The area around Birmingham New Street on Saturday night gave me a taste of how weekend nightlife in Britain used to be, before the heart fell out of so many of our towns and cities. Once upon a time, almost everywhere looked like this from about 7pm on Saturdays; sort of Hogarthian, but with a flavour of an episode of The Last of Us in which a full-scale riot, peppered by zombies, is crashed into by a flaming 747. Anyway, it’s safe to say that, on this particular evening, Birmingham’s revellers had started their sessions early. The queues outside The Botanist and Revolución de Cuba were already buoyant with hens in sashes and stags planning strategic chunders, while outside McDonald’s, one young woman wearily asked her friends: “Can’t we just, like, stop drinking, get a Maccy’s and go home?” A peal of cackles was their reply.
The Oyster Club, on the other hand, which sits at the top of Temple Street, is altogether classier. It’s a posh seafood restaurant with a marble counter where you can eat Loch Ryan native oysters at £28 for six and omelette Arnold Bennett at £21.50. It’s a special-occasion place, with some lovely birthdays and anniversaries taking place on the night we went, but even they couldn’t drown out the noise from the “considerably richer than yous” sitting to both my right and left, and who were forensically detailing their properties, post-tax profits and jetsetting adventures at a volume so loud, it blew the sorrel off my rhubarb-dressed oysters.
Should rhubarb go with oysters? I was keen to find out. Purists would say there’s no place even for shallot vinaigrette, because all that does is mask the lovely, salty, phlegmy mouthfeel of the oyster itself. Frankly, I think an oyster needs all the help it can get, even if the Oyster Club’s rhubarb was rather sweet and synthetic.
I don’t know if chef Adam Stokes, of the Michelin-starred Adam’s on nearby Bennett’s Hill, was cooking that night at this, his second venture, but fritto misto should in theory be the ultimate guilty treat – a chance to pile into a heaving plate of glorious fresh fish, calamari, courgette and so on in a delicate batter and served with dipping mayo. This fritto misto, however, came on a small side plate that held one king prawn, one piece of unidentified white fish, a cremated langoustine and something CSI Snow Hill might have identified as whitebait; the largest thing on the plate was the chunk of lemon. A second small side plate then arrived with a saucer of ponzu dipping sauce on top of a large shiso leaf, alongside which I located five small pieces of salmon sashimi.
That said, the omelette Arnold Bennett was utterly gorgeous: a runny, cheesy, bechamel-drenched, smoky, eggy cuddle in a small, elegant pan and with perfectly judged haddock. Service is sporadic, but fine: servers turn up with trays, bringing your orders, but without checking if you need anything else. We sat for ages without drinks – not even water – because the bartenders seemed far too busy making banana old fashioneds and espresso martinis to notice us poor old diners.
We ordered the catch of the day to share, which raised an eyebrow from the waiter, though with no explanation as to why. The reason revealed itself later, when a hulking great brill arrived, finally at rest after a life spent bullying basking sharks off St Ives. It was cooked beautifully and came with a delightful, buttery sauce, and we were damned if we were wasting any, even if that meant we’d need pushing back to the car in a shopping trolley. There was some confusion, though, about how to fit this fish on the counter, which is something they should probably have worked out when designing this speciality fish restaurant. Alongside that, our sides were a small bowl of buttered spring greens and chunky chips that were nothing to write home about.
The Oyster Club does some things exceedingly well and others in a lacklustre and at times unforgivable fashion that seems to be based on hoping that guests will either know no better, or simply be thrilled to be seen dining here. Oddly, my lemon tart dessert was wonderful and seemed homemade, although that may have just been deft staging, because someone had clearly given it a quick blast with a blowtorch shortly before it was served.
Inland fish restaurants are peculiar places; the older I get, and the further I travel, the more I question why they exist at all. The best fish is eaten next to the water, in the sunshine, cooked simply, without grandeur and with perhaps a little paddle afterwards. Then there are the likes of the Oyster Club that are nowhere near the sea, very fancy and pricey, and where you’ll be fed but possibly ignored. Not waving, but drowning.
The Oyster Club 43 Temple Street, Birmingham B2, 0121 643 6070. Open Wed-Sun, noon-9pm (last orders; 9.30pm Fri & Sat, 8pm Sun). From about £60 a head à la carte, plus drinks and service
