The Victoria

At one point I think I spent more time in The Victoria then I did at home! I visited last week for the first time in about 8 months and I was thrilled that everything I adored about it before has remained. The first thing that grabs you as enter is the décor. It mixes it’s Victorian charm with bold prints, bright colours and intriguing art work which gives the venue a bucket load of character!
The offerings behind the bar are extensive and no matter what your tipple of choice, you will be satisfied! I would always opt for for one of the many ales or one of their fantastic cocktails. It attracts an eclectic clientele of all ages and styles which i think a lot of places today lack. It is incredibly busy on a Friday and Saturday with dj’s providing the music downstairs and you will find people dancing around in the back area of the pub. The upstairs plays host to live bands and club nights playing music such as funk, soul and disco so it always pulls a different crowd to your average place on a weekend.
I haven’t tried the food here for a while but every time I have it has been spot on. Sundays are always a winner where you can come early for some food and end up spending the whole day making your way through the 2 for 1 cocktail menu. The vibe is so relaxed, the music is on point and the staff are chatty so you feel absolutely no desire to leave in a hurry.
My latest visit and writing this review has definitely rekindled my love for The Victoria and I’m sure I will be returning again very soon!

Been here a handful of times, and my visit last week smelt a lot better (or I was intoxicated enough not to notice) Waheyy!
Staff are pleasant, there are places to sit, but it normally gets pretty packed.
Well stocked bar, with a nice range of cocktails presented in a menu to look like a penguin book which is cute. They were missing a handful of ingredients, that meant my companion and I’s first choice of beverages weren’t available (no earl grey syrup, for shame!!!) but what we got was tasty all the same.
They were also nice and generous with their whisky measures, which was wonderful, but probably not something we needed before the train home after our day of festivities where we were hardly leading by example… I’ll re review this place on my next visit after less gin…

Been for cocktails in this bar several times and have to say the menu is fantastic if a little expensive. The atmosphere can be hit and miss and the odd design makes It sometimes feel like your losing people.
Eaten food once and it was ok but not amazing, I will be returning for the cocktails but possibly not the food.

I have had many good times at the Victoria. Not only are the food offerings all excellent, the drinks and bar service also deserve some serious recognition. The interior of the venue has been transformed from an old victorian boozer into a modern and interesting space with large stained glass windows and loads of interesting seating areas dotted around the place.
On the weekend this place really does take on a different personality all together. A selection of Dj’s play the downstairs area while club nights and live music events happen in the upstairs space. Expect a mixed crowd of people working their way through the extensive cocktail list or dancing to the well selected mix of classic gems in the back bar area. Many club nights in Birmingham have found their feet at the Victoria and have gone on to big things, as a venue it champions young creative people wanting to do something different.
There are a whole host of offers that change all the time here, some of my favourites at the moment include two for one cocktails Monday-​Friday 4PM-​7PM, the £5.50 lunch deal and the two classic burgers for £10 every Monday. This is a venue not afraid to change it up, have a bit of fun and generally be ahead of the crowd.

Really nice pub, always buzzing and not just with the theatre crowd.
Great cocktails and fantastic beer selection. The cocktails are really what make this place for me– the espresso martini is great, as is the pear & cinnamon fizz (twice I’ve ordered one and they’ve been out of the cinnamon syrup because the drink is so damn popular!).
Super accommodating bar staff that will really whip up any drink you can imagine for you, and everything is quite reasonably priced (£4-£7 for the cocktails). My friend was ecstatic that the Victoria has Yamazaki whisky available.
I have not yet tried the pizzas but they look very good… food always seems a little pricey from a glance at the menu, and it’s hard to justify with Cherry Reds right down the street, but I’ll have to give it a try at some point! :P

I do have a soft spot for the sticky floor, too crowded, drinks flying everywhere aesthetics.

This place was a terrific find, with a mixture of a Victoriana and a modern interior and a bar stocked full of decent beers both draught and bottled/​canned.
It was a cracking place to start our team night out — I think almost all of us had a couple of pints of Butty Bach by Wye Valley Brewery and lined our stomachs with different flavoured pork scratchings (not usually a fan, but they were not too bad).
We didn’t eat a meal here but they look to offer a range of pizzas and burgers. It was good enough for comedian Phill Jupitus who sat in for a quiet solo meal (we let him be) before, I imagine, his gig nearby.
If you’re in the vicinity and want to escape the expansive road works in the city centre, then this is a beery haven not to be missed.

