Good dim sum is about the format as much as the food: small plates, steamed and pan-fried, built for a table that keeps ordering rather than one that orders once and waits. Birmingham has real options for it, and where you go depends on what kind of dim sum experience you’re after.
What Makes Great Dim Sum
The steamed-versus-pan-fried split is the first thing to get right: steamed dumplings for delicate, ingredient-forward flavour, pan-fried for texture and char. A proper dim sum menu gives you both, in portions built for sharing across the table rather than a single plate per person. If you want the full history behind it, we’ve written about that too.
Dim Sum in Birmingham’s Chinatown vs Brindleyplace
Birmingham’s Chinese Quarter is the city’s traditional dim sum destination, and it’s worth knowing that going in. This isn’t a claim that Brindleyplace replaces it. What Brindleyplace offers instead is a different setting: modern, cocktail-led, and built for an evening out rather than a quick lunch stop. Lulu Wild sits firmly in that second category.
Lulu Wild’s Dim Sum Menu
Lulu Wild’s food menu leads with dim sum: steamed and pan-fried varieties, plus two sharing-format options built specifically for groups, the Tea House Sharer and the Searcher’s Sharer. Alongside them, signature plates like Black Cod and slow-cooked aromatic crispy duck round out a menu that treats dim sum as the centrepiece, not a starter section to skim past.
Pairing Dim Sum With Cocktails
This is where Lulu Wild genuinely differs from Chinatown’s dim sum specialists: a cocktail-forward drinks list built to sit alongside the food menu, not a wine-and-beer afterthought. If you want dim sum as part of a proper night out rather than a fast lunch, this is the format built for it.
How to Book
Lulu Wild is in Brindleyplace, a short walk from Birmingham city centre. Book a table to try the dim sum menu, or see the full food menu before you go.
