Restaurants and Bars

Birmingham city centre offers a first-rate selection of places to dine. Evenings and weekends see locals, students and visitors gravitate towards the centre of town looking for gastronomic fulfillment, and the choice on offer will not disappoint. Practically every nationality is represented by restaurants to suit any budget and new establishments are opening all the time. Amongst the most successful of these recent arrivals are Raymond Blanc's le petit Blanc and the ultra-sophisticated Thai Edge. Balti restaurants – serving up deliciously spicy and aromatic curries – are especially strong in Birmingham, both in number and quality, and indeed the city lays claim to giving birth to the dish.

Broad Street and the surrounding roads give you the pick of the bar and restaurant bunch. From pub grub to haute cuisine, you can find it on Broad Street — a pint of ale or a five-course meal. Treat your tastebuds in the stylish Leftbank, which serves food with a contemporary feel in an opulent environment, or the highly-rated Shimla Pinks, a chic, award-winning Indian restaurant. Broad Street is home to many highly popular chains such as the lively Edward's cafe-bar or the ever popular brasserie Cafe Rouge. Being less than a stone's throw away from the ICC and a very short walk from the NIA and the city centre, Broad Street makes the perfect location for that "swift pint". The area boasts several popular pubs such as the Brasshouse and Brannigans on Broad Street. The Brindleyplace development off Broad Street gives diners and drinkers a vast choice in the way of waterfront entertainment, with sushi on offer at the Shogun Teppan-Yaki and a taste of the high life at Bank restaurant.

If chow mein and stir-fries stir up your appetite, head straight for Birmingham's Chinatown – found roughly in and around the Arcadian Centre and on Thorp Street. The flavour of the Orient is captured in traditional Cantonese restaurants such as Chung Ying Garden and the knife-throwing Japanese art of preparing Teppan Yaki cuisine is available in the restaurant of the same name. Some excellent, and accordingly very popular, bar/restaurants are also found in the Arcadian. Perhaps the best of the bunch are 52° North and Sobar.

Digbeth, home of the famous Sanctuary nightclub, has a growing reputation for drinking and dining possibilities, although it has been slow to shake off a rather insalubrious image. However, new development The Custard Factory is now home to many forms of entertainment as well as the Cafe des Artistes cafe-restaurant. This offers a trendy environment in which those with a more sophisticated palate can enjoy their contemporary cuisine.

Hockley is known chiefly for its jewellery trade but it is now developing a thriving cafe culture. Come here for a vast choice in restaurants, bars and pubs, and for a romantic evening as much as for a fun and furious night out. St Paul's Square, home of the trendy Saint Paul's Bar & Restaurant favoured by professionals and students alike, will leave you spoilt for choice whereas the Jam House mixes eclectic dining with terrific live music. If seafood is your passion then there's no finer place to dine than the Oceanic Seafood Restaurant, on the outskirts of the quarter.

All this said, it is still balti restaurants for which Birmingham is rightly famous and no visit to the city is complete without trying one. Some of the best establishments are found south-east of the city centre on the Stratford Road. These may not look much from the outside, but for value for money and exquisiteness of cuisine they can not be faulted. Particularly well-respected examples are the Royal Naim and the Royal Al-Faisal Tandoori & Balti. The amount of award-winning Indian and Pakistani restaurants in Birmingham would impress even the most hard-nosed food snob — make no mistake, Birmingham's baltis are not to be sniffed at.