Cylla, a classy Greek restaurant on Newhall Street, Birmingham, draws inspiration, it says, from Scylla, the legendary Greek man-eating sea monster that lives close to the whirlpools of Charybdis. She’s a beautiful woman, but has six dog heads, all grumpy and snarling, as well as a serpent’s tail.
If Scylla herself were ever to turn up at Cylla, dogs’ heads barking and tail flapping, they’d have to seat her in one of the gorgeous private booths at the front as you enter the room. These are the spots to grab if you want a little privacy, which is why we eschewed the long, prettily lit cocktail bar and headed straight to this cosy hidey-hole for a round of Poseidon’s Wrath. “It’s a bit like a dirty martini,” explained our server, who was one of those warm, bright, commanding, knowledgable souls who, in a hospitality setting, is worth her weight in drachma. This invigorating, mega-bitter tipple of vodka and vermouth laced with piney, herbaceous mastiha, seaweed and kalamata olive brine is the cocktail equivalent of being rescued by the RNLI: salty, breathtaking and head-spinning. Fret not, sweetness seekers, because they also offer a dozen other honey-, peach- and even meringue-based cocktails, if those are your thing, and all with equally dramatic, Greek myth-related names. Aphrodite’s Bloom, anyone? It’s a sensuous ode to the golden hour, the menu says.
Cylla’s prawn saganaki: ‘Firm king prawns in a well-balanced garlic and ouzo tomato sauce.’
Brilliantly, Cylla, which is a recently revamped All Bar One, manages to pull off all this high drama without tipping into Del Boy from Only Fools and Horses territory. Instead, there’s simply something rather reassuring about the place’s commitment to delivering an experience that’s seriously, elegantly Greek, but in a playful way. We went on a wet Wednesday in mid-January, when restaurants across the land tend to be deserted, unheated or just plain shut. Not Cylla, though: it was nicely heaving with plenty of tables of two, as well as several larger client groups – this is, after all, the businessy end of town. Convivial midweek, mid-winter dining can be hard to find, but I’m pleased to report it’s happening here.
The menu is roaringly trad Greek with the occasional Mediterranean and Brit leaning. A smoked aubergine meze was outstanding: smooth, rich and with a hugely impressive depth of smokiness that could come only from truly cared-for veg, all laced with parsley, garlic and vinegar. Prawn saganaki was also very good indeed, with a generous amount of firm, grilled king prawns in a well-balanced garlic and ouzo tomato sauce. The basket of warm homemade bread is essential.
Cylla’s rather underwhelming lamb baklava.
Lamb baklava, however, was less exciting, and pretty much just traditional sweet bakalava but stuffed with cumin and thyme-flavoured lamb. In hindsight, we should have gone for the grilled octopus with pearl onions and fava puree. A Greek-tinged beef tartare was laced with plenty of chopped gherkins, capers, truffle and Tabasco, and came with a nicely pungent chive mayo and a smoked egg yolk on top, as well as some roditiki pitta, a crisper, flatter style that’s authentic to Rhodes; these little touches make Cylla’s menu feel quite personal.
Central Birmingham has an array of dining options, but many of them are chains, albeit good-quality, if pricey ones. At Cylla, however, you get a real feeling that this is a restaurant that’s ploughing its own furrow, which in this day and age is increasingly rare.
Cylla’s beef fat potatoes are ‘quite possibly the best fondant potatoes I’ve ever eaten’.
A main course of red snapper offered up a generous, nicely cooked piece of flaking fish on a subtle, bouillabaisse-style sauce that could have done with a bit more basil, fennel and star anise, although by this stage my full attention was taken by the beef fat potatoes, which are mesmerising. Yes, they sit there coyly on the sides menu, speaking nothing of their greatness, but they are quite possibly the best fondant potatoes I’ve ever eaten, and maybe even the best potato side dish served in the UK today. To the naked eye, they resemble that all too familiar rectangular gastropub-style confit potato stack, as made famous by the Quality Chop House, among others, and copied everywhere, but these are so much more than that. The centre of these spuds is more like fluffy mash, while the exterior has a crisp whack of beef fat on all four surfaces.
Cylla’s karidopita walnut dessert is ‘a diversion into fancy-schmancy’.
The karidopita walnut dessert, meanwhile, was a diversion into fancy-schmancy plating, with its smears, foams and puddles of pecan cremeux, chocolate namelaka, vanilla and chocolate pâte à cigarette. But it was delightful, all the same.
Cylla is winner. In fact, I’ve already recommended it three times, which is the restaurant critic’s equivalent of saying I’d sell this Ford Mondeo to my nan. Cylla is both a dependable place to take groups and a rather lovely spot for a romantic tête à tête, especially if you can bag one of those booths and settle down in the home of a glamorous sea monster. Wear a life jacket, because some things are worth getting wet for.
Cylla 43 Newhall Street, Birmingham B3, 0121-714 9443. Open all week, noon-11pm. From about £60 a head à la carte; set lunch Mon-Fri (noon-4.30pm), £29.95 for two courses, £34.95 for three, all plus drinks & service