What can you tell us about Jackson and Rye?
It's the latest opening from Richard Caring by the same team that brought you Grillshack last year. An unashamed homage to East Coast America, it's been designed by Martin Brudnizki (also behind many other restaurant designs including Lime Wood and 34) to look as though it's been here for forever and a day.
The ground floor is split into a large bar at the front with counter dining and a large dining room at the back. It looks like there's also room downstairs as well.
Where is it?
The bottom end of Wardour Street by Bourchier Street (where Satsuma once was). The closest station is Piccadilly Circus.
Where should I meet friends for a drink first?
The bar here's pretty packed and great for walk-ins, but probably not ideal for meeting up pre-dinner. Archer Street round the corner is a good spot, or Opium on Gerrard Street's great for cocktails.
Where's the best place to sit?
It depends on whether you're going for a full-blown lunch and dinner or just stopping in for a drink and a bite. If it's the latter, you're definitely after the bar which has its own menu with a heap of things we'd like to try such as a buttermilk fried chicken sandwich with avocado and chipotle mayo (£6.95) or a Shrimp Roll with spicy swamp sauce for £11.95). If you're after a bigger meal, then you'll want a table at the back. There's a few great banquette tables looking into the room that would be the best if you could get them.
And what should we eat?
We kicked things off with truffle popcorn and bar nuts (definitely get the glazed nuts as the popcorn needed more truffle oomph for our taste) before launching into the all-day menu. There's plenty to please in the starters section. We tried three dishes out - the ultra comfort food dish of hot shrimp and grits (£8.50), chopped raw tuna with smoked paprika and creme fraiche (£8.25) which was very generous with the tuna, but could have done with a little more seasoning and an excellent carpaccio of beef (£7.25) with wafer-thin slices of apples, hazelnuts and a brown butter dressing we could have eaten tablespoons of on its own.
We were a little stuck on what to order on the mains though - both of us wanted steak, but thought that wouldn't make for the most all-round Test Drive, so @hotdinners2 lost out and had the cod with clams and bacon which was perfectly nice, but nowhere near as good as the rib eye with Bearnaise. In the spirit of thumbing our noses to the idea of a January detox our sides included fries (good), mash with olive oil (great) and bone marrow (excellent).
After a pause to digest, we decided we'd have to have our desserts in liquid form, which meant trying the two hard shakes - the best of which was the pretzel shake with bourbon (£4.50).
And what about drinks?
There's a short cocktail menu available at the table from which we tried a highball (£7) and a really very good Old-fashioned (£8). The wine we plumped for was the Stone Barn Chardonnay from California £23.50 which was just as described - fruity and pure with a long finish. There's plenty of good value wines on offer with six under the £20 mark. And you can get a proper sized glass of wine here for just £3.95 which is frankly a great bargain in this part of town.
Overall thoughts:
This place was rammed on a Wednesday on the first full week back in January in both the bar and restaurant areas, so clearly it's doing something right. Our waiter was lovely - although the section manager was perhaps a little too keen to make sure we were working our way through the wine and sparkling water. We'd love to go back and work our way through the bar menu (and we've heard very good things about the brunch) but the mains could do with a few more interesting dishes to compete with the grill section.
Richard Caring is on to a winning formula here with plenty of well priced dishes and drinks to keep the place buzzing. It's a very good addition to the Soho scene.
Blackfoot is at 56 Wardour Street, London W1D 4JG. Follow Jackson & Rye on Twitter @JacksonRye.
Prices were correct at time of writing. Hot Dinners ate as guests of Jackson and Rye.
