: the only purposes I can see are to maximise profit and make life easy for the kitchen.

The food was very good, though not truly remarkable and with some strange touches: horseradish snow – why? Lemon verbena ice-dream AND raspberry coulis in the soufflé? Some components of dishes were enormously salty, for no apparent reason.
However, some dishes were great: I’ve never had better cooked grouse (though I’ve had grouse that tasted better) and I particularly liked the tiramisu pre-dessert (the espresso water-ice/granita/whatever that was on top was splendid). Overall, we thought that the tasting menu was very good, but not really worth the money: £75 is a lot and you’d get more for your money at some other starred places (e.g. The Crown at Whitebrook or Champignon Sauvage, Cheltenham).

I’m unconvinced about the service, though it was – in its way – exquisite. Surprisingly, there were 5 front of house staff for 20 covers – rather excessive, perhaps. Certainly expensive. There were weird touches, too: why are women diners offered cushions to rest their handbags on on the floor (and there’s only 1 per table!)? Is it really necessary for the table to be de-crumbed after every course? (I think this is intrusive and unnecessary.) We thought that Turners had succumbed to the British bastardisation of the Michelin ideal that argues for large numbers of waiting staff and an overwhelming formality.

I don’t think we’ll be rushing back; Birmingham has plenty of restaurants that are this good – even if they don’t have stars!