Why wait until the pubs close for a great kebab?
Broad Street’s finest can’t compare with a relative newcomer to the Colmore Business District dining scene, says SANJEETA BAINS, who was feeling ‘dirty’ at Pint Shop
AGREAT kebab is something worth shouting about and most people would expect to find one in a late night greasy takeaway. But city centre pub Pint Shop was the talk of the Colmore Food Festival earlier this summer after serving up its signature ‘posh kebabs’, which pretty swiftly sold out.
The Bennetts Hill pub and restaurant, a relatively new kid on the Colmore Business District block, had a massive amount of hype when it first opened last year and its strong showing at the food festival meant it had to go to the top of my review list.
When Pint Shop opened it was the independent group’s third site, after the flagship restaurant in Cambridge and a second site in Oxford, which closed earlier this year.
Times are tough for many restaurants but it was clear on my visit that the pub element of Pint Shop is working splendidly. As my friend and I walked into the ground floor bar area, we found it buzzing with drinkers enjoying the booze and surroundings.
Owners have taken a lot of care in restoring the Grade II-listed premises, which was believed to be a very grand lawyer’s home in the 1860s.
It has a traditional boozer feel contrasting with super-cool hipster touches. I particularly loved the cosy Victorian study-style pub front room. There is also a giant blackboard of various beers that drinkers can choose from.
Upstairs is the main restaurant area, where we found a tiny, dimly lit dining room with an open kitchen. Round the corner is a brighter, bigger room where a large group were enjoying dinner. Another dining area overlooks the Pint Shop and The Wellington beer gardens below.
There was just one thing wrong – there was zero atmosphere due to the lack of customers in our little dining space.
The door was open so we could hear the music from downstairs which made the restaurant feel more like a spill-over area than an inviting dining haven. It would have been much nicer if it had its own chilled and relaxing play-list rather than trying to be an extension of the downstairs pub.
My friend agreed the music from downstairs was distracting and the emptiness of the place made it “strangely soulless”.
The lack of atmosphere was a shame as the food was very tasty – complementing the old-fashioned pub environment. Pint Shop sells itself as a ‘Meat. Bread. Beer’ kind of place. So, as you’d expect, it has all the classics such as pork Scotch egg, with English mustard.
The meaty Scotch egg was good but the veggie version was simply gorgeous. These arancini balls with a English twist went down a treat with my dining companion and I. I could have very happily eaten a tray full.
I was tempted to stick to the veggie theme after eyeing up the halloumi kebab on the main menu (on coal-baked flatbread with crushed cucumber and avocado, tahini, garlic sauce, green Sriracha and dukkah).
I opted for the ‘Dirty Kebab’ (Camden Ink marinated pork belly, pickled cabbage, hot chilli sauce, garlic yoghurt and crispy onions).
My friend was also feeling dirty – he opted for the Dirty Burger (dry-aged beef and pork pattie, maple bacon, burger sauce, mature cheddar and tomato jam).
I devoured my kebab, mainly because the key ingredients – the meat and bread – were clearly high quality and cooked to perfection. This place does have a charcoal spit roast and grill, after all.
However, I was highly perplexed with the addition of dill in my kebab – and there was so much of it! Its odd inclusion was the only thing that made this particular kebab at Pint Shop feel really wrong.
I was able to fish out most of the dill and enjoy the rest of my kebab. But this strange addition left a sour taste in my mouth and prevented my meal being the five-star experience it should have been.
My friend said the burger beef and pork pattie was well cooked and his brioche bun was soft. Overall he said it was a delicious burger and the chips were “excellent” – crispy and crunchy.
Other main menu choices include Pint Shop vegan cheeseburger and chips, fish and chips, beef pie with spicy chips and Pint Shop Ploughmans – pork pie, cheese, ham and pickles.
After our mains, our waitress returned with the dessert menu but I decided to break dining protocol – and order more carbs.
I’m not a big dessert fan, and was eyeing up one of the Pint Shop sides – cheese and onion chips with salt beef ends. The cheese was melted over perfectly cooked chips and salt beef to give it added texture.
