Flat Iron have made it to Birmingham and so the usual flock of camera rigs, lighting, and breathless adjectives have followed. Except, somewhat oddly, this opening has not been met with the usual superlatives, maybe because Birmingham has reached saturation on steak restaurants, but more likely that Flat Iron have opted to use their London PR over the one that does everything in Birmingham, leaving the invited stuck between a free meal and potentially jeopardising the next invitation if they don’t pretend that Cow & Sow is better. The feedback has omitted the usual glowing enthusiasm for the tropes of “nice addition” and “not as good as”, which is a shame because Flat Iron is actually a very good addition to the city, even if I could have told you that without visiting this one.
You see, when they announced the opening in Birmingham I was, in truth, equally non-plussed. They have seventeen in London, for which I go to the Borough one fairly often, and then there is the small matter that they chose to open in Brighton, Bristol, Cambridge, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Liverpool and Glasgow before deciding that the second city will do. The move was a curious one given the aforementioned glut of beef-based competition, and then there was the location, on the strip of Temple Row that is possibly the worst place in Birmingham on a Saturday afternoon (a factor in Oyster Club closing was the river of bottomless brunch vomit that flows down the street), but hey, they are here and the product is a lot better than the so called competition, like Gaucho, and especially Cow & Sow. And if you are wondering what I have against the latter, I’m still not over the pineapple and sriracha combo they served me.
The concept is idiot proof; they do beef, properly aged, either as the flat iron (a featherblade cut from the shoulder), or as a rib eye, with a changing burger option and some fancier cuts on the board. No starters per se, and no desserts either, though they do give you a token for an ice cream on the way out, because what is better than eating an ice cream on the cold streets of Birmingham in November. I have the burger, it’s Oklahoma style with loads of onions cooked into the patty which has good flavour but way too many inedible bits of cow inside. That said, it’s a big sweaty enjoyable mess, which is more than acceptable given that’s exactly what I identify as.
My dining companion (whose company is paying for lunch) gets the wagyu bavette. They explain it a little too much, the provenance and the cut, though I gather that’s a reaction to some negative comments that they have, and after all the train of society can only move as fast as its slowest carriage and we have some extremely slow carriages here in Birmingham. The meat is superb; buttery and rich, cooked and rested exactly as it should be. They do really know their beef and whilst they might not offer the huge cuts of instawank that others do, it’s comforting to know that a steak dinner can be both affordable and competent.
Sides range from decent chips, to a really good mac and cheese and a kale caesar thingy that would be better with just about anything other than bloody kale. We both have a laugh at the pretentious way of serving a passable old fashioned and my red tastes even better when I know that someone else is paying for it. The bill is about £90, which I would gladly spend again on my dime, with my wife, or my dad, or just about anyone who occasionally values restaurants as a place of eating over loitering. Flat Iron is here, I for one am pleased, even if it is going to be tough in this city, in that location, and with the competition around them.
8/10
