Second City needs more than Michelin stars to beat rivals Birmingham’s best restaurants praised – but Manchester offers better eating out
FOUR Birmingham restaurants have been named among the best in the UK by a top restaurant guide.
But Manchester and Leeds pipped the Second City to the post in terms of best places to eat out overall – this despite Birmingham having five Michelin-starred restaurants and Manchester none.
But according to the Harden’s guide for 2017, Adam’s in Waterloo Street and Carters of Moseley are two of the UK’s best restaurants in the £60-plus bracket.
In the under £60 bracket, Lasan and Original Patty Men, which is a new entry in the guide, were the two restaurants in Birmingham that were ranked highest.
“Wow, wow, wow!” was how one reviewer for the guide summed up their experience at Adam’s, which earlier this year moved from Bennett’s Hill to bigger premises in Waterloo Street. The Michelinstarred chef was awarded a maximum 5, 5, 5 score – one of the top marks in the country by the guide.
Carters of Moseley, which won a Michelin star in September, was the only other in Birmingham to be recognised as ‘outstanding’ in the guide. The restaurant, led by chef Brad Carter, was praised for being “an exceptional neighbourhood restaurant offering imaginative food in a relaxed setting”.
Lasan in St Paul’s Square was described as an “upmarket Indian of a quality rarely found in the UK”. And there was glowing praise for Brummie head chef Aktar Islam “who cooks sincere and brilliant combinations that are superbly matched with the wine flight”.
Overall, the guide, which lists 2,800 eateries at all price levels, ranked Birmingham’s cheaper restaurants as faring better than our fine dining restaurants compared with other similarly priced eateries around the country.
The results were calculated from views of 7,500 participants who contributed 50,000 reviews – which make it the biggest survey of its kind in the UK judging food, service and atmosphere.
But Birmingham only came fifth in the list of best cities for eating out – behind Leeds, Brighton and Manchester, which all had five top scoring restaurants, while Edin- burgh was crowned top foodie city with ten outstanding restaurants.
Peter Harden, the guide’s editor and co-founder said: “Birmingham could easily have out-scored most other cities in the UK this year. The city had one of the UK’s top scoring restaurants with Adam’s – which did absolutely fabulously in all the reviews.
“But Birmingham fell short due to a number of merely good-rather-than-more-noteworthy performances in our restaurant survey from some of the city’s leading lights, including Purnells, Simpsons and Edmunds, which each scored 3/5 – respectable but not outstanding.”