There aren’t many restaurants you visit that coincidentally play one of your favourite albums from start to finish. This happened at Wild Shropshire. There was something quite emotional about tucking into a tremendous mystery dessert with Radiohead’s Reckoner playing in the background. It was one of those moments that will stick with me.
Headed up by owner & chef James Sherwin, Whitchurch-based Wild Shropshire is an award-winning terroir-led and micro seasonal restaurant which offers a tasting menu of British food. With a goal of becoming 95% self-sufficient, James grows, cultivates and produces plants, eggs, bees, trees and more on his Wild Shropshire farm, all of which are used in his dishes.
At Wild Shropshire you get given the menu after you’ve eaten. Perhaps not everyone’s cup of tea, but I loved the concept. It gets people talking about something other than the sorry state of the country. The menu changes often. In fact, pay the restaurant a visit twice in one week and you will more than likely receive two different sets of dishes.
The decor is simple and unassuming, with an atmosphere to match. “We want you to feel like we’ve invited you round for dinner at our house,” explained the restaurant’s mixologist, Joe. They’ve hit the nail on the head there.
We started with a sparkling wine. An extremely quaffable Loxerel A Per Pet Nat, to be precise.
James introduced himself and explained how the dining experience, which takes around three hours, would work.
I ordered the mixed drinks pairing and let Joe choose for me. First up was a fresh and expertly made margarita, comprising Helena Koji Spirit, El Rayo Tequila, Shikuwasa Sake and a sour mix. Hints of nuttiness and citrus cleansed the palate, ready for the food that was to follow.
Our menu comprised nine courses. A toasted chicken-skin cracker topped with pickled ramson gel, pickled celeriac and burnt leek ash and hogget tartare with ramson and Old Winchester cheese arrived at the table. It was apparent from the first bite that James really knows how to use ingredients. The way he manages to encapsulate savoury, sweet, salty, tangy and sharp into almost every bite is admirable.
James’ creativity continued in the form of a leek & sunflower seed offering. Delicate, creamy and beautifully presented, its flavours, although simple, had impressive depth. Nothing overcomplicated here; just a really tasty dish that I could have eaten 10 times over. The chestnut dish was intense - in a good way! Soft to the bite, it was served with fermented tomato, mustard and puffed rice for additional texture. Again, the sharp, sweet, savoury balance here was just perfection.
Next up was one of the most interesting dishes of the evening. A bread course accompanied by a nicely matched amber ale. A brioche and Japanese milk hybrid, glazed in thyme vinegar and honey, was served with butter and a bowl of cream to dip. You could see the puzzled faces around the room. At the end of the evening, James revealed that the sauce was made up of kelp, which had been roasted, infused into water, then reduced down to get a salty/umami stock. This had then been mixed with reduced cream. The result: a clever, creative and downright exceptional dish.
More cream up next. And kelp. Potatoes cooked in kelp stock, blended with cream and butter, then aerated and whipped to create a light but flavour-packed dish. Cabbage roasted in plenty of butter and folded through - two classic British ingredients complementing each other nicely.
James admitted the dishes here are small. “Chips and curry sauce across the road for afters if you’re still hungry,” he jokingly said in his introduction. Needless to say, no such ‘afters’ were required. You’re paying £65pp here, not £165. Given the skill involved, and complexity of flavours, the price is not to be argued with.
Accompanied by a Slovakian wine - made with two red and one white grape - came the final savoury dish: Hogget loin and hogget belly, cooked for 24 hours, pressed, then topped with James’ version of furikake, made with onion and thyme. The sharp pickled ramson gel made a welcome return alongside a creamy sauce made from fermented onions and quince kosho. Another perfectly executed dish. The food here is truly exceptional.
The first dessert, whilst almost exactly replicating the taste of an apple pie, couldn’t have been further from it in terms of substance. Liquid nitrogen is used. So is apple, cream and lacto koji. Another fine showcase of James’ increasingly enviable skillset and culinary precision. “I wish I could cook like this,” I said to my partner.
Hats off to Joe and sommeliere Jo for choosing such great pairings. I ended with a cocktail; a sharp and super-tasty mix of sea buckthorn, Whitchurch lemongrass and Shropshire apple brandy.
Titled Sake Lees/Black Apple Vinegar, the final dish was probably the most sophisticated of them all. Sake Lees is the by-product of sake production, which is usually thrown away. Here, James makes it into ice cream. To create the vinegar, he slow-cooks apples for six weeks at 60°, then juices them. Both elements - which, yes, you guessed it, boast a mix of sweet, savoury and umami flavours - are combined with burnt white chocolate crumb and milk crisps. Light in texture yet indulgent in taste, it was an experience that I’ll remember for some time.
Wild Shropshire exceeded my expectations. Not because those expectations weren’t high, they were - you don’t get yourself a mention in the Michelin guide three years in a row if the standard isn’t above-par - but rather because every aspect married up so nicely. The spectacular food & drink, intimate and relaxed setting, personable, knowledgable and welcoming staff, and of course the soundtrack, all played a part in making it a faultless dining experience from beginning to end.
