Chez Mal Birmingham — Restaurant in Birmingham

When you’re away on business, it’s usually a compromise to dine in the hotel. Sometimes even in reasonably smart hotels, you’re confronted with a steak and ale pie, or fish and chips. They used to say in cities you’re never more than 5 metres from a rat. Now you’re never more than 5 metres from a Thai green curry.

So imagine my surprise… nay… delight this evening, when Malmaison Birmingham’s brasserie knocked it out of the park.

There was something in the room about half price steaks on a Thursday. I asked myself if I could put myself through it. After all, you never know if you’re going to get one of those zeebo things instead of a cow or a side serving of CJD.

Despite me turning up in a steely mood, bracing myself for a depressing and anodyne meal cooked by an imbecile, I was escorted across the restaurant with great finesse by Bismark. I half assumed he was pointing me to a table for two in the window, but he actually afforded me an entire booth to myself. When does anywhere do that for a lone diner?

That’s a good start, I told myself. Then my eyes started scanning the place for filth, and there was none. Nothing. Not even a watermark on the cutlery or the glassware.

Service was swift, personal, well rehearsed, and never too professional to simply be nice. So after all that, I expected my medium fillet steak to ruin everything, with some combination of still having a pulse, being cooked like Freddy Kreuger, or being so full of gristle my plate would go back looking like I’d taken out someone’s appendix. It was literally perfect. One of the top 5 fillet steaks I think I’ve had anywhere. Assiduously cooked to my order and smartly presented.

The side dish of salad was a bit naff though. The leaves were very fresh, the dressing was better than I imagined, and the presentation did its best, but it was far too large and needed much more diversity – not just a huge bowl of anodyne leaves, of which only the top ones benefited from the dressing. That was only 4 quid so I am over it. Just.

Almost ordered the Vahlrona Torte, then noticed it was 1300 calories. Really? How on earth can one portion of anything have 1300 calories this side of Florida? To each his own, and really they’re to be praised for putting the calories on the menu and giving people a choice. They had a cheesecake for 350 calories so there was something for everyone.

I went for the Mounjaro-friendly crème brûlée and it turned out to be a good call. It was enormous but not at the expense of quality. Not the best I’ve ever had but not a frozen 3664 / Brake Brothers atrocity either.

As the meal progressed, I was served by Raj, Hasti and Warren at various points too. I saw less of them than Bismark of course, but what I saw was thoroughly up to scratch.

Not only has this experience improved my perception of Malmaison, it has also left me with a better impression of Birmingham. That is no mean feat with me being a Manc.

After all, ask a Brummie what England’s second city is and they’ll say it’s Birmingham. Ask a Manc the same question and we’ll tell you...

Firstly I have to say the services and atmosphere of the Melmasion Bar and Grill was superb. We spent Saturday night in Birmingham and stay at the Melmasion hotel, as we knew we going to have a long day so booked a table at the hotel in house restaurant for ease. We ordered food and drink and waited for our starters to arrive. After what seemed like a long wait the started arrived. The starter were ok but nothing special, I had the steak tartar and my partner had the scollops. The Tartar was a little grey and not the normal pink colour and felt like it had been sitting in a fridge for a while.

For the main I have the fillet steak with 3 time cooked chip and Cauliflower cheese, the other half had the New York strip steak, fries and again the Cauliflower cheese. There was another fairly long wait before the food was brought to our table.

The main course was an utter disappointment, while both steaks had been cooked as requested (blue for the fillet and rare for the New York Stripe) every thing was cold. There was nothing hot, everything was tepid at best. My cauliflower was just cold, it like all of the sides were served in small cast iron pots, which were all cold to the touch. It felt like everything had been precooked, chilled and then warmed up to serve, but nothing had been warmed up to the point it was hot. The menu made a big thing about how the kitchen used a special charcoal to give that authentic BBQ flavour to the steaks. They shouldn't had bothered and there was absolutely no BBQ flavour at all. I sent back my Cauliflower cheese as this was so cold it had congealed. A replacement did appear but only after I had finished eating and the plates were about to be cleared away.

We both decided to have the Creme Brûlée for dessert as we felt that given how the rest of the meal had gone, a cold dessert would be cold when it arrived. To our surprise the crisp caramel top was warm and the creme custard was chilled. We can only guess it was blow torched after being removed from the fridge, before being served. However having eaten the dessert we both noticed that there was a small amount black residue left on the inside of the dish it was served in. Given how disappointing the rest of the meal was we didn't even bother to point this out to the serving staff as we had given up at this point.

To be honest I wouldn't have even bothered to write a review as the meal was mediocre at best. We both felt we could and have cooked more appealing and flavoursome steak dinners at home.

But when you spend just over £100.00 a head on a meal, you do expect and really should get a hot, well cooked, flavoursome meal, instead of the boring cold offering that was served up to us.

This would have been a 1 star review if it hadn't been for the staff and atmosphere. But if you want a good hot meal don't book here there are plenty of other good restaurants near the hotel and we wished we had made the effort and booked one of them instead of wasting...

I booked two nights at malmaison hotel with the 2 courses and full breakfast. I want to mention that the staff from reception and from the breakfast were amazing ,professionals and kid's friendly. Unfortunately I can't say the same thing about the Manager from the restaurant the food was delicious but the services ... was totally lack of ethics. The second night I was, the Manager from the restaurant knew that I have packages and he sent me a bill of £100 for supplements and he was "busy " 10 -15 minutes ,I explained to the waiter that I have package and that the bill is a mistake then he comes back with a new bill for supplements which I signed after I signed I checked the receipt and I asked the waitress if 2 cheesecake, 1 still water and 1 fruit bol can't be £56 he apologized and he bringed a new bill of £26 and I said that he can put on my room . I had to go to my room with the dessert because my daughter she felt asleep in the restaurant. Few minutes later the waiter appear to my room and asked me to pay the bill because they don't have my card details, I told him that I'm in pijamas and that I can call reception and give my details over the phone he insisted to go at the reception which finally I went. I went to the reception to pay and wasn't possible to pay because the restaurant didn't sent my bill to my room therefore I was with the card at the restaurant and I paid and the Manager assured me that everything is 0 and that he will confirm with the reception. When I checked out in the morning a bill of €50 something was on my room. Therefore the staff from the restaurant tried to over charge me for no reason even I left tips £10 each time I was at the restaurant. I explained at the reception what happened and luckily they believed me and he apologized for the restaurant staff behavior.

Now I know that there are camera and they easy can see that last night I was up and down 3 times with the card around 8:30 -9 pm.and they clearly can see that indeed I paid and also I can take bank statements from the bank and show because I live in Birmingham and I can go with the bank statements back anytime. Now this is lack of respect and ethics because they put me to sign a wrong bill then apologies bring a new one but send the old one to the reception. Even the rooms and the food are amazing I will never go to eat at Chez Mal because their behavior and lack of respect I'm a nice person it doesn't mean...