The glorious food of Gothenburg
As Birmingham prepares to host a prestigious global chefs meeting Richard McComb goes to Gothenburg to see what the city can expect.
The temperature along Gothenburg’s seafront is -15C and I am sitting in the bowels of a replica 18th century galleon, eating my own body weight in lobster while discussing cannibalism with a Norwegian chef.
That’s pretty much how it has been now for the past day or so: weird; but brilliantly weird.
The previous night, while eating a delicious fillet of local reindeer, I was quizzed by a Swiss journalist working for a Euro “metal” radio station. The hard rock jocks have a daily slot in their schedules for a “bite” of gourmet news. For those about to rock, we fricassee you.
I was recorded for a future airwave canape by Patrick, a spiky haired, black-clad, pierced gastronomic metal-head. He asked me to describe the full-bodied Chilean red just poured for me and my fellow private diners to accompany the succulent reindeer at Thörnströms Kök, one of the Swedish west coast city’s bountiful collection of fine restaurants.
Playing to the station’s audience, I went for a rock analogy.
“It’s a big wine,” I told Patrick. “Loud. Full in the mouth. Like a glug of Led Zeppelin. Their second album, though, Led Zeppelin II. Heavy. Whole lotta love.”
I then did a “rock” salute and was tempted to waggle my tongue, Kiss-style. Patrick beamed. He was loving it; I was loving it.
“Crazy,” he said. And that’s not the half of it.
Sandwiched between these highly entertaining, and lavishly prepared dinners, I have taken lunch with the godfather of global gastronomy, Lyonnaise legend Paul Bocuse.
There may have been 150 other people in the room, but nonetheless it was dejeuner with Bocuse. I stood next to him as he slurped his way through countless oysters and ate a cream bun.
I’m sure he noticed me, especially when I virtually mugged him in a hotel corridor to get a picture. The reason for all this mad excitement is food, glorious food. More specifically it is down to Délice, an organisation you may not have heard about but will be hearing a lot more about, particularly if you live in Birmingham and enjoy good food.
Délice is an international network of food cities whose common aim is to drive up food standards, pool culinary knowledge and skills and, most importantly, spread the word that food is about far more than sticking a pillow of foie gras in your mouth.
It’s about health, human interaction, education, quality of life, and best of all, having a jolly good time.
Délice was set up by Lyon in 2007 and its membership now extends to 17 cities including Barcelona, Canton, Lausanne, Milan and little old Birmingham. One of the main events in the network’s calendar is the City under a Microscope, where one of the members introduces the other cities’ chefs to its work in the field of gastronomy, often concentrating on a major food issue.
In Gothenburg, it was sustainability in the fish industry. The two-day meeting inevitably has beneficial knock-on effects for international marketing and tourism.
Birmingham, a newcomer to the Délice table, will be the City under a Microscope in July. The gathering of Michelin-star and brasserie-style chefs, restaurateurs and marketing executives will coincide with the city’s annual Taste of Birmingham food festival. Marketing Birmingham will manage the summer’s double food whammy and kindly invited me along to Gothenburg to get an insight into the value of the Délice network.
Be in no doubt: food, and the galvanising economic and social impact it can have, is appreciated and taken extremely seriously by our European and global partners.
For entrenched cultural reasons, Birmingham is in the position of having to play gastronomic catch-up but it is a challenge that players such Marketing Birmingham and Birmingham City Council are making moves to rectify.
Everyone would accept that we have got a way to go. Gothenburg, roughly half the size of Birmingham, has five Michelin star restaurants to our three. Significantly, this top tier is supported by an enviable array of very impressive restaurants, many serving more informal, family-orientated, brasserie type fare. The average cost of a main course at Thörnströms Kök, where we dine on the first night, is about £18. The restaurant has no Michelin star and tops anywhere I have eaten in Birmingham barring a very small handful.
As well as the, reindeer, in a Madeira sauce, we are served a starter of salmon pastrami with fennel, Swedish squid, parsley froth and salted cucumber and a dessert of caramelised chocolate mousse with cherry cake and frozen cherry yoghurt.
The parsley may be froth but a few minutes in the company of Camilla Nyman is enough to dispel the sceptics’ view that food is a social frippery, an elite indulgence for the iPhone and Blackberry clique.
