Birmingham chef Aktar Islam has announced that he will be closing Birmingham city centre restaurant Pulperia on 30 September. Pulperia was a steak restaurant, inspired by Islam’s love of Argentinian food culture; it had been very well received, but opened just before the Covid-19 crisis.
‘Pulperia has been one hell of a journey,’ said Islam in a statement. ‘We barely opened just before lockdown and then were shut for the best part of a year. It’s where Aktar at Home was born and was even our makeshift warehouse. It’s allowed me to showcase my love of Argentinean food and a roast dinner – it’s bittersweet.’
‘With the current climate we simply cannot operate at the standard we want without outpricing our customers,’ he continues. ‘Consumer habits have changed, and we feel we’ve come to the end of our journey.’
Pulperia was Islam’s second restaurant, following the hugely successful Opheem, which won a Michelin star in 2019 and has consistently been rated as one of the best restaurants in Birmingham, as well as coming in at number 13 in SquareMeal's Top 100 UK restaurants in 2022. Opheem remains the only Michelin-starred Indian restaurant in the UK outside of London, and the much-loved Birmingham restaurant will not be impacted by the closure of Pulperia.
Aktar at Home - the home delivery service that also started from the closure of Pulperia during the Covid-19 lockdown - will also continue to run as normal. Meanwhile, Islam says will be considering new concepts to replace Pulperia in the canalside Brindleyplace site.
‘We’re going to monitor the coming months and consider options regarding the location and introducing another concept,’ he explains. ‘For the meantime our focus will be taking Opheem to the next level and building on Aktar at Home.’
Islam grew up in Acton, and first rose to prominence as champion of Gordon Ramsay's Channel 4 cooking show 'The F Word', and as head chef at another much-loved Birmingham restaurant, Lasan. He would later leave the restaurant in 2016 to venture out on his own, opening Opheem in May 2018 and winning a Michelin star a year later. He opened Pulperia in 2020, just before the Covid-19 crisis struck.
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