Hollis, Birmingham: ‘the best thing to happen to a railway arch since the train’ – restaurant review

Hollis occupies a railway arch on Floodgate Street in Digbeth, which is to say it has the acoustics of a bus garage, a wood oven where the back wall should be and, on a Thursday night, a queue. The owner-chef, Kiran Bhogal, 34, grew up in Smethwick and cooked for six years in London before coming home, and the menu reads like a letter to the West Midlands: Hereford beef, Worcester apples, Evesham tomatoes, every item with its postcode practically attached.

The trick is that none of this is self-regarding. Bhogal’s food is Punjabi at heart and the local sourcing is in service of the cooking rather than the other way round. A starter of chargrilled Evesham leeks, blackened in the oven and dressed with mustard oil, green chilli and a scattering of chana dal fried until it shatters (£9), is the best thing I have eaten in Birmingham this year. A plate of seekh kebabs made with Hereford mutton (£11) comes with pickled Worcester apple and a chutney so bright with mint it practically hums.

Mains are built around the oven. A whole butterflied sea bream, roasted over wood and finished with a tamarind glaze (£24), had crackling skin and flesh that fell off the bone; a bowl of black dal, cooked for 18 hours, is the only thing on the menu that is unapologetically rich, and at £8 it is also the only thing my companion refused to share. Breads, made at a counter you can see from every table, are superb: a flaky, buttery paratha for £3.50 and a naan with Black Country blue cheese that sounds like a mistake and is not.

There are misses. A dish of lamb chops with pumpkin and curry leaf (£26) was under-seasoned and the chops themselves were cut thin enough to overcook, which they had. A pudding of carrot halwa with brown butter ice cream was pleasant and forgettable, and the drinks list, while cheap, is short on anything to drink with spice: there are three beers from a Stirchley brewery, which is fine, and a wine list of nine bottles, none of them a riesling, which is not.

Service is quick, informal and knows the menu cold. Our waiter, Dev, talked us out of ordering too much, which almost never happens, and when the kitchen ran out of the bream halfway through our order he came back with an alternative and knocked the difference off without being asked. The room is loud and the chairs are hard; book for 6.30pm if you want a conversation.

Bhogal says she signed the lease on the arch because it was the only space in the city she could afford that had a flue, and that the oven, built by a Walsall blacksmith, cost more than the rest of the fit-out put together. It shows. Hollis is not a polished restaurant; it is something better, a kitchen with a clear idea cooking at full tilt in a room it has not quite grown into yet.

Dinner for two with drinks and service, about £95. Hollis, 14 Floodgate Street, Birmingham B5. Open Wednesday to Sunday, dinner only. Food 8/10, atmosphere 6/10, service 9/10.