Three days in Birmingham, UK: Britain’s second-biggest city is a foodie’s paradise

This city has just been highlighted on the world stage due to a massive sporting event – and a visit reveals it has a lot more to offer.

“You’ve missed all the action,” the concierge at my hotel informs me as I check in for my first night in Birmingham.

I know what he’s referring to – the Commonwealth Games were held here just two months ago, revitalising the city and putting it on the world stage – but as I’ll soon discover, he’s rather selling his city short.

I arrive (after a long-but-not-uncomfortable Emirates flight from Sydney, with just the one stop in Dubai) unsure of what to expect from my first visit to Birmingham. London is the UK’s beating cultural heart, Brighton is its quirky seaside village. Liverpool has the Beatles. It might be Britain’s second-biggest city – but what’s in Birmingham?

Quite a lot, it turns out. A surprisingly picturesque, very walkable city, filled with diverse food options, quaint canals and fascinating ways to explore Britain’s rich (and often brutal) history.

What to do

Waking on my first morning mercifully free of jet lag, my first stop is with Walking Tours Birmingham to get my bearings. Retired schoolteacher Pete is my guide, full of fascinating insights into the city’s history.

A congestion charge on cars means pedestrians rule in Birmingham – the CBD is filled with expansive, car-free shopping plazas.

Pete peppers his tours with facts he and fellow ‘Brummies’ are clearly fond of: The city’s famous jewellery quarter is no relic, with Birmingham still making 40 per cent of jewellery sold in the country. It has more park space than Paris and more miles of canal than Venice, and from Birmingham you can travel all around the UK by boat.

Birmingham is all pedestrian plazas and grand old buildings.

Britain’s habit of “borrowing” architecture styles from throughout Europe is on full display in Birmingham: The Town Hall, still said to be haunted by the ghost of Charles Dickens, looks like the Pantheon in Rome.

Around the central city, baroque, ornate building styles from different eras and countries rub shoulders with each other.

And check out the central fountain, The River, opened with much fanfare by Princess Diana in 1993. Depicting a giant mother Earth, it was renamed by locals within days … to The Floozy in the Jacuzzi.

Just 20 minutes out of town by train or taxi, Black Country Living Museum is a fascinating way to spend half a day, an open museum to wander and interact with more than 50 character actors on site as you discover what life was like here tens and hundreds of years ago.

With a silent cinema, old-time sweet shop and pub on site, it’s all impossibly quaint. Horse and buggies roll by, and you can even ride the grounds in a retro double decker bus.

But dig a little deeper and you get more of a sense of the darkness of so much of human history: The chain maker, welding in his workshop, explains that children would start this gruelling job at seven years old.

Leading cause of death in the profession? Literally having your internal organs cooked over time as you worked next to that red-hot fire.

Stepping back in time at the Black Country Living Museum.

Popping upstairs for a cocktail at Sky by the Water.

Also outside the CBD, the city’s Botanical Gardens are perfect for an afternoon of peace and tranquillity, including tropical greenhouses and the national bonsai collection in the serene Japanese garden.

And a quick 20-minute train trip back out to the airport reveals that it’s also a thriving entertainment, shopping and restaurant precinct, home to The Bear Grylls Adventure, where thrill seekers can try activities including an assault course, shooting and archery, and even scuba diving with sharks (all while Bear’s voice rather hilariously booms motivational slogans over the building’s loudspeaker).

After all that action and exertion, treat yourself to a trip up to Sky By The Water next door – lushly appointed cocktail bar, with a thick glossy cocktail menu like an in-flight shopping catalogue.

Where to eat

Well, take your pick. Here’s where Birmingham really sings: It’s a foodie’s city.

Anyone who’s been to London in recent years will have seen just how monotonous the food offerings can feel (I counted seven Pret A Manger sandwich shops within a 300m radius of my London hotel during a recent stay), but Birmingham’s multicultural mix is reflected in its high quality restaurant offerings.

My first stop is lunch at Lasan, billed as the UK’s finest Indian restaurant. They’ve been open for 20 years but business really took off when they won the 2010 season of Gordon Ramsay’s TheF Word.

You understand why as soon as a complimentary pre-starter arrives at my table: Pani puri, a down-in-one-go concoction of chickpeas and chutney served inside a crispy hollowed-out bread that explodes in your mouth.

Lasan's Pani Puri is little, but it sure packs a punch.

Lunch at Lasan, considered the UK's finest Indian restaurant.

For dessert, skip the more familiar offerings and squeeze in the Beetroot Halva, sweet beetroot with caramelised nuts, apple crisps and dreamy pistachio ice cream. It’s a revelation.

Later that evening, still full from lunch, I wander into Loki Wine Merchant, a wine bar/bottle shop/neighbourhood hang with a very fun ‘help yourself’ gimmick: the wines are hooked up to self service vending machines.

Pay for your pour, grab a glass, press the button and out your wine comes, faves from France, Italy and Australia’s Barossa Valley. Like a grown-up’s slurpee machine.

Friendly manager Melissa seats me at the communal tables in front of the machines, telling me this is the “soul” of the two-storey venue.

“You sit down, five minutes later someone else comes and sits down – then who knows … magic happens,” she says with a wink.

Loki's wine vending machine is a fun touch.

Rudys does massive pizzas and potent cocktails.

Italian lovers should head to the buzzing diner Rudy’s for generous pizza servings and a mean negroni, and those looking for an Instagrammable night out should try Lulu Wild, high end Chinese in a stunningly decorated canalside restaurant (the dumplings are delicious but save room for dessert – a selection of puddings all paired with their own sake).

Out of town, it’s worth a visit to the suburb of Harborne, home to Giggling Squid Thai restaurant, while for dinner and a show, look no further the centre of town for Bavarian restaurant and “pleasure palace” Albert’s Schloss.

Where to stay

I stayed at the aptly named Grand Hotel, an imposing edifice looking out over the city’s picturesque Cathedral Square. And preconceived assumptions Birmingham would be a less-than-pretty industrial hub were assuaged by the views from the hotel window.

Isaac's Restaurant, downstairs at the Grand, is billed as ‘New York meets Birmingham’.

Inside, the hotel is sleek and full of personal touches – yoga mats in each room, a brand-new onsite gym and daily hearty cooked breakfast in the very flash Isaacs restaurant downstairs. You can understand why Tom Cruise stayed here while he was filming the latest Mission Impossible movie in town.

Getting there and around

Emirates flies Sydney to Birmingham via Dubai. That first 14-hour leg to Dubai is a bit of a killer for all of us out of practice with long-haul travel, but a seat free next to me and the plane’s massive movie selection make it more than bearable.

Once you land, it’s a mercifully easy train transfer to get to the centre of Birmingham: It took me 45 minutes exactly from leaving the plane to stepping off the train at Birmingham New Street, right in the heart of the city.

And Birmingham’s West Midlands location makes it an easy springboard to explore the rest of the UK. The airport is just a 20-minute train ride away, with flights around the UK, Europe and further afield. After my stay in Birmingham I head down to London – it’s just under a two-hour train ride, even quicker if you’re on an express train.

The writer travelled to Birmingham as a guest of the West Midlands Growth Company.