While the team travel all over the country, Birmingham is the closest city to “home” for the majority of them and as such, the new restaurant, café and bar openings are always a hot topic in our office!
The last year has seen the openings of some great new eateries in England’s second city – not just those within the major developments of Grand Central (Leon, Pho, Square Pie and Tortilla among others) and Resorts World (High Line, Robata, Sports Bar, Sky Bar as well as mainstream brands Nando’s, TGI’s, GBK and Pizza Express) but also great independents all over the city.
From the messy and atmospheric Nosh & Quaff, tapping into 2015’s biggest food trend – the single dish (ish!) restaurant – to the popular with the work crowd Bodega, the Botanist, Cosy Club, Gas Street Social and Marmalade. They’re each using the city’s quietly grand architecture (the old Midland Bank and the REP Theatre among them) to be the perfect environment for their all day dining and drinking options.
Closer to our homes, we’ve seen the introduction of Meatcure, Coffee Architects, Bourbon Smokehouse and 33 The Scullery. Many of them have included “unlimited” options, incentives to dwell, and impressive kids menus; understanding the real shift we have seen in family and group dining in recent years and often outside “normal” meal times.
And it doesn’t stop there. 2016 has already seen the opening of Adam’s, Friska, Zizzi at Brindleyplace and we have Gaucho’s little brother – CAU, the Alchemist, Viva Brazil and Le Bistrot Pierre and a new Hotel du Vin yet to come. There really are too many hotspots, and too little time for us food lovers to get to them all!
The biggest changes we’re expecting to see come in the forms of the technology driven to service these restaurants; from Deliveroo to Quikr payment options, it’s likely to be the significant disruption in the catering sector in 2016. Plus, we’ve heard on the grapevine that Hawaiian food “poke” and Philippine cuisine will be hot this year, falafel will be appearing as vegetables in premium restaurants and menu kits from your favourite restaurants will be available for purchase. We can’t wait!