Jamie Oliver Catherine St, London: ‘A brand extension’ — review

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If it isn’t actually unethical for a reviewer to visit a restaurant predisposed to love it, it’s at least bad practice. But there are some things that just can’t be avoided.

Jamie Oliver has been the largest object in the food galaxy for almost as long as I’ve been involved in it. He has sold more than 46 million books worldwide, making him the biggest-selling British non-fiction author ever, and has reached an estimated 67 million television viewers across 182 territories. His empire, at its peak, encompassed 25 restaurants. Things went down badly when it imploded — suppliers bore a large part of the losses. But when a body is that big, it continues to have its own gravity. This is what brought me to Jamie Oliver Catherine St. Call it the Big Suck.

The venue comes courtesy of Oliver’s partner in the venture, Andrew Lloyd Webber. He owns the Theatre Royal Drury Lane and what was originally its side alley. Where there must once have been fire exits, wheelie bins and dubious dark corners, there’s now an indoor terrace with a glass roof, trees and an art collection. The wall of the adjacent building has been cut away completely to reveal an extremely well-appointed restaurant dining room. My arse has graced many banquettes in the course of my work, but few as luxuriously upholstered as the lord Lloyd Webber’s.

The staff are so efficient, well trained and thoroughly engaged that it’s disorientating. A basket arrives featuring Coombeshead Farm sourdough and Bungay butter, ticking at least the first two boxes on the current London Menu Provenance bingo card. I started with a raw “hand-dived” scallop (what an utterly bizarre term), which had been sort-of-ceviched in “yuzu, jalapeño and shisō”. It looked lovely on its shell, in a limpid pool of purple juice, but it tasted less of yuzu than of perilla leaf. An uncredited appearance, which gave the whole thing an off-putting root-beer quality.

Mushrooms on toast was clever, presenting as a great mound of bronzed and slick fungi. The “pan-fried wild mushrooms” that made up the showy pile were shiitakes, which have the advantage of being large, comparatively cheap and texturally interesting, though not strongly flavoured. Underneath was a much punchier purée that seemed to involve porcini. It was a successful combination, and one that must have taken a lot of careful recipe development. Herby garlic butter and “British pecorino” unified the whole. It would have made a good lunch all by itself, but a “Flourish salad” (from Flourish Farm, tick “fashionable supplier” box three), comprising some well-dressed winter leaves of the interesting bitter/succulent varieties, enhanced it further.

A stew of “day-boat fish, Dorset clams, mussels, butterflied prawn, fregola, rich tomato bisque, toast, aioli” was a piece of menu writing designed to make me squeak with joy. The clams on the day were actually mussels, which was absolutely fine, and the prawn wasn’t butterflied, but these were the variations that remind you the stew was made recently and of fresh things. What blew it, though, was its presentation in a wide, flat dish with low vertical sides.

This had two effects. First, that shallow lake of sauce went cold by the time I’d picked up a spoon. And second? Well, I’m not sure how to describe this, but I couldn’t put the spoon down again. If I tried to lay it on the edge of the plate, it slid in, and I couldn’t put a soupy spoon down on the table. The third circle of the inferno for a fastidious glutton. In the end, I fished it out four times, meaning there wasn’t a soup-free square inch of my napkin by the time the plate was cleared. There were three blobs of aioli piped on to a long piece of toasted baguette. A white one, a green one and a yellow one, any of which could have been glorious, but wasn’t. Each had a strongly acidic/acetic flavour, which works in a ketchup or a salad cream, but not in an aioli.

Jamie’s name is over the door. There’s a chicken dish named after his father on the menu and, on the way back from the gents, you can see a picture of him being a cheeky chappy with Delia Smith. These are the only elements of Brand Jamie that are evident. Lloyd Webber’s influence is perhaps more subtly present in the location and the spectacular fit-out budget.

The menu feels locked and loaded. It’s printed, it’s on the website, and when there are variations from it, they have to be transmitted verbally. It feels as if it was designed very far away from the place it’s cooked. Perhaps that’s where Jamie sits. But this is not the nimble creative response of a chef to the ingredients available. Instead it’s “brand work”, very well researched and designed not to offend the well-heeled out-of-towners, theatregoers and groups of American businesspeople that fill the place.

I wanted to love Jamie’s, but I was left sadly flat. I’d dared to hope he’d come back as a chef, which is how I wanted to remember him. Instead, he’s here as a brand extension. I can’t really blame the guy if the food falls short of stellar, because it’s very hard to identify the points at which he interacted with it.

I imagine Jamie Oliver Catherine St will do well. They have taken into consideration their audience, their location, price points, public taste, ingredients, costs and the current state of the market. They are executing competent food and excellent service. As a business, there’s no reason it shouldn’t do well.

They’ve even picked a good name to stick over the door.

Follow Tim @TimHayward and email him at tim.hayward@ft.com

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