56. Harden’s 2011 - Where We Ate In 2011.

Among my old food guides I have a Harden’s Reporter Edition 2011. I took it off my bookshelves entirely randomly I admit but a it’s nice reminder of what was in and was out in the dining scene in Birmingham and the West Midlands almost 10 years ago.
  The guide rates the restaurant experience under 3 headings - food, service and ambience which is fair enough though it’s not hard to feel, like charity is to faith and hope, that the greatest of these is food.
  We will not be surprised that most of the book is given over to the London food scene while the rest of the United Kingdom is a mere appendage to the main bulk of the text. So how did Birmingham and the West Midlands fare in those post-financial crisis days when David Cameron was hugging hoodies and Gordon Brown was saying nasty things about old ladies who had supported the Labour Party for decades and Brexit was an uninvented word?
  The ‘top scorers’ were listed within their own price brackets and each aspect of the restaurant ie food, service and ambience was rated 1 (exceptional) to 5 (poor) with the numbers in between being 2 (very good), 3 (good) and 4 (average) which actually seems to be rather a good scoring system. The West Midlands top scorers were:-

  £70+  La Bécasse Ludlow                1 1 2
             Simpsons Birmingham.         1 1 2
  £60+  Mr Underhills Ludlow.           1 2 2
            Le Champignon Sauvage Cheltenham     1 2 2
            Purnell’s Birmingham.            1 3 3
            Turner’s Birmingham              2 3 4
  £50+  Lumière Cheltenham               1 2 2
            Brockencote Hall Chaddesley Corbett     2 2 2
            Russell’s Broadway                 2 2 2
            Opus Birmingham                   2 1 3
            Edmund’s Birmingham           2 2 3
            Bosquet Kenilworth                2 2 4
  £40+  The Art Kitchen Warwick       1 2 2

    Therefore at that time the West Midlands had only 13 listed ‘Top scorer’ restaurants out of well over 200 which were situated outside London. Birmingham was home to five of them and of those three (Simpsons, Purnell’s and Opus) are with us still.

  The complete list of Birmingham restaurants included in the directory then was:- Asha’s Indian Bar and Restaurant, Bank, Buonissimo, Cafe Ikon Ikon Gallery, Chez Jules, Chung Ying Garden, Cielo, Edmunds, Hotel du Vin et Bistro, Itihaas, Jyoti, Kinnaree Thai, Lasan, Must, Opus, Pascal’s Purnell’s, San Carlo, Simpson’s and Turner’s. The fact that a number of these have long closed emphasises the fragility of the restaurant trade.