Solihull, International Restaurant Guide

Open in June 2024 in the Jewellery Quarter – just after our annual diners’ poll had closed, so lacking feedback for a rating – chef Alex Claridge, of nearby The Wilderness (see also), replaced Atelier, his cocktail bar that closed down last year, which had become ‘an albatross around my neck’…, hence the name. Here the idea is a ‘mostly seafood’ chef’s table restaurant whose 14 diners at a time are cooked for by Piotr Szpak, a sous of five years’ standing at Wildnerness; all with the aim of delivering an ‘alternative luxury’ experience with 12+ courses of fish and seafood that’s ‘both brutalist and ornamental’. In her October 2024 review, The Guardian’s Grace Dent anointed it as “one of the top five seafood places in the UK today”: a “strange, industrial space”, with a “relentless, post-punk dark wave backing track” but also a “forward-thinking, experimental, edible maritime journey that will keep you in its tentacles for at least three hours”.

“Creative and interesting chef” Gerald Maguire is behind this idiosyncratic townhouse indie, whose website baldly announces that its “aim is to improve your life, not f*** it up” via surprise Spanish food; there’s “no menu, you just eat the six courses he puts in front of you and relax and enjoy with a glass of one of his recommended wines... bliss”.