Review: Loves, Birmingham

I’m still trying to fall in love with Birmingham. Okay, I know where to find a decent coffee and a bite of lunch. I’ve also found a couple of (yes, two!) independent shops that I like. The Custard Factory is trying hard to be a bubbling little bohemian hotspot for artists and media types, it’s just that all the unrented spaces there have the depressing feel of missing teeth. The Jewellery Quarter seems pretty sparse in terms of interest, so I hope the few places that are there are as good as folks say. Brindley Place, just like the city centre, is simply big chain heaven. The couple of indie places there will hate me for saying that.

Just beyond Brindley Place, tucked in an entirely residential area where you’d never expect to go looking, is Loves Restaurant. It’s got a smart modern dining room with a big window for the canalside view. I should qualify that “view”: a small paved square with a strip of brown water running through it, surrounded by 1990’s apartment blocks and adorned with two Canada geese (that our waitress helpfully explained could not be eaten because they are apparently “the Queen’s ducks”). As I say, it’s an unlikely spot to go looking for fine food.

There are good looking tasting menus, but we went for a 3 course lunch. My starter of pressed venison with pickled cauliflower and tiny onion bhajis was an original, and the flavours balanced well. But after a couple of mouthfuls the cold, moist texture of the shredded venison began to bother me. Maureen scored a coddled egg swimming in jerusalem artichoke soup, which nobody can possible dislike. Good egg, good soup, good.

Continuing the tale of two sittings, I had an issue with my main course of fish. The lemongrass cream and the herbed quinoa were both very good, lovely in fact. But the fish was a strong piece of coley, and moreover its skin was blackened to a very bitter crispiness. So the subtle pleasantry of the cream and quinoa were lost, lost, lost when tried with the fish. I enjoyed them with the mashed potato instead. Maureen, meanwhile, has some beautifully sweet and sticky pigs cheek with a lovely anise-y flavour, crumbled black pudding and a bit of crispy-coated pig tail to go with. This was a pretty plate, with a lovely glossy jus, and tasted great too.

So I suppose it’s no surprise that I liked Maureen’s pud better too. A really sticky white chocolate ganache went very well with a fragrant and smooth mango sorbet and a really scrunchy shard of chocolate caramel. Never gonna complain about that. My choice was lemon drizzle cake with a raspberry and basil sorbet, and really those rasps needed a load more sugar. The cake was pretty good, which I guess is damning with faint praise.

I think that for £30 Maureen got a good lunch, whereas although nothing of mine was actively horrid I wouldn’t have wanted to pay so much. I think I want to go back some time and try the tasting menu. There were some lovely touches – I haven’t mentioned the “aromatic tomatoes” that accompanied my fish, which were little aromatic hits of genius – so I do need to find out whether today was just me picking unlucky from a short lunch menu.