Quiz night at the Victoria and first things first, it’s a great quiz, £1.00 per person and if you are 6 or more you get a free pizza, apparently it was a lovely pizza too. I had eaten before arrival so passed the opportunity to try free pizza and it was a shame as it was a lovely looking thin crust and very rustic homemade pizza.
The quiz is horribly difficult so immense fun and I’m proud to say we came a respectable 3^rd place. The quiz is tv and music based.
Now for the basics, the Victoria is a bitters & twisted pub so it’s off to a good start, fantastic cocktail menu, even the actual menu is cute, looking like an old book. I had a brandy Alexander, a perfect nightcap after my pint of cider, because the old style interior screams «real ale boozer» and I just knew the beers and ciders would be top notch, so a pint of symonds cider was perfect, my husband had a pint of porter and was offered the choice of a straight glass or a jug, oh joy, the sheer nostalgia of seeing a pint in a jug.
The interior is er … quirky, different… the main bar has paintings in frames on the ceiling, the bar we was in has a figurehead (like the old ships have on their front) painted onto the chimney wall, a dusty mirror ball and an illuminated fireplace, unfortunately the gents lavatory is directly off this bar and the urinal tablets were a bit strong! But the Victoria has a great feel to it, the staff are super, the décor you will remember and the clientele are trendy, well they were all very hipster types the night I was there. So don’t be put off by the «old mans pub» exterior, this is a great place.

The Victoria now is arguably one of the most famous pubs in Birmingham. Anyone who drinks often in the City Centre will know of it and will have been there before.
The Vic belongs to the famous independent group of pubs ‘Bitters and Twisted’ and is probably their most important venue of all as it really seems to be what inspires the rest.
I have been to the Vic many times, I’ve had some great times and I’ve had some OK times but I’ve never had a bad time and thats proof of what the place does well. It sells cocktails, quality ones, it serves food, decent food, it had a good selection of beers and thats really where it ends with the Vic.
The function room upstairs is a decent size but nothing to rave about, quite the standard of what you would expect for a city centre pub anyway. Its a nice place to get served as well as the bar being in the centre means that if its busy where you are you can just walk on round to get served somewhere else.
I will always continue to go to the Vic for drinks with mates, its somewhere I can rely on being a good pub location. Weekends tend to be a bit busier than I would like but that just means the pub is doing well and I need to find somewhere else really.

The Victoria really is a tale of two pubs.
1. At the weekend this place gets seriously busy with the music up and the cocktails flowing freely.
2. During the week it’s a great sit down pub with a good selection of drinks, both ales and spirits, and a good selection of tasty well priced food (go on the right day and they have some really good deals).
So if busy isn’t your thing, go down in the week and enjoy a top class burger or pizza and a glass of your favourite tipple, either way you’ll be in a well decorated inviting and interesting space.

Now I’ve had food at The Victoria it’s time to update my review!
Popped in on a Monday evening for 2 burgers for £10. A pretty good deal including fries and coleslaw.
Very much liked the atmosphere on a weeknight as opposed to the weekend. It was pretty busy but you could still find a seat and have a chat. I’ve not really thought of The Victoria as a casual pub to drop into in the week but this evening made me correct that!
The food is now provided by Vicky’s Kitchen– burgers and pizza– as the Soul Food Project has moved on. We both ordered Black and Blue burgers. These arrived on trendy wooden boards, very stylishly presented. I love all that.
Really enjoyed my burger, the blue cheese was delicious but the Cajun Mayo cut through and stopped it being too heavy. Great bacon and brioche bun too. All in all a really satisfying burger and I will definitely be back again!

The Victoria can be found on a side road just off Hill Street and is part of the same building as The Alexandra theatre and you will often see lorries and tour buses parked just down from the pub entrance.
The Vic is part of the Bitters n Twisted chain that consists of the Island Bar (across the dual carriageway), the Rose Villa Tavern (in the Jewellery Quarter), the Jekyll and Hyde (Steelhouse Lane, town centre) Bodega (town centre) and The New Inn (Harborne).
The cocktails are great (if you want even more choice, try the Island bar), the décor is fantastic and the staff are friendly.
Food is available although I haven’t tried it since it change from the Soul Food Project (bring back the pulled pork!).
There is a function room upstairs that is used for various kinds of nights and Dr Sketchy’s burlesque and art session is also run in there (usually once every other month, and well worth the admission).
If you arrive later than about 4 at the weekend, expect to be stood and a bit cramped as it’s understandably very popular in the evenings.
If you want to take friends somewhere a bit different, this is definitely one of the places to go.

