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Reader rating
Description: Situated at the Piccadilly end of St. James Street, the informal Brasserie St. Jacques is the 51st restaurant from renowned restaurateur Claudio Pulze. With a traditional brasserie-style service, everything from the kitchens to the staff and the menu is overlooked by the acclaimed chef Pierre Koffmann. In this charming restaurant, you can enjoy skillfully cooked and traditional French cuisine, served by friendly staff in modest, minimalist surroundings. There is a wide selection of French wines, and the list also includes options from England, Italy, Slovenia, Chile and Israel to ensure that you have plenty of choice!
Phone: +44 2078391007
Website: http://www.brasseriestjacques.co.uk
Open: Monday-Friday: Breakfast 09:30-11:30, then through till 22:00 on Full Menu. Saturday-Sunday: Breakfast 10:30-12:00, then through till 22:00 on Full Menu.
Charm personified: Brasserie St Jacques's entertaining manager Jean-Claude Ali-Chetif (left) and head chef Ashley
When a restaurant gets it right, it all looks so simple. Claudio Pulze has opened dozens of influential restaurants in London over the past 35 or so years (beginning with Montepeliano in Knightsbridge in 1974) and he maintains they are, in essence, "very simple affairs - after all, it is just a question of providing the right food and the right atmosphere at the right price".
You don't say? So that's all you have to do? No wonder so few manage it. There are so many ways in which restaurants can get it wrong - think over-design, unappealing menus, prattish cutlery, culinary pretension, kitchen incompetence, cheerless service, cramped tables and grabby pricing, usually in some gamesome combination.
Walking into Brasserie St Jacques, halfway down St James's Street on the site of the former Fiore, immediately feels right. Even booking it on the phone is endearing - they would obviously so much rather you speak French if at all possible. The place, though new, has perfect brasserie decor that looks as though it's always been there: egg-yolk yellow walls, red leather banquettes, unassuming plywood panelling, slightly naff Gallic pictures and gilt mirrors.
It's a design - plain, verging on the ugly - that straightaway puts you at ease and recedes into the background, leaving you to enjoy the meal and the company. You just can't beat a good banquette.
The formally dressed French waiters couldn't possibly be more charming, looking just like bit-part players in a Belmondo film, chatting enthusiastically about the food and wine, the manager, Jean-Claude Ali-Chetif, from Marseilles, being a particularly good turn.
The menu is fairly short and to the point, beginning with the likes of salade niçoise, oysters, snails and terrine de foie gras, followed by four kinds of fish - bass, skate, cod, tuna - followed by confit de canard, entrecôte béarnaise frites, and slow-roast shoulder of lamb. In addition to a plat du jour, there is also a revolving daily special - rabbit on Monday, choucroute on Tuesday, andouillette on Wednesday, coq au vin for Thursday, bourride for Friday, cassoulet for Saturday.
A more surprising starter was os à moëlle, pain grillé (£6) - roast veal bone marrow with parsley salad, a straight but wholly successful steal from St John; four pieces, tangy salad, good toast - although the narrow twopronged fork and teaspoon supplied to scoop it out with don't work as well as St John's crab-pick, let alone a proper marrow spoon. We ended up turning the teaspoon around.
A salad of thin-sliced, just-blanched young artichoke hearts, with green beans, lettuce, raddichio, shallots and a tangy dressing (£6.50), was nice enough - but this, like any properly French restaurant, doesn't really cater for vegetarians. A poached duck egg on toast "en meurette" (£6) - with a rich red wine emulsion, smoked pork belly pieces and mushrooms - was much more rustic and hearty.
All the mains tried were completely satisfying. Rognon de veau aux trois moutardes (£16) was a generous serving of tender pink kidneys in a meaty, mus-tardy cream sauce, with some soft rice on the side. The bourride sétoise (£18) was dominated by saffron and garlic, enhancing tender, not-overcooked salmon, monkfish, mussels and prawns, backed up with beautifully softened fennel and waxy potatoes. Faultless.
A juicy spatchcocked poussin (£14) came with a dash of rich gravy, as well as mustard and shallots and a herby baked tomato. A big slice of roast sea bass (£16.50) had a black olive jus , more tasty fennel and an attractively crispy skin without the fish itself being at all dry. Vegetables, presented in nice little copper gratin dishes, were just right - plain fresh spinach (£4), creamy gratin dauphinois (£3.50).
There's an equally traditional list of puddings - "le flottante, crème caramel, tarte citron. The cheese (£8.50) was superb - Ventadour goat, Comte, Brie and Roquefort, all of the highest quality, perfectly kept and generously served.
The drinking is good, too - I warm to any wine list featuring a Marcillac and only at the bottom of the list making any concession to "other than French", as they delicately put it. But it is pretty steeply priced, with the cheapest 175ml glass £5.50, and the cheapest 50cl carafe, a fresh Côtes de Gascogne sauvignon blanc, coming in at £13.50. The cheapest claret, a Graves, is £29; Fleurie Poncie 2007 Domaine du Vissoux (absolutely delicious) £33 a bottle. Tap water is smilingly supplied on request, as well as the staples of Evian and Badoit.
The head chef here is Ashley Hancill - working, however, under the "direct supervision" of consultant chef Pierre Koffmann, formerly of the much-missed La Tante Claire.
The food here is not ultimately refined or delicate - instead, it is absolutely correct French brasserie fare, quite heavy on the butter and cream one realises afterwards, but fresh and good, the kind of cooking that ought to be easy enough to get right but is rarely so reliably served, in this country at least, as here. (An early visit, a few months ago, to the new Nick Jones joint, Café Bohème in Old Compton Street,
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
