BACK TO THE FUTURISTS

Brum's always hotly contested 'Most Batshit Yet Brilliant Food Event of the Year' award could have an early contender in the shape of The Holy Palate Supper Club. Never a stranger to the left side of the field, Kaye Winwood and Matt O’Callaghan invite guests to their JQ venue (Gulp, pictured) for a night of food and oddity inspired by 1930’s Futurist Cookbook, La Cucina Futurista. In March 1931, Italian Futurists opened a controversial restaurant called The Holy Palate which they believed would remain impressed in the history of the art of cooking, "just as the dates of the discovery of America, the storming of the Bastille... or the Treaty of Versailles were indelibly fixed in the history of the world”. Unlike most of Italy the Futurists revoked the use of pasta, considering it to be heavy and inducing lethargy, preferring instead to use foods and concepts that they believed would arouse energy, vigour and spirit. I've had a peek at the menu and if eating olives, kumquats and fennel hearts to the sound of a roaring aeroplane piques your interest, then this multi-sensory madness is bang right for you. Birmingham needs as many Kayes and Matts as it can get, now more than ever. Envelope-pushing at the toughest of times. Feb 23 & 24, £52.69 pp