Birmingham’s central restaurants long had a reputation as soulless places which emptied quickly, but this state of affairs has changed dramatically, with smart, new venues sprouting up in the slipstream of the growth in the conference- and trade-fair business, particularly along Broad Street, near the ICC. There’s also a concentration of decent, reasonably priced restaurants in the Chinese Quarter, just south of New Street station, on and around Hurst Street.

Birmingham’s gastronomic speciality is the balti , a delicious and astoundingly cheap Kashmiri stew cooked and served in a small wok-like dish called a karahi , with nan bread instead of cutlery. Although balti houses have opened up within the city centre, the original and arguably the best balti houses are in the gritty suburbs of Balsall Heath , a couple of miles to the south of the centre, and Sparkhill , about three miles to the southeast. Some of these are listed here - all are unlicensed, so take your own booze.

City centre pubs vary as much as you’d expect. The liveliest, catering for a mixed bag of conference delegates and Brummies-out-on-the-ale, are liberally sprinkled along Broad Street, in the immediate vicinity of the Convention Centre, and in Brindley Place. Most of them are decorated in sharp, modern style, but there are one or two more traditional places here as well - as there are in other parts of the city centre.