Mildly horrified by my choice of ‘pudding’, my dining companion chose a more conventional sticky toffee pudding with ice cream. I had a bite of his pud and found it nicely rich with plenty of toffee sauce but my friend said he thought it was far too sickly and so felt the need to nick quite a few of my cheesy chips!
As well as a dazzling array of craft beers there are more than 120 gins, including Brummie G&T made with locally distilled Roundhouse gin.
As well as different taps of rotating craft beers, there are fridges fully stocked with bottles and cans. The wine menu is pretty basic but there are some interesting non-alcoholic drinks available.
My friend enjoyed his orange, grapefruit and lemongrass soda. And my pinot noir was a nice pairing with my mains.
Considering the place was far from busy, service was not as spot on as I’d have liked. The waiting staff were very friendly and efficient when called over. But eating your meal while you can see two waiting staff looking bored and scrolling through their phones does not add to the dining experience.
We paid £71.39 for two starters, two mains, one side, one dessert, one large glass of wine, one soda and 10 per cent ‘suggested service charge’.
Despite its meat, bread, beer ethos, the menu here is super veggie friendly. I’ll definitely be returning to try the halloumi kebab – and those insanely good arancini Scotch eggs again.
And the venue itself is a stunning addition to Brum’s food and drink scene.
It’s certainly the best environment for a dirty kebab. Broad Street’s finest simply cannot compete with the quality of kebabs on offer here, dodgy dill flavouring aside.
Pint Shop’s restaurant deserves to be busier than it is. The food was good on our visit and the beautiful interior makes it a truly lovely setting. As the houselights fade and the quaintly quirky overture from a live band, tinkles up from the pit (and very good they are too) you tend to wonder how much has changed since spring 1880 when it all began.
A band like this one accompanied similar productions in Simla during the stifling Indian summers, or in Bombay or Delhi, all of it for the enjoyment of the Raj military ex-pats, who kept the joys of The Mikado, The Gondoliers etc strictly for themselves and their mem-sahibs.
This pleasant memory was aided and abetted by very clever lighting which gave me the feeling that I was watching a set lit by footlights.
But G&S has to be sung well for it to succeed, as it doubtless would have been in the late-19th century, when Gilbert and Sullivan were in their heyday. The songs are the glue which connects the characters, and rest assured the singing is first class.
Articulation is not always so successful, though. This is unfortunate, since clarity of diction is needed in G&S almost more than anything else, and most actors get it right.
The scenario is totally goofy, but that’s half the fun, and so the only way to get across 19th century comedic silliness such as this across to a modern audience more used to TV shows such as Naked Attraction and the worldliness of Graham Norton than the romantic turmoils of a G&S naive heroine is to send it up more than a little with tongue-in-cheek peformances and a lot of camp.
The Pirates of Penzance is directed with an admirable sense of its modern requirements, by Richard Gauntlett, who has comedy bubbling up all over the place all night. These Gilbertian lyrics are filled with cynical humour which can mock anything from Victoria to the Establishment and the Military. When Gauntlett sings so brilliantly the well-known comedy patter song I Am The Very Model of a Modern Major General you wonder who in the War Office (or some bright young subaltern in 19th century Poona) realised what lay beneath the lyrics? And the police along with their Sergeant (wonderfully well-played by Matthew Kellett) are a bunch of ineffective goons, who bumble along – to our delight – but achieve nothing. They even disguise their sergeant as a panto horse, which brought the house down.
The costumes are fresh and colourful, Gauntlett is a joy, whatever he decides to do on-stage, and the clear effortless voice of Ellen Angharad Williams as Mabel is a silver stream of pure beauty. I look foward to the day when she comes our way again as, maybe, Laurey in Oklahoma or one of Sondheim’s women in Follies. David Menezes’s is a likeable Frederic, but he is difficult to hear, while Matthew Siveter’s well sung, naughty but nice Pirate King is straight out of Peter Pan.
The programme changes daily, and so I am heading back with every confidence for The Mikado on Saturday.
Richard Edmonds