Richard Turner at the top of taste tree
because it comes from Roger Brown in Harborne and is beyond compare. I haven’t eaten the dish, but sometimes food combinations just sound fantastically simple, and simply fantastic. This one does. Just don’t confuse Turner with talk of crowns – he’ll think you have one for his head.)
We were treated to a pre-starter that epitomised the spirit of summer nailed in a dish: a ballontine of wild salmon with a tomato consommé.
If you are getting married imminently, this would make a stunning light appetiser.
The consommé was so refreshing and awakened every taste receptor known to medical science.
With artery thickening representing a clear and present danger, I carefully examined the risk factors of the four starters on the à la carte and went for the safe option: foie gras three ways.
Richard Turner likes things three ways.
He’d probably push the boat out and do a “five ways” if the name didn’t have unfortunate associations with a major Birmingham roundabout.
I’ve been kicking myself since missing out on a trio of veal earlier this year and had no intention of allowing foie gras’s menage a trois to escape my mouth.
Possibly the city’s most politically incorrect and highest (animal) terrorist risk starter, it comprised a “bon bon” of melting, buttery liver in a spherical potato crust, a deceptively ballsy ballontine and a classic pan-seared rendition of the gland.
Served with a smidge of apple puree, a lightly spiced pain d’épice and a Sauternes sauce, it was a spell-binding, gastronomic work-out, sufficient to make a Toulousain prop-forward perform the can-can.
Sally had the asparagus with duck egg, Jamón Ibérico and a smoked hollandaise.
She said the spears and cured shavings of black pig were lovely but I little cared, luxuriating in livery loveliness and quaffing a glass of remarkably well-matched Naked Grape Riesling.
Selecting a main course left me in a flap.
The poached breast of Anjou pigeon with pastilla of confit’d leg was veritably cooing in my good ear but the dish promised more foie gras.
Foie gras four ways was, I reasoned, one way too many – a foie too far.
So I had fish.
To be exact, I had a tranche of turbot with cauliflower puree, lentils, mussels and coconut.
Absolutely divine.
There’s only one other place in Birmingham where I’ve had a single fish course this overwhelmingly good, and I’m not saying where because I’ll upset someone else, again.
Suffice to say, this turbot was so well cooked it felt as if the fish had been born and raised especially for my delectation and that the recipe and preparation had been devised solely with me in mind.
Clearly, the Psetta maxima kingdom is unaware of my existence and Richard Turner, now into his fifth month of Michelin-starred glory, values my opinion as much as he does Ainsley Harriott’s.
But that was the effect of the intoxicating, fragrant plate of food placed before me: I felt like a king for the day, or the ten minutes it took to eat it.
The puy lentils were on a new level of puyness.
Sally’s roasted best end of Cornish lamb with morel cream was, you won’t be surprised to know, exceedingly good.
And so to desserts.
What can I tell you? That they were good, very good? They were a bit better than that actually.
Turner’s got it just right when he allows his sorbets to retain a natural tangyness, resisting over sweetening, and so it proved here.
The rhubarb, served with a virginal vanilla crème brûlée, and the raspberry, with the raspberry soufflé, were fruity delights, garden fresh.
The bitter chocolate tart, which I have had before (in fact, I’ve had it every time I’ve been because I’m a tart myself), was so good I can close my eyes and taste it.
It’s annoying to say that, because Richard Turner can be a sod.
Unlike the turbot population, you may be interested in the opinion of a jobbing hack.
If you are, you may want to know if this is the best lunch I have eaten in Birmingham?
It’s a tricky one but I can say, hand on heart, I haven’t had a better one.
Which means, painful as it is to say this, Turners is at the top of the tree. For now.
Just don’t tell the chef I told you so, or mention this review to my GP.
* Three course à la carte £45, two courses £36.50. (Really, I think Turner makes up the pricing structure. 50p? Bonkers.) Set lunch: three courses £21.50, two courses £17.50.
* www.turnerofharborne.com T: 0121 426 4440. http://taste.visitbirmingham.com
