american | THE LIST

56 Wardour Street, W1D 4JG / Tube: Piccadilly Circus, Tottenham Court Road

Price: £27Food:

Crispy Squid w/ Chipotle Mayonaise
Ham & Eggs
Buttermilk Fried Chicken Sandwich

What we thought

Jackson + Rye is a new American style diner right in the beating heart of soho, although, this is not to be thought of in the same light as Ed’s or any other greasy spoon of that genre. Like many others have before us, we can’t help but compare the mood and interior of J+R to that of the famous ‘Nighthawks‘ by Edward Hopper. The lights are low and the the furniture looks like it has been there and used everyday since the 1940’s, there is a bar at the centre of the room where they prepare a large selection of classic and modern cocktails. We took a seat at the bar and the staff quickly handed us a menu, which was fairly large, but had a good selection of authentic American diner style dishes, like grits chowders and buttermilk chicken, whilst also offering pasta, pastry items and Ham & Eggs..This was only the brunch menu. To start we ordered the Crispy Squid with Chipotle Mayonnaise, as this was £6.99 we assumed it was going to be a healthy portion. We were utterly disappointed. There were no more than 5 rings and they had not removed the membrane, meaning you had to pull the stringy like texture out of your teeth with every bite. Apart from this, the squid was tender and the crispy coating was nice. Sometime after, our main courses arrived, we both wanted to try each others so as usual we went halves. The buttermilk chicken sandwich came with coleslaw and a chipotle mayonnaise. The chicken was the standout dish for us, the coating was thick and crispy and the chicken beautifully tender. The sandwich was essentially an upmarket version of something you might find in KFC but without the grease and guilt. The coleslaw was cool and refreshing, the perfect accompaniment, the chipotle mayonnaise however was a little odd and lacked flavour. After the satisfaction of our first main we were little disappointed to find the ham and eggs fell a little flat. The portion was generous with 3 eggs but not threateningly so. There was nothing particularly wrong with the dish, the eggs were still runny, the ham was salty and meaty and the spinach added some green refreshment. However the whole dish was a little underseasoned and bland, perhaps this was a poor choice on our behalf but we’ll stick to making our own baked eggs in the future. This restaurant is very new and this definitely came across during our meal. The staff were unorganised and clearly no one knew exactly what they were suppose to be doing. This was highlighted to us when we had to witness an argument between 2 members of staff….awkward and when it took until our bill arrived for our clearly empty plates to be taken.

We had not intended to spend a great deal of money and had stopped at J+R by chance for lunch, therefore it’s hard to be too critical as we didn’t have any level of expectation. However, we know Soho fairly well and in the future we will probably prioritise somewhere else over J+R.

Rating

Food: 6.5

Atmosphere: 7.5

Service: 6

Value: 7