Arenkha/Avruga Caviar, 55g

Product Information

To prepare: Caviar is best served well chilled so keep it in the fridge and remove just before serving.

Unfortunately, none of those are opened and served to us during our meal there. Instead, that’s done in the kitchen where the fresh-faced team is led by head chef Karleen Kasim. Under the age of 30 herself, Kasim has worked at Cure and Nae:um, two fine dining restaurants making waves with their Irish and Korean modern interpretations. My friend has eaten at Harborne Kitchen on several occasions and bent my ear about just how good it is. Happy to report, she’s right.

The pace slowed as we transitioned to dessert with a British raspberry course featuring buttermilk and wild nettle before Desogus completed his bravura performance with a passion fruit meringue with scintillating coconut ice cream. Sharp and sweet, creamy and delicate, it was a perfectly balanced dessert, gone in just a moment. Harborne Kitchen Still, there are surprises to be had in Kasim’s degustation presentation. A burrata whipped with honey and verjus served in a caviar tin then covered in thin slices of green grapes and Canadian uni is one of the dishes without sturgeon roe. Acting as a palate cleanser almost, it’s a creamy pudding of salinity, sweetness and tartness. All in all, it’s a pretty decent debut for a young team. But, Caviar has some ways to go before truly grasping how to showcase the delicate differences between the different sturgeon roe (and I don’t mean just accentuating the flavours). With more practice and research, hopefully the team gets more confident in execution and presentation, particularly crucial given that they’re in full view of guests at the counter who are paying top dollar for the experience. Caviar, due to overfishing and certain export bans, has become highly sought-after and hard to find. This, along with their mouthwatering taste, is why alternative Caviar options such as Arenkha (Avruga) have become so popular. Fortunately there’s some champagne to wash it down. The drinks list is pretty expansive, offering a reasonable selection by the glass such as NV Champagne Legras & Haas Intuition Brut and Johnnie Walker Blue Label. Whereas the list of bottled champagne lean into the older vintages, the likes of a 2006 Krug Brut or the splendid 2003 Dom Perignon P2 Brut.

Guests are invited to wait in a small lobby before sanitising their hands as they enter the restaurant. They are politely asked to follow a few simple rules, in essence, showing care for other guests by maintaining social distancing and hygiene. Staff are transparent, charming and clear. The restaurant has been given a make-over during the pandemic with the space being re-imagined to suit the new normal. Harborne Kitchen Comprising layers of deeply caramelised onion, alongside crisp dehydrated slices, crispy deep-fried rings, blue cheese mousse, chives and more, it was a standout dish. Neither too complex nor too fussy, it showed high levels of technical skill and a solid understanding of complimentary ingredients. Allium Please note that Vin Sullivan Foods Ltd aim to provide you with as much information about all of our products as possible, including information on ingredients, allergens, nutrition, sizing, usage and storage of our products.The post-Covid dining experience has been carefully considered. Instead of printed wine lists, drinks of available using a QR code to avoid the risk of many hands touching one menu. It’s the little things that count as customer confidence is rebuilt and customers start to relax in the post-pandemic world. A small, tapas-style menu is available in a bar area to the front of the restaurant while new booths have been constructed to the rear, beyond an open-plan kitchen, so that guests can enjoy an intimate experience. For the caviar connoisseur, Ong’s establishment could well be the playground they’ve been looking for. After all, you can be sure the man knows his product having been a supplier of premium seafood for eight years. The entire spread of caviar, in their tin containers of various sizes, is put on display along a shallow ice trough by the open kitchen where the chef’s table resides. Opened by Jason Ong, who’s also responsible for Uni Gallery, the fine dining restaurant offers up to eight types of caviar such as the beluga, sevruga and oscietra varieties as well as the Chinese-produced Kaluga Queen. It’s incorporated into dishes, served on a pearl spoon, or with six shots of premium vodka but ultimately, there’s no mistaking it’s the pièce de résistance.

Dr. Eric Dougherty, Feline Veterinarian and Medical Director of The Cat Practice in New York City, doubts it. “Cats are obligate carnivores, so foods like asparagus, quinoa or saffron are not necessary at all,” he said. Moreover, contrary to popular belief, cats don’t particularly fare well with a seafood diet. Desogus is operating at an elite level while being ably supported by an engaged, professional supporting cast, who operate at the highest standard. Good company. Sturgeon roe is one of those foods that have acquired notoriety for being markers of opulence and prestige since Russian Tsars were heaping spoonfuls onto their dishes. Highly prized for its rarity, depending on the type of sturgeon and especially so if it comes from a vulnerable species, caviar is a show of edible lavishness. Chef Lepinoy works with our Caviar Master to define the quality he is looking for - the caviar grains have to be a specific size and well-balanced in taste and aroma,” says David Macouin, international sales director of Kaviari. The Paris-based caviar house has been working with Lepinoy for 22 years. Clarifying their role, Macouin says that Kaviari is not a producer or a farmer, but a refiner, who works exclusively with farms to breed endemic species, offering caviar from farmed sturgeons “worthy of the wild caviar of the past.”Located in one of Birmingham’s more affluent suburbs, it has a discerning clientele who have been eager to enjoy the work of Desogus and co. Simon Booth, of Green Pantry, said the limited-edition product has been created to satisfy demand from celebrities and other VIPs who are financially capable of “treating their cats to the finer things in life”.