If we’re two things at 2G, we’re fine dining foodies and proud Brummies. Spoilt for choice for contemporary British cuisine, the second city has played host to 7 Michelin One Star restaurants — until now. Following the Michelin Guide 2024 ceremony on the 5th February, Indian fine dining spot Opheem has not only retained its star, it’s now Birmingham’s first-ever Two Star restaurant, and along with London’s Gymkhana, is the first Two Star Indian restaurant in the guide.
In the city that’s home to the Balti Triangle, led by Great British Menu-alumni and local chef Aktar Islam, this is a landmark achievement. It shines a spotlight on Birmingham’s culinary heritage, as stars are awarded based on the quality of the ingredients used, mastery of flavour and cooking techniques, the personality of the chef in his cuisine, value for money and consistency between visits.
Birmingham’s Michelin Stars
Joining Opheem as Birmingham’s starred restaurants are a string of modern British cuisine hotspots. Firstly there’s Carters, who riff on British landscape and culture, who retained their star for 8 years and then beautifully managed to regain it for their move to Westlands. Hidden in the city centre lies Glynn Purnell’s flagship restaurant, pairing coloured banquettes with world-influenced flavours, adding poppadoms and mild cumin oil to day boat cod. Nearby sits Adam’s, a luxurious art deco staple that mixes tradition and modernity, serving dishes you’ll recognise in name but served in ways you’ve never tasted.
Head south to a beautiful Georgian mansion in Edgbaston and you’ll find Simpsons. Led by Head Chef Luke Tipping, dishes are balanced and pure, led by their signature tapenade bread rolls and souffles. Further afield in Hampton in Arden, Grace & Savour’s multi-course menu blends classical and modern Nordic cooking techniques.
Travel to Lichfield and you’ll have the chance to sample Upstairs by Tom Shepherd, which is literally the space above his father’s jewellery shop. If you’ve a sweet tooth, the 72% Aranguani chocolate with créme fraîche, pecan, caramel and sherry will sucker you in. Or there’s Kenilworth’s The Cross, a Grade II-listed inn sharing classically-based dishes for cosy lunches.
Designing Michelin Guide Restaurants
As foodies, we’re no strangers to travelling and tasting our way through fine dining establishments. It’s why we dedicate so much of what we do to building and interior designing restaurants and bars.
Although Michelin’s restaurant inspectors don’t look at the interior decor, table setting or service quality for stars, they still play an important part by being awarded ‘covers’, from 1 (quite comfortable) to 5 (luxury in the traditional style). And since 2014, we’ve had a hand in designing and building many of the Michelin guide’s fine dining spots and recommendations.
Whether you’re looking for inspiration for your next restaurant concept, planning to get your fine dining spot into the Michelin guide, or it’s lunch time — here’s our own guide to just some of the Michelin guide restaurants we’ve worked on.
Land
Described as thrilling and masterful by infamously hard-to-please food critic Jay Rayner, Birmingham’s singular plant-based fine dining restaurant Land prides itself on comfort, informality and delight.
We know people feel better about their food when they’re comfortable. That’s why our interior design concept infuses natural colours of the land — think leafy greens and natural wood — with sustainable initiatives — like SMILE plastics, made from recycled yoghurt pots).
Read more about Land’s restaurant redesign in the Great Western Arcade here.
670 Grams
Fine dining and Digbeth don’t make sense, but our off the wall design for 670 Grams does. Our task was to create a design that reflected Head Chef Kray Treadwell’s desire to make taster menus accessible for younger audiences. With sassy dishes comes sassy spaces: so we rolled with leopard print and graffiti.
The challenge here was transforming an old cake shop in the iconic Custard Factory, that had just 35 square metres of space with just 16 covers and a tight budget — and the whole thing happened during COVID.
Find out how we approached this challenge here.
The Wilderness
This project is less restaurant, and more film script, as The Wilderness serves provocative, playful tasting menus in a restored factory set to a soundtrack of rock, punk, and heavy metal.
It’s listed building home meant lots of its period features were untouchable to us, so we opted for an open kitchen to add playful kitchen drama alongside jet black honeycomb tiles and stainless-steel, conical hot-lamps for that rockstar edge.
Learn more about how we bought Alex Claridge’s latest concept to life here.
Tropea
If you don’t love what you do, and do what you love, then what’s the point? We’ve been frequent feeders at Tropea since it opened in 2020, and it was important to us that we designed and built an interior that gave reverence to the quality of the food whilst staying true to what it is: an unpretentious neighbourhood Italian restaurant.
Our challenges included optimising the space to fit more covers and create more storage, whilst echoing the quality in the look and feel. Working with purposely mis-matched furniture and zinc-topped tables, we used acoustic wooden panelling on the bar and behind new bespoke fitted seating to absorb the sound.
Read more about our design and build for Tropea here.
Interested in discussing your next restaurant and bar project? Get in touch.