I’ve been going to the Victoria for a few years now. In my increasingly distant youth I used to party the night away upstairs at club nights such as Moschino Hoe, Versace Hottie. Some great nights were had — the Vic attracts a varied crowd and nights were always busy. The décor of the Victorian pub is quirky, a bit of a modern take on Victorian/​Edwardian design with colourful lampshades and pictures of human-​animal hybrids.
Nowadays I tend to go to the Vic for the cocktails and food. As one of the Bitters’n’Twisted family members, the Vic offers a menu full of tasty cocktails as well as a very well-​stocked bar. Cocktails are loosely themed around the venue’s Victorian styling, with a ‘Victorian Classics’ selection that includes Victorian Lemonade and Brandy Alexander amongst others. The cocktail menu is handily broken down into different prices. On my last visit on Sunday I tried the very tasty Apple and Blackberry Julep and Red Berry Cobbler from the £7 section, taking advantage of the Sunday two-​for-​one offer (Sunday is definitely the day to visit for a bargain, with two-​for-​one offers on some cocktails AND pizzas).
On to the food! I’ve eaten at the Vic a couple of times — usually on worse-​for-​wear Sundays (for purely geographical reasons) — and the food has always been yummy. On said Sunday visit Adam S. and I went for the two-​for-​one pizzas. Putting my head above the pepperoni-​peppered parapet I will go as far as to say that the pizzas were amongst the best I’ve ever devoured (and I’m a committed pizza eater). We went meaty and shared the Porktastic BBQ and the Meaty Inferno varieties. Both were authentic, thin’n’crispy (which I love), with heaps of fresh, tasty toppings. They were supoib and it only cost us £12 for both.

I’ve had some great times in The Victoria. It’s a bit of a chameleon, playing host to all types of music, people and events. Whether you want a relaxed Sunday, with some tasty food and a few drinks or a proper Saturday night out dancing away to great DJs, it’s sure the have something for everyone.
The Vic, has one of my fondest memories of my first New Year living in the City, when we stumbled from our apartment in the Orion Building to the back room of the Vic moshing away to «Killing in the name of». It was also where in the top function room that I remember seeing one of my guy friends in full fabulous feathers, makeup and huge heels. That’s the kind of difference in tone this place has. All welcome.
I recently went there for food with Oli M, using a prize I won at Unilocal’s Zomball and was able to try out their pizzas. Delicious. They had that homemade wood oven look and taste which was washed down nicely with a couple of their cocktails. Like all Bitters ‘N’ Twisted venues, they know how to make a cocktail. They also know how to run a bar and The Vic is no exception.
A must if you’re visiting Birmingham.
I’m told the Sound and Vision quiz is legendary too, and pretty difficult!

So my first time at the Victoria was the first time attending a Unilocal event (geek out) Didn’t get to eat or remember much about the place as I was distracted by meeting Unilocalers.
Second time at Geek out event I was more comfortable and familiar with the event. So first thing I wanted to do was try their food. I had the Chicken Licken’ Burger with sweet potato fries (£1 to upgrade from normal fries) I got to save up on money by using Vicky’s card (forgot the name, will have to get one for myself) It all came down to about £8 with a drink.
Before I get to food itself, the wait is a little long. If I were hungry and was on my own I would be pretty upset. Now the food… burger was delicious, loved it. Fries were great and salted just enough. Normally I don’t like salted fries, usually find too much salt.
Love the interior. The art work is pretty cool, lighting is great and music is not too loud. Had a fun night geeking out and talking to familiar faces :)

