When Dr HH and I visit his family in the midlands, we almost never go to any restaurants because he does not want to miss an opportunity for a meal cooked by his mother. This is an understandable position, because her food is wonderful, but still, it’s nice to get out occasionally. After eyeing it up for a few years, this summer we finally committed to visiting Land, an all vegan fine dining restaurant right in the centre of Birmingham.

The good news is that it’s reasonably priced – £45 for 8 courses in summer 2023. The bad news is that you have to pay in full in advance when you make your booking, including your tip. I don’t like the idea of giving a tip for service without knowing what the service is like, but fortunately it didn’t disappoint and I didn’t regret my decision. It is weird though, and worth bearing in mind if you’re planning on making a booking.

The restaurant is stylish and quiet, and service was very attentive – though some of the dish descriptions came in a little too quietly for us to catch all the details. And the food was delightful!

The first course was this potato croquette topped with kimchi ketchup and garlic emulsion. It was a very promising start – the croquette was nicely crispy on the outside and fluffy inside, and there was a lovely balance of garlic and heat from the sauces. Delicious!

I’m not the biggest fan of sweet potato, but this dish really impressed me both in terms of presentation and taste. The sweet potato was layered with nori and lying in some delicious dashi with herb oil. It all had a great umami flavour, and was very moreish.

This dish looks somewhat elusive here, but it was courgette and salsa verde under a sesame cream. Both Dr HH and I found this our least favourite dish of the meal, because the flavours didn’t really sing – the sesame was nice though.

Both of us agreed that this was the dish of the day. There were little confit cherry tomatoes with sunflower seed cream and tapioca, sitting in a tomato consommé with coriander oil. The consommé was so flavoursome, it was absolutely incredible. The confit tomatoes themselves were probably the most boring part of the dish – everything else was absolutely bursting with flavour.

The next course was roasted cauliflower with curry satay and peanuts. This started out a bit underwhelming, but it really grew on me – the heat from the satay built up as the dish progressed. The texture of the cauliflower was perfect, and the crunch of the peanuts was very welcome.

This laksa was the second best dish of the day for us, and flavourwise was it was more of an instant hit than the previous course. It contained carrot noodles, pickled shimeji, and chilli oil. The broth was the star, of course – extremely flavoursome. We debated whether it would have been better with real noodles rather than carrot ones, but to be honest we had no issues with the carrot.

This was the first dessert, and it was an absolute delight – cashew cream with crushed fiorentina, macerated strawberries, and elderflower syrup. The cream was a touch heavy and maybe a vanilla flavour to it would have been nice, but this was generally luxurious and delicious.

The second dessert was not quite as good, unfortunately. We had charred pineapple with coconut ice cream, toasted coconut, a tuille, and soy caramel sauce. It was quite light and refreshing, but unfortunately the soy flavour was not detectable and that sounded like the most intriguing element. All in all, the balance of flavours was just a bit better on the previous dessert – I might have enjoyed this one a bit more if I hadn’t had the other one immediately beforehand.

Still, we were well fed and had no complaints at the end of the meal, and Land made my list of top restaurants of 2023. It’s fun to see what talented chefs can do with fruits and vegetables, and how much flavour they can get out of them. The dishes felt fresh and creative, and the eight courses were well balanced so that we didn’t feel stuffed by the end. Definitely recommended if you’re in Birmingham!