Birmingham

Birmingham: The UK’s Most Underrated Eating City

Birmingham holds more Michelin stars per head of population than any UK city outside London, and most people who haven’t been there recently still think it peaked in 1975. That gap between reputation and reality is one of the more reliable travel finds in England. The city is the UK’s second largest, was the engine room of the Industrial Revolution, and has spent the last 30 years doing something more interesting than nostalgia: a canal network longer than Venice, a food scene that is genuinely world-class, and a cultural diversity that makes it feel more international than most European cities twice its size.

Getting Your Bearings

Birmingham city centre is compact and largely walkable. The main rail hub is Birmingham New Street, rebuilt and reopened in 2015, connecting to London Euston in under 90 minutes. Birmingham International Airport sits 10 miles east with direct rail links to New Street in about 10 minutes. The West Midlands Metro tram line connects New Street to Wolverhampton via useful central stops. A West Midlands Day Travelcard covers buses, trams, and local rail if you plan to range beyond walking distance.

What to See

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery on Chamberlain Square holds one of the UK’s finest Pre-Raphaelite collections, assembled during the city’s peak industrial wealth. The Staffordshire Hoard – the largest collection of Anglo-Saxon gold ever found, unearthed in a Staffordshire field in 2009 – is displayed here. It is genuinely extraordinary in person. The density of the craftsmanship in pieces that are sometimes smaller than a thumbnail makes it the most compelling hoard display in England. Entry to the permanent collection is free.

The Jewellery Quarter is a working historic district where hundreds of jewellers still operate in Victorian workshops. The Museum of the Jewellery Quarter preserves a complete factory, frozen in time since 1981, and offers guided tours through a production line that looks exactly as it did when it closed. The surrounding streets have independent retailers, good coffee, and pubs worth stopping in.

Cadbury World in Bournville tells the story of how the Cadbury family built both a chocolate brand and an entire model village for their workers. Bournville village, planned from the 1890s in Arts and Crafts style, is worth a walk on its own. It is a more coherent argument for what a Victorian employer could do with industrial profits than most heritage sites manage.

Digbeth, the creative quarter southeast of the centre, is where Victorian warehouses now house studios, independent venues, and street-food markets. The street art changes regularly and is among the better urban art landscapes in England outside London.

Food and Drink

Opheem on Summer Row holds a Michelin star for modern Indian cooking using British and locally sourced ingredients. It is one of the most interesting restaurants in England, not just Birmingham, and booking several weeks ahead is essential.

Carters of Moseley in the suburb of Moseley holds its own Michelin star with a tasting menu focused on local British produce, technically precise and without the formality that usually accompanies that level of cooking.

The Balti Triangle, centred on Ladypool Road and Stoney Lane in Sparkhill and Sparkbrook, is where the balti curry was invented and developed in the 1970s: a spiced dish cooked and served in a thin steel pan, as distinct from the generic “balti” you get everywhere else as a Neapolitan pizza is from a supermarket frozen round. The restaurants here are mostly family-run, mostly unlicensed, and mostly excellent. Bring your own drinks.

Dishoom in the city centre is a chain, but an honest one: the 24-hour-cooked black dal and the lamb chops are the items to order and they deliver.

For a proper Victorian pub, the Bartons Arms in Newtown is one of the finest intact pub interiors in England, with tiling and woodwork that survived the 20th century largely through neglect rather than preservation.

Where to Stay

Staying Cool at Rotunda occupies the upper floors of the 1960s Rotunda tower overlooking New Street. The apartments have floor-to-ceiling curved windows and panoramic views. It is one of the more distinctive places to stay in any UK city.

Hotel Du Vin Birmingham is built into a cluster of Victorian buildings in the city centre. The wine list is serious, the rooms are comfortable, and the location is practical for most of what the city offers.

Budget chains cluster around New Street and the Bullring; Moseley and the Jewellery Quarter have smaller independent guesthouses for those who prefer a residential base.

Arts and Sport

Birmingham Symphony Hall is acoustically one of the finest concert halls in Europe, which is a claim that gets made about many halls and is more usually aspirational than accurate – here it is widely supported by performers who have played it. The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is resident. Birmingham Hippodrome is the UK’s busiest touring theatre outside London. Villa Park, Aston Villa’s ground with a capacity of over 42,000, is one of the great English football grounds, and tours run on non-match days.

Day Trips

Warwick Castle is 22 miles south and 25 minutes by train from Moor Street. Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare’s birthplace, is 45 minutes from Moor Street; the Royal Shakespeare Company’s main theatres are there. Ironbridge Gorge, about an hour by road, has the world’s first iron bridge from 1779 and a UNESCO designation.

Most visitors who spend a long weekend in Birmingham leave having significantly upgraded their opinion of it. The food alone justifies the trip, and the canal towpaths, museums, and music venues fill the rest of the time without difficulty.