Review: Matthew’s of Birmingham
Matthew’s of Birmingham
The Custard Factory, Gibb Street, Digbeth, 0121 224 773
Verdict: 4/10
Richard McComb finds it hard to like Digbeth’s first foray in ‘fine dining’.
I have never been approached by a hooker on my way into a restaurant.
There have been post-masticatory offers but I have never been propositioned before I’ve had a chance to get my lips round the chef’s amuse bouche.
Then I popped along to Matthew’s, a new restaurant in Birmingham, and two swaying, heavily made-up ladies of the night, decked in fishnets, offered me a squeeze for £5.
I’ve no idea of the current going rate for sexual services but a fiver struck me as reasonable. You can currently get ten copies of Country Life for a tenner on special subscription.
It’s a hard call – two romps underneath the arches or ten mags of property porn?
Archie and I made our excuses and left, heading inside Digbeth’s first, and perhaps last, attempt at “fine dining.”
It soon became apparent why the entrance was flanked by prostitutes and why the bar was crammed with a disparate social group, comprising student-types, peace campaigners and what looked like ramblers.
Naively, I had assumed the place was buzzing with trade.
It transpired the crowd was in fact an “audience” for a theatrical production being staged over the road at the Custard Factory, where Matthew’s is based.
The tarts, bustling busts ’n’ all, were part of the “live performance.”
But still, it’s a poor show having a whore show when one’s gagging for the à la carte.
Imagine if I’d been taking a reformed prostitute or rent boy out for dinner instead of Archie.
She, or he, could have been traumatised beyond belief and reverted to their old ways.
Once the audience exited stage front, there was just me and Archie left, the entire bar and newly-spruced dining room our own.
That’s how it stayed for the rest of the night, barring a re-appearance by the crusties, who returned for coffee during the interval.
The hookers stayed out in the cold, poor loves.
If reviewing restaurants has taught me anything it is to never under-estimate the ability of chefs to make utterly mad business decisions.
I have no idea why Matthew Gilbert, the chef proprietor of Matthew’s, chose to open at the Custard Factory.
One day the former Bird’s outpost may well be at the epicentre of Birmingham’s much-vaunted Eastside development. But for now the place is in the middle of nowhere.
The restaurant might be in with a chance if it did straight-forward, well cooked, reasonably priced dishes, because there is a major gap in the Brummie dining market which someone, someday, will exploit.
Then, and only then, will Birmingham get the wider culinary recognition it deserves. This city craves informal, rustic/homely (if you like) dining.
What it doesn’t need is more “fine dining.”
We’ve got some restaurants that do this extremely well.
I am baffled why Matthew’s has tried to break into this fiercely competitive market. Either Gilbert, who trained at the former Birmingham College of Food, is brilliant, or he’s deluded.
On the basis of the dinner I had, this chef is some way off the finished article; and I am being kind when I say that because I genuinely don’t want to stifle what I think, at heart, is a cook with skill and talent.
It’s the application that is all wrong, which is why, at the moment, Matthew’s is car-crash fine dining.
Individually, some of the food is cooked well but there is no sense of balance.
Substance has given way to an obsession with oddness, under the misconception that bizarre taste combinations work simply because they are that: bizarre.
Who’d think Guinness custard would work?
Matthew Gilbert does. And does it work? Have a guess.
The three-course à la carte dinner is £29.95. The set dinner menu at Simpsons is only £2.55 more.
I know there are no choices on this menu (and that the Simpsons’ à la carte is about £10 more than Matthew’s) but the point is made.
If I came here with my wife and two daughters, it would cost £120 before drinks.
For that outlay, I can enjoy the best Indian cooking money can buy in Brum. Matthew’s doesn’t come close.
