Vagabond

THIRD TIME UNLUCKY?

So, it’s my third time here. The first was shortly after it opened two years ago and whilst we made a happy and sustained assault on their 100+ wines, the food was pretty awful. Something resembling an overdone supermarket pizza still springs far too easily to mind.

Then, three weeks ago, I was invited to a PR event offering ‘the opportunity to indulge in Vagabond’s wide selection of wines and their new small plates menu’. I’m a sucker for the lure of free booze, so I headed up there with my +1 entertaining thoughts of it being a contender for the drunkest Thursday night of the year.

View from the ‘kitchen’

As it turned out, the free booze amounted to a £10 loaded Vagabond card, so it didn’t even cover the first drink, but with some catching up to do, we ended up staying for a few more. All the time watching as a constant stream of loaded trays of Mediterranean influenced tapas swept past us into the throbbing heart of the ‘party’. Sitting by the kitchen won us no favours whatsoever, apart from a basket of bread; excellent sourdough as it happens.

No worries, we headed off for pizza, with appetites heightened by the look of the food that appeared to be a huge step up from two years ago. So much so, it’s nailed on for a 3pm business meeting today, given food’s served all day and it’s my shout.

Padrón peppers

We’ve decided it’s easier to choose our wines separately in the pay as you go style, before we immediately get into choosing and ordering the food via QR code. Despite it being quiet, I’ve already got through my second glass just as the food turns up and I’m straight into the padrón peppers, that are just on the edge of being adequately blistered.

Homemade meatballs, parmesan, rich tomato sauce (Chef’s daily special)

Next are the chef’s ‘daily special’ meatballs under a scatter of parmesan, that are so dense it’s as if they’re made from twice as much meat than their size suggests. It means they’re a contender for the meatiest meatballs ever, but let down by a tomato sauce that struggles to demonstrate any promised richness, meaning it’s not mopped up with nearly the enthusiasm it should be. As it happens, the bread isn’t up to that task anyway, given it’s toasted and that merely shouts about the fact it’s not fresh. Knowing how good the fresh stuff is, throws on an extra layer of disappointment.

Croquetas Iberico ham & béchamel, crispy serrano, chipotle

But, reeling me back in are the croquetas Iberico and whilst likely pre-frozen, these are totally on point; a crunchy bread crumb coated explosion of gooey bechamel with just enough jamon to pleasure the taste buds.

Homemade patatas bravas & aioli

Next is patatas bravas, that ever-faithful barometer for general quality of tapas and these promise a homemade bravas sauce and aioli. On the plus side they’re at least registering something beyond a zing on the heat scale, but there’s just too little of it to really get the palate excited. The skin on patatas offer at least a suggestion of crunch, but a couple of larger pieces are ‘al dente’ but in spud terms that’s just undercooked.

Hanger steak tagliata and ‘chimichurri’

Our final dish sums up the food perfectly. The seared and sliced hanger steak is perfectly medium rare and very easy on the jaw, although it’s totally let down by the accompanying ‘chimichurri’. It’s herb-lite and vinegar heavy featuring what strangely seem to be coriander seeds—frankly, not worthy of further investigation—that just provide a hugely unwelcome grittiness to what is an already dismal chimichurri.

4.30 TFI Friday

Throwing in the towel on the food and with business now done, I head off for what’s now my fourth glass. It’s not even 4.30, but there’s a TFI Friday energy building and it's something the large zonal bar wears effortlessly. Being formerly a bank it’s high ceilinged, with bare brick walls and polished concrete floor, but softened, not least, by a proper big, real-life tree at the entrance, as well as botanical garden-scale fake foliage and elegant lighting. It’s a very easy and comfortable space to while away a couple of hours.

The food comes to £44.44 including service charge and on the wines for me it’s £36.30—a Bourgogne Aligote, a Cotes du Rhone and two glasses of an orange Falanghina that’s right up there with my favourite wines of the year.

In a word, the food is inconsistent, but reasonably priced and judging it as purely something to soak up the wine, it’s satisfactory and it’s certainly not third time unlucky. But what strikes me most is that with just a bit more care (or kitchen training) it could easily be much better than that.

FOOD 5/10

RECOMMENDED - WINE 8/10

www.vagabondwines.co.uk/locations/birmingham

92-98 Colmore Row, Birmingham B3 3BD