Birmingham Restaurant Guide

Often cited by fans as “Birmingham’s top gastronomic destination”, Adam & Natasha Stoke’s central restaurant and bar wins ongoing praise for its “sublime food with service to match”, although you don’t have to have the tasting menu to enjoy it, as there is also a more conventional three-course option. After our survey concluded, in Sept 2021, it acquired a new head chef: James Goodyear, who joined from London’s Hide.

2021 Review: The “lovely Thai food” at these reliable cafés is “impressively authentic given that they are a chain” – “excellent value” and “fast”, if occasionally let down by “iffy service”. Founded in 2008 by Saiphin and Alex Moore, who inherited the name of their first East End site, the group has 18 branches in London and expanded to Liverpool, Manchester, Reading (delivery only) and Leeds following the sale of a majority stake to US investors. The couple also have two spin-offs, Lao Café in Covent Garden and the new Chinese noodle bar Hoh Sek in St Katharine Docks.

“New to Brum, home of the Balti, but proving very popular” – this all-conquering retro-Bombay group opened in a prime central position near the town hall and art gallery in 2020, to their accustomed acclaim. The Birmingham branch pays tribute to Mumbai’s Swadeshi market, and the two cities’ shared legacies of ‘1,000 trades’. Top Tip: “loved their butter paneer and chicken Ruby Murray”.

There’s a “great buzz” at this outpost of Bollywood singer Asha Bhosle’s empire – yes, she's the same Asha namechecked in the 1997 Cornershop single, and amazingly the most recorded artist in music history – with “lovely cocktails” serving as a foil to the “rich” North-West Indian cuisine.

D&D London are at last to open in Brum with this rooftop restaurant on the 24th floor of the new tower on the site of the old NatWest building near the cathedral. Originally announced in January 2020, an October 2021 update scheduled its debut for spring 2022.

2021 Review: “Latino steak restaurant in the heart of Birmingham city centre” – this well-appointed new branch of the expanding Brazilian chain offers its trademark “generous meat and buffet” formula. It’s tipped by one or two reporters as “good for business meals”.

Sicilian-born Carlo Distefano founded his now international chain thirty years ago with this Brum institution, creating a template of classic upscale Italian food served with immaculate professionalism in a smart and “romantic atmosphere”. He now has 22 restaurants in England and branches in the Middle East and Bangkok.

2019 Review: Fourth and most ambitious of this Thai mini-chain, established in Moseley in 2003 – it occupies a large Grade II listed, city-centre property that once housed the Legal and General Assurance Society. It opened in late 2018 – limited feedback so far, but all positive.

One of the Ivy clones, which achieved a positive press this year. “Nothing like the original Ivy of course”, though the “attractive” design is a “very loosely based pastiche” of that luminary – and, “rather surprisingly, it works”. “The food is fairly simple but well prepared and served with some elegance” – “I didn’t think I would like it but ended up being quite impressed”.

“Continuing to excite since it first opened in 2018: we always leave feeling wonderfully fulfilled!” – Aktar Islam’s “sensational” fine-dining Indian a little way out of the city-centre “is another step up from his former restaurant Lasan” and it is nowadays Brum’s most-commented on restaurant. The cuisine is “arguably more modern-European-with-Indian-influences rather than pure ‘Indian’ but perfectly spiced and spectacular!”. Islam did his brand no harm at all with his “superb Aktar At Home service”, which also inspires many adulatory reviews.

2021 Review: “Arresting” design is a big feature of Adam and Drew Jones’s stunning-looking Chinese-themed yearling: the city’s biggest basement bar and restaurant situated in the recently reopened Grand hotel (built in 1879, and refurbished after over a decade’s closure). Too few reports for a rating as yet: its menu contains a “theatrically presented combination of small bites and larger dishes”. The next stop after this is Edinburgh, opening late 2019.

“Superb in every aspect” – Glynn Purnell lives up to his moniker as the ‘yummy Brummie’ at this business quarter restaurant, which edged rival Adam’s this year for Brum’s highest food score. And his “consistently delicious” and creative cooking is backed up by an “excellent wine cellar”. “For a celebration the private dining room is excellent” (“the most expensive meal I’ve ever had by a long way, but I definitely don’t regret it!”).