A couple of weeks ago we were invited to one of the launch nights of a new restaurant in Birmingham, Le Monde Fish Bar & Grill . Le Monde is a long standing resident in Cardiff, but this is the first venture elsewhere. Birmingham (not surprisingly given its landlocked location) is not at the forefront of fresh fish offerings so this has the potential to really fill a gap in the market.
I’m not treating this as a review as such, I don’t feel it’s entirely fair to review somewhere thats been open less than a week and nit pick at all the little teething issues that aren’t quite right, but hopefully it will give you a feel for the place!
The restaurant itself is really large, kitted out with lots of dark wood and elegant fittings with a large open kitchen and fantastic large glass counters with tremendous displays of fresh fish and meat.
You have the option to order from the menu at the table, or go up to the counters and choose your meat/fish, size and sides. For me this felt a little weird, I think I’d prefer one or the other, never one for decisions, me. I was worried that at peak times there would be long waits to order front he counter, but to be fair this didn’t seem the case at all. When you order at the counter, if you opt for salad with your meal you get given a bowl to fill up at the salad bar (a bit Harvester-esque…) but the salads on the whole were very tasty, particularly the potato salad!
Moving on to the main event, the food. We couldn’t fault any of the cooking our fish – the prawns, scallops and tuna that I had were lovely, as was Lee’s whitebait and sea bass. The latter of these was cooked whole and filleted at the table by the staff, which was done very well.
Whitebait
Prawn & Scallop Skewers
Seabass
Tuna Steak
Puddings were very traditional and also got a thumbs up.
Sticky Toffee & Banana Pudding
Eton Mess
Overall the food was well cooked and tasty, its not fine dining, but you’re sure to get a decent meal. I’m sure all the other bits will fall into place and the place has great potential. The prices are at the upper end of the market for sure, so be prepared for this before you choose the biggest lobster from the display…!