You heard it here first — there’s a new trend in town and it’s all about elevated comfort food.
Gone are the days of polarised choice, where the options were high end heaven, or familiar food that comes with compromises. Now, the comfort food we all know and love is having a makeover, and it’s a trend that looks set to take hold in 2024.
Adam Bateman, Culinary Director of The Grand Hotel Birmingham, says the shift towards sophisticated simplicity may be in its infancy, but is firmly here to stay: “It began as the emergence of dining options that go deep on delivering specific cuisines, such as Vietnamese or Indian, in an elevated way.
“Now, the concept is being applied to British and US comfort food, and because that’s the food that many of us grew up with, it also draws on a sense of nostalgia. This trend is about delivering familiar dishes like burgers and macaroni cheese of a superior quality, that’s hard to resist.”
Flying the flag for elevated comfort food is Isaac’s, the restaurant where New York meets Brum at The Grand Hotel Birmingham. The restaurant has just released a new menu packed with familiar flavours — small plates and mains that will make mouths water, and where every dish is prepared with the best possible ingredients, sourced from the finest suppliers.
From mac and cheese with slow cooked, melt-in-your-mouth beef brisket to New York style hot dogs with crispy shallots, this menu will leave you spoiled for choice. Adam, who designed the menu with his creative team, added: “Quite simply, this is the food we love to eat.
“It’s deliberately down to earth but made from premium quality ingredients. We wanted to bring something new to the food scene in Birmingham that complements the incredible array of restaurants and fine dining options already on offer nearby.”
