In the wake of the recent overblown Auld Alliance Michelin Awards ceremony in Glasgow at the beginning of February, it’s important (to me at least) to see just where the West Midlands counties stand as 2025 gets under steam. This is because the online Guide can be changed as the year passes by and there is no permanent record, with the demise of the paper edition, of where we stood on the date when a paper edition would have been published - in this case, the evening of 10 February 2025.
Therefore, for the record, I note that there were 77 West Midlands restaurants finding a place in the guide on that particular evening. The Michelin Guide continues to locate Broadway in Gloucestershire instead of Worcestershire and Gloucestershire’s Moreton in Marsh in Warwickshire - these are irritating long-term displays of ignorance on the part of the guide’s editor and it all has the air of a Gallic shoulder shrugging exercise in not correcting them but I have done so and my list has everywhere in the right place. And despite the claims by some that Gloucestershire is in the south west region, a glance at a map of England immediately corrects that assertion pinpointing the county in the west of England’s middle region though of course Bristol in the pseudo-county of South Gloucestershire is clearly in the West Country and frankly they’re welcome to it though it does indisputably have some excellent restaurants.
And so here are the West Midlands restaurants recorded in the 2025 Michelin Great Britain and Ireland Guide -
Gloucestershire - 18 restaurants
Restaurants in Cheltenham - Le Champignon Sauvage ⭐️ , Lumière ⭐️ , Purslane, Memsahib’s Lounge, Prithvi, Bhoomi Kitchen; outside Cheltenham - Horse and Groom (Bib) (Bourton on the Hill); The Halfway at Kineton (Guiting Power); Cowley Manor (Cowley); Daylesford Organic Farm (Daylesford); The Fox (Lower Oddington): Atrium (Upper Slaughter); Buckland Manor (Buckland); Wilder (Nailsworth); Old Butchers (Stow on the Wold); Ox Barn (Southrop); henne (Moreton in Marsh) and 5 North St (Winchcombe).
Herefordshire - 4 restaurants
33 The Homend (Ledbury); The Bull’s Head (Craswell); Kilpeck Inn (Kilpeck) and The Baiting House (Upper Sapey)
Shropshire - 7 restaurants
Charlton Arms (Bib), Forelles, Mortimers (all Ludlow); Wild Shropshire (Green⭐️), Docket (both in Whitchurch); The Walrus (Shrewsbury) and The Bear Inn (Hodnet).
Staffordshire - 7 restaurants
Upstairs by Tom Shepherd ⭐️, The Boat Inn, Larder (all Lichfield); Duncombe Arms (Bib) (Ellastone); Lunar (Stoke on Trent); Little Seeds (Stone); The Flintlock (Cheddleton).
Warwickshire - 9 restaurants
The Royal Oak ⭐️ (Whatcote); The Cross ⭐️ (Kenilworth); The Howard Arms (Ilmington); Fuzzy Duck (Armscote); Salt, The Woodsman (both in Stratford upon Avon); The Mount (Henley in Arden); The Bower House (Shipston on Stour) and Hem (Warwick).
West Midlands county - 22 restaurants
Restaurants in Birmingham - Opheem ⭐️⭐️; Adam’s ⭐️ ;Simpsons ⭐️(Edgbaston); Tropea (Bib) (Harborne); Riverine Rabbit (Bib) (Stirchley); Folium; The Wilderness; Albatross Death Cult; Chakana (Moseley); Land; Plates by Purnell’s; 670 Grams; Asha’s; The Oyster Club by Adam Stokes; Baloci (Edgbaston); Sartori (Moseley); Harborne Kitchen (Harborne); Cuubo (Harborne); outside Birmingham - Grace and Savour ⭐️ ; Smoke (both in Hampton in Arden; The Mount (Henley in Arden) and Cheal’s (Knowle)
Worcestershire - 8 restaurants
The Inn at Welland (Bib) (Welland); Native (Green ⭐️) Tenbury Wells; The Butcher’s Arms (Eldersfield); 1919 (Malvern Wells); Eckington Manor (Eckington); Black and Green (Barnt Green); The Back Garden (Broadway) and MO (Broadway).
Of the previous Michelin star holders, Purnell’s was deleted from the Guide on the grounds that the restaurant had closed (a not unreasonable excuse) but of those on the above list Smoke is to close this week to make way for David Taylor’s new Hampton Manor restaurant, Kynd, which one feels in one’s water may well be in next year’s guide.
One final thought is that all of the 77 West Midlands restaurants surely can not have been inspected in the twelve months prior to the ‘publication’ of the 2025 Guide - several visits to one restaurant I can think of were very disappointing, occasionally verging on the awful and convinced me that it would lose its Michelin star but there it still is and no doubt there will be devoted adherents to the Michelin Guides who will turn up there to dinner based on Michelin’s recommendations and will leave sorely disappointed.
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