Le Monde

Great location and great fish! Had swordfish and tried some grilled tuna too. Very tasty and will be returning to Le Monde.

All the delights of the sea.
If you’re feeling fishy you can’t go wrong with Le Monde, this is a lovely atmospheric restaurant located just above Café Rouge in Brindley Place and coming up into the loft space with a good bar on your right and a counter full of fresh fish on your left gives a good first impression.
The counter really sets the tone for this place, it’s all about fish (although they do, do other things) and all the best bits are on display for you to pick as you please. It’s well worth having a look at the specials board here as they will have a good selection based on the seasonal catch and it is a little easy to miss as you walk into the restaurant proper.
Service is excellent and the staff are welcoming and friendly, plus they can debone a fish like nobody’s business is you ask them too.
Plenty of drinks on offer, the wine list has a really good informative layout.
It’s a bit above average price for the area but the produce is top notch, a bit different to your average fair and comes perfectly cooked.

A very strange place, setup looks a bit like a big fishmonger market place. Could be seen as innovative and display all the variety of seafood in a landlocked city as I read in a different review.
However, the food is simply crap and utterly overpriced! How can a fish dish be more expensive in Birmingham than in London?
Prawn cocktail as starter described as having Bloody Mary sauce and splash of vodka. Surely in a fish place you’d expect something interesting here: well, the prawns were not fresh but only these mini cooked ones bought at sainsbury’s. It did not taste like Bloody Mary with splash of vodka, and the sauce tasted like this nasty 1000 islands dressing. Disgusting, and grossly presented in a cocktail glass on top of an ugly bulk of lettuce. Simply ridiculous.
I’ll spare the experience of the red snapper and its mango Cajun-​spiced sauce. Will just say it’s the same type of industrial sauce as the prawn cocktail crap.
This place tries hard to position itself as a fine dining who know they what do. But it also fails equally as hard. And it is ridiculously expensive.

Being one of the UK’s most landlocked cities, Birmingham was never going to be a pescetarian’s playground. Yes there are restaurants with a few good fish dishes (I’m told San Carlo is the best, and the fish offerings at Côte and Andersons are always good), but no «fish restaurant» per se. Enter Le Monde Fish Bar & Grill. A stalwart of the Cardiff dining scene the Birmingham branch has opened, after a delay of a couple of months, above Café Rouge in Brindley Place. We visited in the opening week to celebrate finally exchanging on our new Harborne home.
The entrances are a little hidden, so do pay attention if you’re trying to find it. There’s one on just either side of Café Rouge, both having steps to the upstairs restaurant (one with disabled access lift). Inside it’s a bit of a hodge podge of styles. Reproduction Victorian furniture jars against modern chandeliers and glass cabinets, à la supermarket butchers and fish mongers, that brim with poultry, steaks, whole fish, lobster, and crevettes — a cornucopia of goodies for any gourmand.
It was rather loud when we were there, a crooner with guitarist giving us Nat King Cole and Andy Williams, but in the low ceilinged restaurant it was just a bit too loud for comfort, and we found ourselves shouting over the background music. We chose a seat at the back, away from the entertainment. Then comes the lesson. We were shown the menus, and told that we could order from the menu at the table but we should definitely go and look at the contents of the fresh meat and fish counters and order from the waiter there by pointing at what we wanted. It’s unusual in UK restaurants that one is confronted with the flesh that will soon become dinner, and it’s not for the faint of heart. After perusing the aisle, I decided I’d choose from the menu. I went to a steak house in San Francisco once where the waiter took great delight in producing great slabs of steaks on plates to explain what we could order, and promptly to his disgust I ordered the fish.
We ordered a bottle of Gavi to be getting on with which arrived a little warm, so we asked for an ice bucket to chill it down a little more, which was duly provided. One hopes the wine waiter doesn’t have a penchant for serving whites at the temperature they like them rather than at the temperature I like them (which is probably a bit warmer than most anyway, due to having Phil at Loki frequently telling me that «people drink whites too cold»).
For starters I had the scallop (with roe, which is unusual) and prawn skewers, it was nice and had a good char-​grilled flavour. Could’ve done with more than the dribble of sauce it was served with, and the lemon should have been de-​pipped or served in a muslin square. We also had the calamari which was a little on the chewier side of cooked than it could have been, we did mention that and it was taken off the bill.
For mains I tried the tuna steak with new potatoes. Again this was well char-​grilled and
served perfectly rare, but again the promised béarnaise sauce was rather meagre in quantity. We also had the fillet steak which was juicy (although maybe a touch over the medium-​rare we’d ordered), served on softened onions, with a pot of red wine and mushroom sauce, and excellent (really!) chips. We also had a side of brocolli with toasted sliced almonds. Note that most of the dishes are just portions of fish or meat, so you’ll generally need to order veg, spuds, and sauces separately. To finish we tried the ginger and lemon cheesecake for desert and it was very good indeed, light but fiery ginger working with the tangy lemon.
Service was reasonably swift and very polite, although we did have six different waiting staff attend our table throughout, and invariably that meant there were a couple of mix-​ups which then had to be sorted out.
After dinner we retired to the separate lounge bar to have cocktails. I was going to have a
Negroni but they had no Campari, not to worry though because the skilled cocktail waiter made me an Aperol variant of it which was delicious.
With starters, mains, sauces, sides, an average bottle of wine, and dessert, the bill was about £55 a head. Plus £10 each cocktail. It is upper end but if I’m honest we had a bit of a mediocre experience when we went. Bear in mind it had only been open 5 days so it hadn’t had time to bed in really. We will no doubt be back in a couple of months when everyone’s had a chance to learn their role and understand how the restaurant is going to work. Good luck to the team there, they obviously have lofty ambitions and with a few tweaks and some time, I’m sure they’ll make it into a fine addition to Birmingham’s ever growing dining scene

Had an amazing time. Heard lots of good things about this place so excited when we finally booked a table for my friends birthday.
Wine choice amazing and the food was superb. Very fussy about my steak but had no complaints here. The home cooked chips too were just perfect.
Will be back again and looking forward to it.

