"You Choose" - Summer lunch menu at Opus

Venue: Summer lunch menu at Opus, 54 Cornwall Street, B3 2DE; website
Choice: Pastrami sandwich (£13.75) Chooser: Exec chef, Ben

Over the last few years, going for lunch, and we mean *really* going for lunch, seems to have found its way on to the endangered list, save for on the specialist of occasions. Realising 12.30pm is no longer the time that the great and the good of B-Town necessarily wants to launch into a five-course epic, Opus has launched a different sort of lunchtime menu. Pick from a summery list of one-coursers — starting from a wallet-approved £9.95 — but get the same beautiful Cornwall Street dining room, the same beautiful welcome and the same beautiful food. The understated sounding "ham and egg" salad (£9.95) is the ideal pick when the mercury does rise. Crunchy nursery veg from Worcester Produce — like perfect petit pois — is combined with seasonal leaves and topped generously with flaked Jimmy Butler ham hock, a just-right poached hen's egg and sauteed potatoes. The dish is seasoned immaculately and with the usual Opus bread basket, even if you're quite hungry, this dish works. If the weather's looking less optimistic, the monkfish tails and fries (£14.75) are where you're going to want to be. But for the any-day-of-the week winner, it's all about the pastrami sandwich. Layered up with pepper rubbed Hereford Longhorn beef brisket, once you've got over the novelty of eating a sanger in Opus, you'll still have time to enjoy the meaty moment with pickles, gherkins and horseradish cream on Opus' granary. In Chef Ben's words "If you're having a sandwich for lunch, then you'd better make it a proper sandwich." So screw coffee and a catch up this summer, Opus has reinvented *really* going for lunch, the 2019 edition.