The Guardian
Grace Dent warmed to a “weird, bold, silly restaurant”, where high-profile Brummie chef Glyn Purnell has “miraculously” managed to translate Michelin-style cooking for what she called a “semi-rowdier yet still upmarket stage”: “there’s a general feeling of people – gasp! – actually enjoying life.”
The venue is a noisy, “brand new, glass-fronted, multicoloured mock birdcage”, with service that is jolly, prompt, informal and “hugely welcoming”, while the food is “relentlessly spot on, as well as indulgent, imaginative and bizarrely generous in portion size”.
Highlights included ‘beef carpaccio with Oxo cube’; a “voluptuous beast” of an ‘XXL gougère’, filled with Montgomery cheddar and topped with inch-thick gruyère garnish and a dusting of paprika; and a chunk of perfectly cooked Cornish skate with butter beans and a rich espelette sauce “that I’ve since thought about many, many times”.
Grace Dent - 2026-03-08Daily Mail
Tom Parker Bowles knew he was in for a blast at the new city centre venue from “hirsute Brummie hero Glynn Purnell” as soon as he took his first bite – of “a vast ‘XXL’ gougère the size of my fist, all crisply delicate choux pastry, stuffed with Montgomery cheddar cream, and topped with an excess of grated Gruyère.”
This was Purnell “at his playful best, in a room seemingly macerated in delight”, serving food that was at once “fun”, “cheffy” and “extremely satisfying”. A crisp waffle was piped with an old-school punchy chicken liver parfait and blobs of Sauternes gel; a potato ‘scallop’ based on the chip-shop classic was “like a Pringle with a PhD; monkfish cheeks in the “most burnished and brittle of tempura batters” arrived on a splodge of ragù bolognese.
An “exceptional” Tamworth pork chop looked unpromising, covered in what “seems like a mess of, well, orange and white sputum”, but this turned out to be a clever take on romesco sauce made with smoked almonds, charred red and bacon – and it tasted “divine”. As did a rhubarb trifle “that could make even the most pudding averse let slip an involuntary gasp. Jelly! Sponge! Custard! Meringue!”
Tom Parker Bowles - 2026-05-03
