Solihull Restaurant Guide

Ex-Simpson’s chef Matt Cheal decamped from smaller premises in Henley-in-Arden to the former Jacques fine dining restaurant in Knowle two years back, gaining a cocktail and tapas bar along the way. There’s a lot of love for the “wonderfully plush surroundings (my old branch of HSBC!) which lend any visit the feeling of a special occasion”, while early reports on the food – à la carte or a tasting menu – praise some “beautifully presented” dishes (even if some feel “the flavours aren’t quite as impressive as the surroundings”).

The original of what is now a duo of modern Indian venues (run by the Lasan Group) which now has a Harborne sibling – this attractive modern operation offers an affordable menu rooted in street-food dishes.

2022 Review: With its “good home-style Indian vegetarian cuisine”, the Joshi family’s canteen and sweet centre has developed into a Hall Green institution over almost five decades. Specialising in Gujarati and south Indian cooking, it lists no fewer than 72 main dishes… none of them is priced at over £5.95.

2022 Review: One of a quartet of Syrian cafés, serving up “authentic” Middle Eastern titbits and more – including ‘fuul’ fava beans, pastries and flatbreads – from breakfast until late. This is the first branch, opened in Moseley.

“The best Peruvian restaurant in Birmingham!” – chef Robert Ortiz produces “seriously interesting food”, according to fans of this converted bank building in Moseley, where the “delicious tasting menu is very affordable”. Formerly of the Lima group in London, he has opened an offshoot in Hackney’s Broadway Market.

2022 Review: “A real gem in our local area” – this branch in the stylish, seven-strong Warwickshire-based 'Lovely Pubs' group has a lot to recommend it: “service is on the right side of friendly and very attentive”, they serve “great pub food, but restaurant quality” (including “fantastic seafood platters”), and if you stick to the main bar downstairs, there's plenty of atmosphere too.

“Love the rawness of this restaurant – it’s all about what makes Birmingham’s restaurant scene!” – You eat next to funkily graffitied walls, listening to a carefully curated playlist at Kray Tredwell’s well-known destination: “one of the city’s most interesting restaurants serving fine food prepared by a real, committed culinary artist”. Occupying Digbeth’s Custard Factory (and named after the birth weight of his premature daughter), “the extended restaurant is more spacious than previously and now has a comfortable bar area for preprandial drinks before guests are led upstairs to the main dining area where some of the tables still allow diners to watch the chef and his assistants prepare their dishes”. “Kray has altered the style of his menus several times in the past couple of years or so but has once more returned to serving a multi-course Tasting menu” and the result is “extremely well cooked and presented dishes” (“veering more towards being less eccentric and experimental than in the past and probably none the worse for that!”). Top Menu Tips – “the best barbecued Hispi cabbage ever, perfectly accurately cooked, glistening cod with smoked ham and delightful venison with maitake and a spot-on massaman sauce”.

“Brilliant sushi, always creative and beautifully served” is the attraction at this venue that is quite open about not being authentically Japanese – ‘gaijin’ means ‘foreigner’. A tiny 10-seat counter operation when it opened eight years ago, it took over the tattoo parlour next door to add additional table seating, and these days MasterChef: The Professionals 2021 champion Dan Lee (Brummie-born of English/Irish/Cantonese descent) offers what is billed as Birmingham’s first 15-course ‘omakase’ tasting menu.

This 15-strong London noodle chain (now with branches in Brighton, Birmingham and Bristol) is “a good stand-by” – perhaps it’s “not as good as some of its competitors”, but it is widely seen as “good value”: in particular “the lunch-time meal deal” is a winner.

2023 Review: Rectangular pizza cooked in 90 seconds is the draw at this top local pizza pit-stop, which is consistently well-rated: choose a base sauce and cheese and then zhoosh it up with various toppings.

Nisha Katona’s Liverpool-based operation has two branches in London (Charlotte Street and Westfield Stratford) offering her “very tasty” Indian street food – “with the occasional hint of raw spice”. The Lancashire-born former barrister launched the business in 2014 and now has 28 outlets around the country, whose “enjoyable, authentic food” is “really great for a chain”.

Abu Dhabi royal Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan was – as of mid 2025 – rumoured to be on the verge of buying a £1 billion stake in Richard Caring’s restaurant empire, of which this famous brasserie chain is the crown jewel. Presumably, he’s more interested in ‘rolling out’ the brand in The Gulf and beyond rather than dropping by for a Salmon Fishcake and ‘Ivy Chocolate Bombe’, but if he’d asked the opinion of our annual diners’ poll, we’re not sure that he’d sign on the dotted line. “How can a restaurant with this heritage produce such uninspired, tick-box food?” is a question merited by its poor ratings, ditto what explains the “very slow and disinterested service”? The answer may be that “you don’t come here for the food, obviously” but for the “gorgeous” interior design and “picturesque” locations that continue to underpin their appeal. Let’s hope for the Sheikh’s sake that the middle classes of the Arab World are as undiscerning as those from the UK!

“Well-cooked seafood in the centre of Birmingham” wins solid (if scant) feedback on this “consistent” outfit, where you can eat in the “quiet and relaxing” downstairs dining area or “smart” Aphrodite’s Bar above. The name is a clue to their speciality (coming either natural or dressed), but there’s also a “good range” of other items (“not all of them fish”), and one reporter who admits “succumbing to the delicious and very reasonably priced Chateaubriand roast Sunday lunch” has no regrets. There’s a pricier older sibling, Adam’s, on Bennetts Hill, if you really want to push the boat out.

2022 Review: 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.

Veggies should take note of this ‘Modern, Plant-focused, Casual Dining Restaurant’ – a five-year-old venue, within Great Western Arcade in the heart of Birmingham City Centre. Chefs Adrian Luck and Tony Cridland provide tasting menus, all meat-free, of either four courses for £50 per person or six courses for £70 per person, and at lunchtime there’s also an ‘express’ option.

“Birmingham’s finest restaurant in a restaurant scene increasingly dominated by mediocre and unimaginative offerings” is, say fans, Adam & Natasha Stokes’s “understated, smart and professional” destination, which is celebrating its tenth year in these three-storey premises (incorporating private dining and chef’s table) in the city-centre. Under chef Adam and the ‘other Adam’, head chef Adam Wilson, it produces “complicated” and accomplished cuisine, be it from the à la carte menu (for £89 per person), the five-course or seven-course dinner menus (for £109 and £139 per person respectively) or cheaper lunch menus (with three or five courses, for £60 or £85 per person). All reports this year again rate it well, but a striking number of basically positive accounts also include drawbacks in our latest annual diners’ poll. One regular feels that “recently, it’s begun to feel too cool and elegant and the impeccable service can be slightly intimidating” creating a more “sterile” ambience. Or that, “the food is very good but less striking than before” (“some dishes risked the fine main ingredients being swamped by the punchier flavours of some of the subsidiary flavours”). Just a rough patch?

Nonagenarian singer Asha Bhosle, who was name-checked in Cornershop’s hit ‘Brimful of Asha’, owns this large, “high quality Indian restaurant in central Birmingham” (which also has siblings in Manchester and most countries in the Gulf); and which is “beloved by a roster of celebs, whose pictures adorn the walls”. It inspires a mixed bag of feedback – reports generally agree the food is “interestingly spiced, if somewhat pricey”. Less reliable is the service, which is at times “hopeless”.