Steamhouse Bagel Shop, 6 Temple Row, Birmingham, M2 5HG
6/8 Kafe used to be a tiny delight, tucked away ‘out the back of Rackhams’, and serving fantastic coffee in an independently run coffee shop that was a treat to duck into to escape the city centre bustle. Sadly, it closed down, and for a while the space it had inhabited remained empty and alone.
No longer.
Steamhouse Bagel Shop has moved in to bring brand new bagel brunch to the city centre. Heading here with friends for the first time, we were all ready to fulfil our best New York fantasy dreams with a late morning brunch. The tram passes the end of the street, people flood out of the offices opposite while an alarm blares out, and late in the morning St Phillips churchyard is filled with people spilling out of the workplaces around to enjoy lunch in the fragile sunlight. Steamhouse Bagel remains a lovely calm oasis in the mid-morning rush. Inside, it is all wooden planks, green and white natural styled decor, shlumpy cushions on wooden benches: not fancy, but calm and pretty in contemporary hipster style.
It’s obviously still a tiny dot of a place, with the bar down one side and an L shape of two-person wooden tables against a wooden bench down the far wall giving it a decidedly cosy feeling. A number of single types were in there on a weekday midmorning, wireless headphones jammed in, hard at work on their Apple Macs, carefully groomed beards properly in place, working their way slowly through coffee and a Pastrami Po Boy perhaps and carefully ignoring the world jammed up in their surroundings. It does, in these essentials, feel quite New Yorkery. You can fit a pram in there if you get the table by the door.
The service is good, and staff seem to fill the shop, seemingly slightly too many women behind the counter than can strictly speaking fit or are necessary in the quiet when we arrived. I imagine at lunchtime, given its proximity to the Business quarter, it suddenly becomes heavingly busy, and the gaggle of baristas and bagelers becomes justified. The coffee is good.
The bagel menu comes in three parts, the classics, the house specials, and the breakfast bagels, available until 11am. Disastrously for a bagel shop, they were out of salmon, which seems like an egregious ordering error. Denied salmon, other choices must be made. After choosing a white, wholemeal, or ‘everything’ – which means ‘seeds on top’ – bagel, first up the breakfast bagel, which is the least New York option on the menu. If you voted for Brexit, this is the bagel for you. It’s a bit disappointing obviously: sort of a sad replacement for a proper sausage bap.
Ordering this bagel is like going to Italy and ordering chips rather than pasta: only you can be blamed if it isn’t exactly magical.
Really, there are much more delicious options. The Yogi, for example, with falafel, grilled peppers and mango chutney, is a treat. Or the Reuben, which comes with pastrami, swiss cheese, sauerkraut, pickles, Russian dressing and leaves. Much more international. And a Reuben feels very American to order, one of those sandwiches that in a pre-internet age you’d hear mentioned in an American sitcom and (without Wikipedia) have no idea what on earth they were talking about. All the bagels are served with nachos. For 80p more, you can add a dip to your order.
There is one toilet at the back, a funny suite of rooms you lock yourself into, with the sink in one room and the toilet in the other. A touch less stylish or polished than the actual restaurant, it has to be said.
In summary:
Price: mid range – £5.50-7.50 for an eat in bagel with nachos. 80p extra for dip for the nachos.
Atmosphere and design: standard hipster – exposed wooden boards, green and white colour scheme etc
Food: bagels with nachos. Choice of white/wholemeal/seeded bagels, whole range of delicious fillings from simple to fancy, but – disastrously – out of salmon when we visited
Enjoyment: a lovely little treat in the city centre
brumbreakfast 