A former banking hall, recently re-relaunched as a bar and restaurant; in spite of cooking that’s good value – especially by St James’s standards – we find an overall lack of character that makes the place very difficult to warm to.
Banking halls can be tricky places to turn into restaurants. On the one hand, they are grand and often highly ornamented spaces on a scale that’s otherwise difficult to procure. But they can also be rather cold and uninviting. That’s not to say the transition is impossible: on Union Square in New York, for example, the Blue Water Grill has made itself a consistently buzzy ‘destination’, despite being located in a marbled Victorian-era palace of commerce.
Just St James, however, which also occupies an impressively marbled former banking hall, has rarely succeeded in creating much of a buzz since it opened in 2000. In fact, for an establishment of its vast scale, it has always had a remarkably low profile. So trivial is the number of reports it generates in our survey every year that we’ve frankly been rather surprised it has kept going.
Well, hope springs eternal, and all credit to them for trying again: they’ve just spent a lot of money on warming up the premises, and there is no doubt that there has been an improvement in the overall feel.
The food, too – which is now self-consciously very English – is better than we remember from the early days. A set lunch was consistently good too, and offered impressive value, especially by St James’s standards. Particularly appetising – despite the menu description – was a steamed game pie. Attention was also shown to such basics as bread and coffee.
Why then, did we not truly warm to this handily-sited paragon of value? Why was it, briefly, perhaps one third full at the lunch service, when the nearby Wolselely was, no doubt, mobbed well into the afternoon?
The answer, in a single word, would seem to be ‘character’. Just St James still hasn’t really got any. We can understand that they’ve put in a fitted carpet to keep the noise down, but it does contribute to the feeling that you’re eating in the grand function room of a posh provincial hotel, rather than in a restaurant located a short stroll from St James’s Palace.
It doesn’t help that the staff, while individually pleasant, don’t give any impression of being part of a team. If ever there was a restaurant were a charismatic maître d’ might ‘make the difference’ this is it.
None of the above is to say that this is a restaurant which does not have its uses. It’s now open all day, so makes a handy stand-by if the Wolseley is full (as it usually is). And its calm and spacious style would suit people who don’t really like being in London at all. It would also suit a low-key business encounter.
You wouldn’t come here, though, if you were looking for clinch-the-deal electricity. Nor, indeed, for any other sort of event which you think might be boosted by a bit of metropolitan fizz.
