http://culinaryworldtour.com/2013/09/25/sophistication-st-jamess/

At times all you need is a decent table, in a pleasant restaurant with linen tablecloths, napkins, polished glasses, crockery and cutlery, no queues, smiling service and not a Ryerson in sight. So it was with relish that I leaped at the chance to review William’s bar and bistro at St James’s hotel and club, Mayfair.

The mere prospect of such sophistication had me more eager than a pack of hounds baying at the scent, especially having just finished a fairly gruelling audition for The Taste. Yes, yet another cookery program on tv and you might well ask why. I’m presuming that The Taste is to food as The Voice is to music and at this point I’m beginning to realise why they didn’t select me, but more of that later. William’s was exactly the respite I was looking for. The freezer box of chargrilled skirt steak, samphire and lotus root and marmalade martini black cardamom chocolate cheesecake nonsense I’d lugged around Bloomsbury was politely taken from me by a man in a coat and tails. The bar is sumptuous and has, as you would expect, an extensive cocktail and wine list. Lighting is pleasantly subdued. One’s feet sink so deep into the pile carpet that you must raise your voice in order to be heard. I made a beeline for a mint julep in Donleavy fashion: every tulip is a julep and this mint is meant for me. Chilled pewter sat proudly on glossed glass.

Although the bistro menu offers more basic fare than that of the adjoining restaurant Seven Park Place, which boasts the accolade of being the smallest Michelin starred restaurant in the UK at a capacity of 29 covers, preparation is still overseen by William and is of a high standard. I chose Uig lodge smoked salmon as a starter, an unusual choice of dish for me as it’s hardly adventurous but the quality seemed exceptional, and I figured William would know something I didn’t. He did. It’s fantastically light and delicate though of course a mound of freshly baked brown bread and lashings of butter didn’t exactly stifle the experience.

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