PJ's Restaurant and Bar [London]

Brilliantly, I just found a review referring to PJ's Bar and Grill as having a 'Bostonian feel'. Granted, I'm not from Boston, but the first bar that springs to mind is Cheers.

And if there ever were a more painful contrast, it'd be PJ's.

PJ's is a delightfully dark hole in the wall on Wellington Street, sandwiched between Cafe Rouge and a few other forgettable pre-theatre restaurants. To give credit where it's due, they do use a small portion of this valuable real estate for a bar, which, upon entering, gives PJ's a pleasant feel of cosmopolitan belonging.

And, definitely, the food was very good. My steakburger (see the earlier post) was, in fact, made of steak, and was a surprisingly dense mouthful of meat. And a companion's salad actually looked properly substantial. (Although you do get the feeling that Cheers never served a salad, and didn't bother with the expensive meat...)

The restaurant itself is littered with tiny brass plaques - similar to those the Victorians used to label the latest prehistoric find - each proudly bearing a svelte nickname or incomprehensible pseudonym. They have clearly gone out of their way to reward their loyal clientele.

And, frankly, their loyal clientele deserve far more than that. [You know this review was going to turn somewhere, didn't you?] After being seated in the corner, we were promptly ignored. Despite four of us being placed at a table set for three, I still wound up having to steal my own flatware and menu from the table behind me. Later, a request to change a drink order was received by the sort of horror normally reserved for failed operations.

A shocking transformation took place at the end of the meal, when our sullen, disinterested waitress was replaced by her Good Twin, who actually seemed to care about us. I'm not sure why she bothered as, like most restaurants, the service was added on automatically (although the card scanner did still prompt us to add a tip...).

It was an unpleasant, if not rare, occasion in which good food was marred by bad service. Perhaps the most upsetting part was the fact that they're billed as 'American style', where the reverse is more often true.

PJ's Restaurant and Bar
30 Wellington Street
WC2E 7DA
020 7240 7529

The Bite: A place where nobody wanted to know my name.

Comments

[Lebowski]

Good review. And spot on, as my memory is of PJs as a god-forsaken, bad taste, quasi tourist trap, over-priced cheesey hell hole. I think you're even being nice to the food to be honest - it's OK but it's still all a bit Covent Garden.

[Colman]

Jared, this has nothing to do with this tread, but Lebowski told me last night that you were a bbq judge.

I want to know more...

[Colman]

Tread?

Thread?

Dead...

[Jared]

Aye. It's true. The 'Royal' (the massive KC competition that I used to judge) just happened, I'm sorry I wasn't there this year... I'll post some details about it soon.