OK lets start off with the important bit, the drinks! As far as the victoria goes not a lot wrong here, craft beers, cocktails (primarily gin but they will swap out) and a good selection of draughts.
I’m a massive espresso martinin lover but on the vodka side rather than the gin so was pleasantly surpirsed when the bar staff offered the option to make it to order with no additional cost, this scored massive brownie points! The constant chirpy (but not annoyingly so) attitude of the staff also leads for an enjoyable drink whether a quick pint afterf work or a bit more of a sociable affair.
Food wise the victoria was always a good jaunt, with the old menu being based on the birmingham street food (jambalaya was fantastic) and the new menu only recently rocking in (if it’s as good as the Unilocal taster night then get in there!) there was choice for all, the out and out carnivore, the vegetarian or the adventurous foodie!
As for the social aspects of the venue the old vinyl night used to be a good time (bring along 3 tracks get them played) where you could find a massively eclectic mix to suit all tastes, failing that the air is always raft with conversation, not a quiet night sort of venue, which brings it on to the one downfall which all good city centre venues suffer — lack of seating… get in early or find a good perch and get ready to dive like vultures on those elusive seats!
Another venue I’d be happy to add as a repeat visitor!

The Victoria is a Theatre pub dating back to the 19^th century and apparently has it’s own ghost?
Reasonably priced cider. The Victoria also does a various selection of cocktails.
A really relaxing environment and somewhere I have popped in for a pint since after shopping.
The music taste played in there is different too, which I like, varying from disco, electric, punk to 90’s indie music. The staff are friendly and efficient.
It’s rare to see a pub these days with almost a 360 degree bar.
The food is very good, with various offers on the pizzas etc on certain evenings in the week. What’s more, you can request takeaway!!!
I’m looking forward to receiving my loyalty card.

Birmingham Gets Better
I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t sure what Brum would be like before I came to visit, and as far as 1^st impressions go, The Victoria really put me at ease. We were staying at a Hotel just around the corner, and this showed up on my Unilocal!Monocle — with a good average rating.
They have a great beer range, with a permanent tap dedicated to Magic Rock Brewing, who make some outstanding beers, and they have rotating taps of keg and cask also, which is right up my street. Their wine prices are pretty decent with a large glass of white coming in under £5 — which is great news for people who do their drinking in London and Edinburgh!
The food menu looked decent also, though we didn’t order anything — the service was very laid back but efficient, and the staff were all very upbeat. Music was good as well. The décor is modern pub, funky wallpaper and some great artwork throughout — good effort!

Had a really good night at The Victoria.
A lot easier to get to then I thought and a really good location near New Street Station, behind the Alexander Theatre. What I like is that this is also close to Brewdog and Cherry Reds making John Bright Street a bit more lively than I first though.
I was really impressed by the pizza’s, they are really well balanced with lovely melted cheese and fresh ingredients. The sour dough bases were cooked brilliantly, I’m not a crust fan but the dough was so tasty that I really enjoyed it.
There is such a good choice of pizza’s with nine to chose from you think it would be easy to pick one you would like better than another but each are very distinctive. Very glad they have «−4−1 pizzas on Wednesday which gives you a good opportunity to try all of them.
The cocktail choice was exciting as they’ve all been invented by the bar team. It makes a big difference to have new original cocktails as it shows they know what they’re doing. I tried to Black Forrest cocktail with Rum, raspberry liquer, chocolate liquer and cream and it was delicious.

Interesting ‘old’ style Victorian pub updated with a modern twist and young vibe. The bar is essentially a triangle, so there are three separate rooms. There is also an upstairs that can be used for private hire and has the monthly 80’s night ‘Betamax’ on as well as ‘Birmingham Sceptics talks’ monthly on a Wednesday.
They have just launched a new food menu. I have only sampled some of the pizza’s but they are delicious! Really light and the toppings are not the same as you would expect from Pizza Express or Dominos!!-Red cabbage, egg, courgette on a soda bread base. There are new cocktails too, which they seems to be very good at! Infact there is a wide selection of cocktails and beers and regular guest/​speciality ales.
They do two for one deals on Sundays too and too make things even sweeter, sign up for their loyalty card!
Great for theatre goers as it’s right next to the Alex!

Der Pub liegt keine 2 Minuten hinter dem Holiday Inn City Centre in Birmingham und man sieht es ihm von aussen an dass es mal ein richtig schöné alter Pub war. Die alte Eingangstüre ist noch von aussen zu sehen aber derweil nicht mehr in Betrieb.
Junges Publikum, mürrische Bedienung und eher auf Cocktails statt auf Ale getrimmt. Trotzdem sehr entspannt, die Gäste sitzen nach dem Einkaufen dort mit ihren Tüten alles auf den Boden geworfen und trinken ein Pint.