Latest opening: Riverine Rabbit
What: An ambitious South Africa-inspired restaurant in Birmingham’s Stirchley suburb. A small, stripped-back affair located on an increasingly vibrant stretch about four miles’ south of Birmingham city centre, Riverine Rabbit offers refined dishes based on high-quality produce in stripped-back surrounds.
Who: Ash and Erin Valenzuela-Heeger. The former is originally from South Africa and has a cooking CV that includes highly-rated Cape Town restaurant The Test Kitchen, The Ledbury, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal and Brad Carter’s Carters of Moseley in Birmingham. Erin is a materials scientist by day and front of house manager by night (the restaurant trades evenings-only from Monday to Friday). The concept was originally created by Ash and her sister Mandy in Cape Town and operated as a successful pop-up in and around Birmingham throughout last summer.
The vibe: Ash and Erin have undertaken most of the renovations themselves with the interior of the restaurant - which is on Pershore Road not too far away from the original Carters of Moseley site - billed as simple and stripped back ‘allowing the dishes to take centre stage’.
The food: The main menu is made up of a dozen or so small plates. Options include devilled egg with hot sauce; beef tartare with rapeseed, smoked soy and toasted nori; tiger prawn with piri-piri sauce (pictured above); crab muffin with brown butter hollandaise, pickled lemon and sea herbs; and profiterole with meadowsweet ice cream and chocolate sauce. Prices are extremely reasonable given Ash’s high-end cooking CV, with the most expensive dish on the menu priced at £15 and most non-snack dishes around the £10 mark. The restaurant also offers a prix fixe menu comprised of different dishes - including soba noodles in a spiced broth with spring onions and herbs; and roast quail with maitake mushrooms, Sherry and radicchio - for £30.
To drink: The wine list is predominantly South African in origin with beers supplied by brewery Glasshouse, which is just down the road. A wide range of alcohol-free options are also available.
And another thing: Riverine Rabbit takes its name from a famously elusive species of the mammal that lives in the Karoo Desert and is a nod to its owners’ mission to support sustainable farming practises.
1464 Pershore Road, Stirchley, Birmingham B30 2NT
www.riverinerabbit.co.uk
