Marco Pierre White’s lofty ambitions for Birmingham's rooftop

Dec 2 2010 By Richard McComb, Birmingham Post Food Critic

It has become the catchphrase of Austerity Age dining: Let them eat steak.

Simpsons’ Andrea Antona is opening a steak restaurant in Kenilworth and it’s not so long ago that a stalwart of the city dining scene was reborn as Andersons, serving upmarket steak dishes.

The latest advocate of T-bone, rib eye and rump is the man once hailed as the enfant terrible of British gastronomy, Marco Pierre White.

The youngest chef in the world, and first Briton, to win three Michelin stars (he later gave them back), White once walked the tightrope of haute cuisine, pushing back the boundaries and inspiring a new breed of kitchen stars, such as Gordon Ramsay.

Now the MPW brand is more interested in satisfying the culinary blood lust of diners who have tired of vacuous foams and tastings of warm beetroot jelly.

Here is a man of immeasurable flair who now puts his name to stock cubes and Bernard Matthews Farms. Some former admirers cling to the hope it’s a post-modernist joke.

But then you read MPW’s website tribute to the late Mr Matthews - including the priceless quote: “Marco has been an admirer of turkey since he was a young boy.” - and you realise that it’s no joke. Or if it is, no one is laughing.

So what are we to make of MPW’s new restaurant on the top floor of The Cube?

Any move to bolster Birmingham’s commercial market and dining scene is to be applauded. The place will undoubtedly look cool and will attract the city’s WAGS. But some context is required.

I doubt MPW will ever turn a steak there. He already has five other steakhouses – in Chester, Bristol, Dublin and London, where there are two.

Prices, for Birmingham, will be at the higher end. In Chelsea, the 10oz ribeye is £22.50, and a 16oz T Bone costs £29.50, though you do get a grilled beef tomato and onion rings.

It is good to see the city broadening its middle-market appeal. MWP’s will be an ideal place for corporate entertaining and special occasions and emphatically won’t be another fine dining establishment, an area of cooking for which Birmingham is already well served. Its lofty location and outlook will be unbeatable.

Twenty years after people started talking about the possibilities of a spectacular rooftop restaurant, we may actually be about to get one.

>More: Hell's Kitchen star Marco Pierre White to open restaurant at The Cube in Birmingham