The restaurant sits above Café Rouge and had a comfortable feel to it. The menu is seafood focused but you can get meat dishes as well as surf and turf. We had a hard time getting served at the bar and the tap was broken but those things will happen. We had several appetizers: prawns and crab cakes. The lobster was small and both the appetizers and lobster were just OK. I enjoyed the salad bar. It was small but tasted fresh. The service was a bit slow and yet had a chaotic feel. The kitchen is right next to some of the tables where we say and was distracting. In addition the heat lamps when turned on illuminated the dimly lit place and disturbed the atmosphere. The beer selection was bottles and 4 tap brand name beers. Over all it was OK. There was something I still liked about environment but I would probably bot go back due to the food quality. While it wasn’t bad it didn’t stand out. I believe there are better places in the area.

Le Monde is stylish new seafood restaurant in the heart of the Brindleyplace area, a stone’s throw from both Broad St. and the ICC. Here you can expect super fresh seafood in a stylish setting.
First impressions of Le Monde were very good. From street level you walk up the stairs and emerge in the bar area. This is quite a cosy space around the well-​stocked bar. Away to the left the much larger dining area opens up. It’s a very stylish room, with dark décor and chandeliers dotted around. Along one side there’s a tantalising fish and fresh produce counter, leading up to an open kitchen.
Our waiter was French and very attentive. He seated us at our choice of table and talked us through the menus and the specials. He also invited us to have a look at the goodies on display at the counter if we wanted — there’s the option to choose your fishy.
Adam S. and I both ordered from the lunch menu, which consists of a starter and main for £12.50 with the added option of a glass of wine for £3.50. Bargainous! It is worth noting that there are vegetarian and meat options on offer, although the seafood dishes are definitely the stars.
I ordered spaghetti as my starter, and got a generous portion mixed with prawns, courgette and a chilli sauce that gave a nice heat to the dish. To follow I went for grilled pave of salmon. The salmon portion was very generous and absolutely delicious — I could tell that it was really fresh. The fish was drizzled with a sticky, sweet and spicy Jack Daniels BBQ style glaze. Most of the dishes seem to come with simple accompaniments — couscous, or potatoes prepared various ways. I quite like this, as it allows the seafood to really shine. I went for boiled spuds to go with my salmon.
I’d definitely recommend Le Monde as a lunch venue and think it would be really lovely for dinner. I’ll definitely be heading back to try more of what the main menu has to offer.

When I heard about a new seafood restaurant opening in Birmingham, I was pretty excited. Despite having a brilliant fish market, there isn’t a great selection of places specialising in seafood (Sushi being an exception) places available in the City.
I had been meaning to visit for quite some time and a lunch date with a friend presented the perfect opportunity to give it a go. Located above Café Rouge, you might walk past it before you realise where it is. There are two entrances to choose from. The main one is the side of the bridge connecting the ICC and Brindley Place or there is a back entrance (which is the first one you will come to if you are approaching from Broad Street). I got to the venue via this route and once I had spotted the signage, headed up the stairs to meet up with my date.
The staff welcomed me the minute I walked in. As it was a Tuesday lunchtime, I had worried that there might not be a space available, but it wasn’t an issue at all as the venue is actually pretty large. From the top of the stairs the bar area is to the right and the restaurant is to the left. The venue looks very sleek, decorated in dark tones with silver and sparkling detail.
Once seated, I was presented with a whole host of menus. There seems to be quite a large wine list here, but as it was a lunchtime; this wasn’t really explored. There is a good amount choice available on the «al la carte» or a smaller (but still quite generous) selection on the lunch menu (which is great value at £12.50 for two courses). I opted for the seafood spaghetti to start and the «mixed seafood grill» for the main.
As it is Christmas party season, several tables had been booked out by large groups celebrating. Our waiter was very open about the fact they had pre-​ordered and encouraged us to make our selections pretty quickly as to not endure a wait incurred by the kitchen cooking up their food. Once we had ordered, we only had a wait of around 10 minutes before our first courses were bought out to our table.
My Starter was huge! Delicious spaghetti in a tomato sauce with shrimps and veggies. It was a delight! I would definitely have this again. The mains were nice too. A large scallop, a monster sized prawn and some other bits and pieces presented on a bed of cous cous. The main was smaller than I would have anticipated, but everything tasted fresh and was excellently seasoned.
The bill for 2×2 course meals, 2x soft drinks and a glass of wine came to £33.25 (which I thought was pretty reasonable for the quality). I wouldn’t hesitate to go back here and try the extended menu on an evening for a treat or a celebration.

Well, I’ve only been here for drinks so far, but I can recommend the cocktail menu!
My fist visit here was a rum tasting which was great fun. However, what prompted my second visit was a free cocktail voucher, that i had received due to slow service the last time. Anyway, I asked if there were any restrictions and the friendly helpful waitress said no, we could have what we wanted. Therefore I naturally went for the most expensive –a Kir Royale is normally £12! It was delicious:) I am tempted to go back again soon to try the Pumpkin Pie cocktail.
The main focus of this venue however is their seafood restaurant. I don’t eat fish, but there are plenty of other options available, so I don’t think I’d be stuck!

Slightly hidden above café rouge at brindley place but well worth investigating!
Really tasty food but service still a little fragmented but highly recommended! Scallops beautiful and chicken la monde was also delicious! I’ll definitely be going again.