AA inspectors praise ‘playful’ city restaurant
A RESTAURANT in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter has been awarded three AA Rosettes and ‘‘demands national recognition’’, according to judges.
The award puts chef Alex Claridge’s The Wilderness in the same category as Gordon Ramsay’s Petrus and 14 more restaurants nationwide.
The AA has been awarding Rosettes to restaurants since 1956, with the top award of five rosettes being introduced in 1991. Rosettes are awarded bi-annually in January and September, with success being determined by one or more visits by an AA inspector.
The AA said Alex’s restaurant featured ‘‘playful modern cooking in a wilderness environment’’.
It added: “Tucked down an alleyway in the Jewellery Quarter, The Wilderness is an atmospheric venue with skylight panels and an open kitchen, decked with foliage to bring a sense of sylvan repose to city eating.
“Top-class British produce supplemented by foraged ingredients and seasonal goodies from their own allotment provide the building blocks and underpinning them is a sharp grasp of flavour and sound technique that delivers playful, inspired, modern cooking.”
Like the equally fast-rising comedian Joe Lycett, Alex is from Hall Green. He went to King Edward’s Camp Hill and started a career in accounting after an English Studied course at the University of Nottingham.
Realising that ‘‘wasn’t my squeeze’’, he went from food writing to becoming a chef at Digbeth’s Warehouse Cafe and Bistro 1847 in the Great Western Arcade before launching Nomad in April 2015 as a three-month pop-up at the Kitchen Garden Cafe in Kings Heath.
Forced to drop the name because of a Michelin-starred New York hotel called NoMad, he revinvented himself by opening The Wilderness inside what was once a tatty discount outlet called Crash Bank Wallop on Dudley Street.
Last spring Alex moved The Wilderness to the Jewellery Quarter.
In November he opened Nocturnal Animals on Bennetts Hill. The stylised bar and restaurant has been named after the 2016 film written and directed by American fashion designer Tom Ford.