Valentinos Restaurant

very good taste food, service good , i will go back

since the chef as changed in September 2008 the food is much bettervery good taste on everything, and proper traditional Italian food again on the new menu,if you love eating well go to valentino,

very good food , elegant and classic restaurant, very good chef, genuine Italian chef! i liked every minute there,and i will go back,

to me is one of the best restaurants around birmingham, food is great, and i like the restaurants classic like Valentino, staff are very welcome and that is it, sample.

I had heard that Valentinos has a good reputation in Harborne as being one of the few restaurants in Birmingham where one can get good, modern Italian food. How wrong was this impression! I had Mussels Marinara to start, and Seabass with Mango for a main. The mussels were of a bad quality (very small with dull, black shells) and they were rubbery and overcooked; the salty, soupy, cheat's maranara sauce seemed to be cooked with stock and didn't even have any tomatoes in it. The seabass was horrendously overcooked, awfully seasoned, had seemed to have just been defrosted; it didn't go in any way with the mango, and the balsamic reduction was disgustingly bitter. I can't remember being served anything this awful in a supposedly top quality restaurant before. My companion chose the grilled lamb for a main, which was, again, overcooked, and served in a terrible, salty and peppery sauce. We didn't stay for dessert!The service is perfectly amiable, the ambiance is very nice, and the staff generally seem lovely; but for the prices (actually, for any sort of price) the quality of the ingredients, food and cooking really is completely inexcusable. I shall definitely not be going there again!