The subway-green tiling, the leather booth sections, the mahogany furniture. Stepping off the street, it hits you like a train. The pristine Isaac's, grubbied and urbanised like an NYC brasserie in the Meat Packing District might. The thinking behind the unexpected archway runs deeper than a simple marriage of Birmingham and New York's passion for street art, taking cues from the subway-sprayed train carriages of New York's underground system some four decades ago, and the warehouse spaces of Birmingham that followed not long after. Graffitied by Gent 48, one of Brum's best street artists (a man very heavily influenced by the graffiti that came from NYC in the 80s), it stands out. It might only be an entrance but sitting, as it does, in our city's clean cut central business district, it's got stones. Brum's newest restaurant opens today in a way you wouldn't have expected. Subtler - way subtler - and more 'Birmingham' is The Grand Hotel's decision to open their Big Apple-style brasserie, Isaac's, with a Barwick Street speakeasy-style entrance befitting both the Bronx and Bordesley Street. I think I speak for most of Birmingham when I say the decision to pinch the name 'Grand Central' from New York and apply it to the retail floor of New Street Station - a name that easily carries enough historical wallop to be used for the entire development - was one of Brum's more awkward imposter syndrome mask slips.