An intimate 14-cover restaurant, Albatross Death Cult embraces and celebrates the strange with an unconventional 12-course omakase-style menu. Located at the Grade II-listed canalside warehouse at 1 Newhall Square within Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter, Albatross Death Cult is a boundary-bending spot devised by the man behind The Wilderness, Alex Claridge.
Claridge is known for his polarising approach to fine dining, and his second restaurant is no different. With guests gathering around a monolithic kitchen counter, it's a dining experience that ruptures the fourth wall of the restaurant world - the pass. Traditionally, diners never venture across the pass counter into the inner sanctum that is the restaurant kitchen. But Claridge has never been one for tradition - a fact that his popular rock-and-roll-styled restaurant, The Wilderness, has already demonstrated.
Compared to The Wilderness, Albatross is the self-described ‘raw, unedited, and decidedly stripped-back sibling.’ The Albatross Death Cult menu largely revolves around seafood and coastal ingredients, however, don’t anticipate a standard menu of signature dishes and tried and tested combinations.
While there are discernable Japanese influences, this is a restaurant more concerned with impact, quality, and flavour than any convention or cuisine. Instead, guests should expect, spontaneaous, playful and usual plates infused with a characteristic rebellious streak. There’s only one sitting per service, and all dishes are served directly to guests by the chefs, so expect a small front of house team.
Photography: Tom Bird