Is there a future for fine dining?
With either incredible foresight or considerable irony, last year we ran a menu asking what the future of fine dining looked like. The result was a creative culinary deep dive into trends and tastes.
Fast forward to now and asking myself the same question conjures up images of a far more dystopian fate. I’ve delayed, denied, and distracted, but there comes a point where I have to speak up about what’s on the horizon. That time is now.
The future for fine dining - or certainly our small space within it - looks increasingly uncertain. The reality of running a restaurant has become perilous, precarious, and problematic. For the first time in almost a decade of The Wilderness, I am unsure of our place in this city, and lost in how to adapt my vision to the contemporary landscape.
This past decade has included enough near misses to fill a book. Many self-inflicted, yes, but also a global pandemic that ought to have ended the dream for good. What we’re facing now, I think, is different. This is somehow worse. An ideological and existential threat for our restaurant and, more importantly, for restaurants across the country. This year has already seen plenty of high-profile closures – it will see many more.
To reduce it to its grubby and inelegant essence: the cost of the continued existence of our restaurant, and restaurants like it, is soaring, whilst the ability of our audience to afford full-fat fine dining on the regs is dwindling – understandably. The outcome is that our ambitions are increasingly out-of-sync with the reality of the hellscape we’re all collectively attempting to exist in.
The astute and critical will, of course, note that I have recently launched a second restaurant – this may seem at odds with my perilous shipping forecast. We have gone to great lengths to design Albatross mindful of the stormy seas it must soar above. It relies on a tiny but talented team, with very few covers, and exists at a (comparatively!) wallet-friendly £88 per head. It is a very different beast by design. I pray its stellar start may continue, and I am beyond grateful for the support it has received to date.
Meanwhile, for The Wilderness and many, many more independents, retrofitting a restaurant for today’s reality is far harder. Seasoned operators are stuck staring at eerily quiet dining rooms, holding back the terrified whisper that maybe this isn’t the time for *this* sort of place, maybe this is it. Eerily quiet dining rooms that even three months ago were buzzing. Summer, it’s true, can often be quiet – it is a small audience that are spending warm summer days indoors – but this year is the most dismal I can recall in my career.
So, what do we do? Well, this frank, exposing, and painful blog is one step. I know it won’t sit pretty. Fine dining can feel so much like smoke and mirrors. Luxury promises a façade of beauty, perfection. This is a terrifying look behind the curtain. Luckily for you (unluckily for some) I refuse to die quietly.
I intend to do everything in my power to find our place in this austere landscape. It cannot rain forever. I intend to survive without selling out, without compromising on the vision that’s driven me the past decade, and without losing the magic that has been at the heart of The Wilderness from day one. This, my friends, is going to be a feverish and manic ride. I write because writing a new chapter for The Wilderness is going to take conversation and collaboration with our loyalists, supporters, and guests. My eyes, ears, and inbox are open to hear your thoughts on how we collectively weather this storm.
Here’s what we’re doing in July. A new, somewhat more accessible, menu – £65 for four courses, plus snacks and petit four. You can expect the same ambition, creativity and experimentation. We’ll change dishes up weekly and hope that it makes us a more realistic prospect for mid-week pleasure. This new menu will be available for new and existing bookings Wednesday to Friday throughout July. It doesn’t need to be pre-ordered, or mentioned when booking, and our full-fat menus will continue to be available for all guests – book in, rock up, pick your own path to pleasure.
The horrors persist, but so do we.
Alex
The new £65 menu is available Wednesday - Friday at The Wilderness in July only. This menu is available to new and existing reservations and does not need to be mentioned when booking or pre-ordered. We can offer an alternative pescatarian, vegetarian or gluten-free menu with advance notice. This menu is excluded from all other offers and discounts (Independent Birmingham, CODE, etc.), and will not be available during special events.