Odd and delightful in equal measures
B
irmingham’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.
