4 hours ago
5
Birmingham’s dining scene often leans towards the intense. I recall a hazy afternoon seven years back at the Digbeth Dining Club, a ramshackle food market inside an old factory with few seats, loud music, breakfast cocktails and baos; it was a thoroughly chaotic way to take on board calories. More recently, I loved the city’s Albatross Death Cult, which served 12 courses of scintillating, seafood-focused finickiness to a pounding, darkwave industrial-goth soundtrack.
And, now, it is the turn of 670 Grams to bombard my senses Brummie-style, in Digbeth’s Custard Factory development. Chef Kray Treadwell began cooking at the city’s well-loved and much-missed Purnell’s, followed by a stint at Michael O’Hare’s The Man Behind The Curtain in Leeds. By 2021, he had been named Michelin’s UK young chef of the year after creating, with head chef Sacha Townsend (also formerly of several O’Hare projects), this kooky, monochromatic, moody restaurant that plays semi-loud hip-hop.
The decor is kitsch crypt, and very dark in places, with not a single 50-watt bulb in the house. The bathroom is purposefully styled with all the cosiness of Renton’s “worst toilet in Scotland” in Trainspotting. No actual overflowing toilets, I stress, but every wall festooned in graffiti and a toilet roll holder made out of a Polaroid camera. Pre-drinks in 670 Grams’ lobby, meanwhile, take place around fancy coffee tables and surrounded by moody art. It all feels a bit like being in an exclusive 1980s Soho hotel during a power cut.
Restaurants such as this – edgy, ballsy, disruptive – will always be a difficult sell to some audiences. The menu, which is painstakingly executed over six or 12 courses, is a cascade of small, meaningful bowls – an earthy bone broth here, a sliver of Jemison Park trout there – all of which just ooze flavour and, like all the best superheroes, turn up with an origin story. Meat and two veg this is not. Instead, expect the likes of a glossy half-inch of eggless custard-topped carabinero prawn with a smear of sambal and a sharp hit of lime, which is odd and delightful in equal measures. Similarly intriguing is a chunk of Cornish bluefin tuna in a froth of eel milk with a little jersey royal potato. Can you milk an eel? Is it the new new dairy alternative?
Courses turn up at a steady pace, brought by both Treadwell himself and his very capable staff. One highlight is two voluptuous, wobbling barbecued Cornish mussels in a Thai-ish turmeric sauce with a sweet hit of caramel apple; they are served with “sourdough” that is more like a crouton. 670 Grams is not a place to arrive famished and hoping for a slap-up. Rather, it is very clearly a journey, an exploration, a culinary art exhibition or a high-concept dining experience, or indeed any of those other terms I’ve ever used to define dinners of this kind (of which I’ve eaten hundreds), where chefs cook at a sublime level, but dish up such minuscule amounts.
The bottom line, however, is: would I remember this fancy-schmancy teensy dinner? And the answer is a resounding yes: there is something wildly likable about Peterhead Market cod laced with koji onion and sesame cauliflower, and a brief but meaningful portion of Staffordshire texel lamb cooked in jerk-influenced spices and served with a slice of barbecued hispi cabbage. The lamb comes with a rich sauce made from sheep’s milk and further hints of that jerk rub. Every element of 670 Grams’ menu is doubtless sketched out, cogitated over and measured to within an inch of its life.
Any hopes that the dessert courses might provide some much-needed refuge from all this intensity are immediately dashed when they bring out carrot cake with a frosting made of lamb fat. That would have been the point when my old Aunt Pat, God rest her soul, would have clutched her pearls, grabbed her handbag and flounced out mumbling loudly about her Women’s Institute recipe. Being a brave sort, I stayed put, and it turns out that lamb fat does, in fact, work rather nicely in a sweet icing. And isn’t lamb and carrots a classic combo, anyway? Even so, I won’t be looking for lamb-flavoured sponge cakes turning up in a Greggs meal deal any time soon.
The marvellous final course was much safer ground: a tribute to the local Cadbury’s factory and its beloved Fruit & Nut bar, albeit one made with tulakalum grand cru chocolate, prunes steeped in pedro ximénez and almonds. Right to the end, 670 Grams is exceedingly Birmingham: dark, daunting, uncompromising, doing its own weird thing and never, ever boring.
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670 Grams 4 Gibb Street, Birmingham B9, 07304 071289. Open lunch sitting Thurs-Sat 1pm (plus last Sun of month 3pm), dinner sitting Weds-Sat 7pm. Tasting menus only, six courses £75, 12 courses £115, both plus drinks and service
