Top marks for renowned city restaurant – bar the view
A ‘SENSATIONAL’ Birmingham restaurant received a rave review from The Sunday Times – though the location left the reviewer wishing for curtains to cover up views across Summer Row.
Writer Adam Kay called the ten-course tasting menu at Opheem ‘complex and confident’, though he didn’t love the street it’s on anywhere near as much as Aktar Islam’s cooking.
Author Kay was filling in for restaurant critic Charlotte Ivers when he queued for four hours on the M42 to try Opheem. Traffic problems caused him to turn back before returning to Birmingham for the two Michelin Star tasting menu days later.
Kay said that Opheem’s lounge had a “’business-class lounge at a European airport’ vibe” thanks to traffic travelling along the busy junction outside but that it was tempered by ‘quintuple-glazing’.
Aside from that, and an “errant apostrophe on the neon “WC’s” sign, he loved his meal and the rest of the review celebrated the restaurant’s brilliant food.
Aktar Islam’s Opheem was the first Birmingham restaurant ever to be acknowledged with two stars by Michelin earlier this year.
Kay splashed out on the ten-course tasting menu (his dinner for two, including drinks, resulted in a bill of £410.62 including service) and said that while his word count wouldn’t allow him to describe all ten dishes, it was “testament to Islam’s cooking that I’m struggling to choose my favourites”.
He gave high praise to the ‘on-point’ staff, the ‘not irresponsibly priced wine list’ and the ‘clever, characterful, delicately spiced and showy’ courses.
Kay added: “Islam can choose every dish I eat for the next four months”.
The restaurant was given five stars by The Sunday Times, with the critic suggesting that there’s only two things that could earn Opheem its third Michelin Star.
He wrote: “I’m not quite sure what more Opheem can do to earn its third star.
“Well, aside from buy some curtains for the lounge and fix the sign to the bogs.”