Five stars. Lauren Foster
Wild Shropshire
25 Green End
Whitchurch
SY13 1AD
Tel: 07766 685076
There aren’t many restaurants you visit that coincidentally play one of your favourite albums from start to finish. This happened at Wild Shropshire. There was something quite emotional about tucking into a tremendous mystery dessert with Radiohead’s Reckoner playing in the background. It was one of those moments that will stick with me.
Headed up by owner & chef James Sherwin, Whitchurch-based Wild Shropshire is an award-winning terroir-led and micro seasonal restaurant which offers a tasting menu of British food. With a goal of becoming 95% self-sufficient, James grows, cultivates and produces plants, eggs, bees, trees and more on his Wild Shropshire farm, all of which are used in his dishes.
At Wild Shropshire you get given the menu after you’ve eaten. Perhaps not everyone’s cup of tea, but I loved the concept. It gets people talking about something other than the sorry state of the country. The menu changes often. In fact, pay the restaurant a visit twice in one week and you will more than likely receive two different sets of dishes.
The decor is simple and unassuming, with an atmosphere to match. “We want you to feel like we’ve invited you round for dinner at our house,” explained the restaurant’s mixologist, Joe. They’ve hit the nail on the head there.
We started with a sparkling wine. An extremely quaffable Loxerel A Per Pet Nat, to be precise.
James introduced himself and explained how the dining experience, which takes around three hours, would work.
I ordered the mixed drinks pairing and let Joe choose for me. First up was a fresh and expertly made margarita, comprising Helena Koji Spirit, El Rayo Tequila, Shikuwasa Sake and a sour mix. Hints of nuttiness and citrus cleansed the palate, ready for the food that was to follow.
Our menu comprised nine courses. A toasted chicken-skin cracker topped with pickled ramson gel, pickled celeriac and burnt leek ash and hogget tartare with ramson and Old Winchester cheese arrived at the table. It was apparent from the first bite that James really knows how to use ingredients. The way he manages to encapsulate savoury, sweet, salty, tangy and sharp into almost every bite is admirable.
James’ creativity continued in the form of a leek & sunflower seed offering. Delicate, creamy and beautifully presented, its flavours, although simple, had impressive depth. Nothing overcomplicated here; just a really tasty dish that I could have eaten 10 times over. The chestnut dish was intense - in a good way! Soft to the bite, it was served with fermented tomato, mustard and puffed rice for additional texture. Again, the sharp, sweet, savoury balance here was just perfection.
Next up was one of the most interesting dishes of the evening. A bread course accompanied by a nicely matched amber ale. A brioche and Japanese milk hybrid, glazed in thyme vinegar and honey, was served with butter and a bowl of cream to dip. You could see the puzzled faces around the room. At the end of the evening, James revealed that the sauce was made up of kelp, which had been roasted, infused into water, then reduced down to get a salty/umami stock. This had then been mixed with reduced cream. The result: a clever, creative and downright exceptional dish.
More cream up next. And kelp. Potatoes cooked in kelp stock, blended with cream and butter, then aerated and whipped to create a light but flavour-packed dish. Cabbage roasted in plenty of butter and folded through - two classic British ingredients complementing each other nicely.
James admitted the dishes here are small. “Chips and curry sauce across the road for afters if you’re still hungry,” he jokingly said in his introduction. Needless to say, no such ‘afters’ were required. You’re paying £65pp here, not £165. Given the skill involved, and complexity of flavours, the price is not to be argued with.
Accompanied by a Slovakian wine - made with two red and one white grape - came the final savoury dish: Hogget loin and hogget belly, cooked for 24 hours, pressed, then topped with James’ version of furikake, made with onion and thyme. The sharp pickled ramson gel made a welcome return alongside a creamy sauce made from fermented onions and quince kosho. Another perfectly executed dish. The food here is truly exceptional.
The first dessert, whilst almost exactly replicating the taste of an apple pie, couldn’t have been further from it in terms of substance. Liquid nitrogen is used. So is apple, cream and lacto koji. Another fine showcase of James’ increasingly enviable skillset and culinary precision. “I wish I could cook like this,” I said to my partner.
Hats off to Joe and sommeliere Jo for choosing such great pairings. I ended with a cocktail; a sharp and super-tasty mix of sea buckthorn, Whitchurch lemongrass and Shropshire apple brandy.
Titled Sake Lees/Black Apple Vinegar, the final dish was probably the most sophisticated of them all. Sake Lees is the by-product of sake production, which is usually thrown away. Here, James makes it into ice cream. To create the vinegar, he slow-cooks apples for six weeks at 60°, then juices them. Both elements - which, yes, you guessed it, boast a mix of sweet, savoury and umami flavours - are combined with burnt white chocolate crumb and milk crisps. Light in texture yet indulgent in taste, it was an experience that I’ll remember for some time.
Wild Shropshire exceeded my expectations. Not because those expectations weren’t high, they were - you don’t get yourself a mention in the Michelin guide three years in a row if the standard isn’t above-par - but rather because every aspect married up so nicely. The spectacular food & drink, intimate and relaxed setting, personable, knowledgable and welcoming staff, and of course the soundtrack, all played a part in making it a faultless dining experience from beginning to end.
Five stars. Lauren Foster
Wild Shropshire
25 Green End
Whitchurch
SY13 1AD
Tel: 07766 685076