Richard Turner at the top of taste tree
Turners
69 High Street, Harborne, Birmingham, B17 9NS. Tel: (0121) 426 4440.
Birmingham’s Special One is cooking at the top of his game, says food critic Richard McComb.
The morning appointment with my long-suffering GP had not gone particularly well.
I had returned to the surgery to get the results of a cholesterol test and was told it was 7.1. Hmm, not bad, I thought: seven out of ten.
Like a C-.
“With more application and less japing about, Richard should fulfil his potential.”
Worth celebrating with a drink.
Unfortunately, this is not how the old cholesterol-o-meter works; and 7.1, as I soon discover, is on the high side, meaning the bad side.
In fact, I learn I have a 9.25 per cent chance of contracting cardiovascular disease within the next ten years.
Astonishing, isn’t it?
A computer works it all out and delivers the judgment: a lifetime on statins, or death, is only a heartbeat away.
A number of Birmingham chefs will be cheering at this point.
Tears of joy will be flowing into their stock reductions when I disclose that a further medical examination that same morning required the insertion of a finger in a place where, contrary to reports, the sun does not shine.
Still, a 9.25 per cent risk of heart disease isn’t bad odds.
It’s less than one in ten, about the same as winning a quid on a lottery scratch card and I never win anything on scratch cards – QED, the risks of me being wiped out by heart failure aren’t worth losing sleep about.
Flushed with a spirit of unfettered optimism, I followed the only sensible course of action, eschewing the Omega-3 benefits of a tin of sild and opting instead for a celebratory lunch at Turners in Harborne High Street.
The chef patron, Richard Turner, previously suggested that I try his set lunch.
It’s extraordinary value at £21.50 for three courses.
Turner, however, was unaware of my close brush with McComb mortality, not to mention the eye-watering scene behind the medic’s screen.
A set lunch, as good as it could be – and I’m utterly convinced it would have been top notch – seemed inadequate in the circumstances.
I told the waiter we’d go à la carte.
Having placed the order, at least seven seconds elapsed before Turner appeared from the kitchen, bowled towards our table like Joe Bugner’s corner man and said, as only he can: “You said you were havin’ the set.”
I told Turner, the Jose Mourinho of Birmingham’s gastronomy scene, that I’d changed my mind and wanted to give him the fullest opportunity to showcase his range of culinary attributes, concoct sensory tapestries on slate (because slate seems to have usurped bone china).
All that sort of flannel.
The Special One snarled and stormed off, so I knew he was chuffed.
You can watch Turner snarl, too, as he will be one of the star turns at next month’s Taste of Birmingham food festival in Cannon Hill Park.
He will be cooking in the guest kitchen, and scaring the wildlife, on Saturday, July 11.
(A word to the wise: meals at Taste are redeemed with crowns. Make sure you save enough for Turner’s Taste debut, particularly his confit’d belly of salt marsh lamb with oven roast tomatoes, aubergine caviar and Niçoise jus. I know something of the quality of the meat,
