Jamie's Italian
 

Has anyone eaten at one of these?
(http://www.jamieoliver.com/italian/food-menu)
Locations:

• OXFORD
• BATH
• BIRMINGHAM
• KINGSTON
• BRIGHTON
• BRISTOL
• CANARY WHARF
• GLASGOW
• GUILDFORD
• CARDIFF
• CAMBRIDGE
• READING
• LEEDS
• NOTTINGHAM
• COVENT GARDEN
• LIVERPOOL
• WESTFIELD
• PORTSMOUTH
• DUBAI
• SYDNEY

I go to my local one semi-frequently and it's absolutely the best restaurant in town. The thing is Jamie Oliver might be overreached in central London but these restaurants are perfect for the provinces, where the local Italian serves reformed ham and cheap pasta.

Points:

* ingredients are all of a very high quality - they deal with a supplier in Cornwall and get the fish daily. Cured meat etc. is all top-grade, the pasta is made by hand in the restaurant
* the standard of cooking is good - something like 'crispy squid' is genuinely crispy, not stodgy or oily (fresh oil) and comes with a nice garlic mayo
* the service is not great, the atmosphere is casual, not romantic or business-like, and there tend to be queues out the door every night
* the bank manager has been over the menu - £4.25 for the smallest glass of wine in a casual restaurant in the provinces is priced to maximise yield, my fish stew at £14.75 was not particularly big and the fish used not expensive varieties, but the flavour is unmatchable in your typical provincial restaurant
* they seem to have figured out how to 'chain' a restaurant - over two years the standards have not dropped despite having two dozen branches all over the country.
* it's going to the best dining choice in most of the towns it's in

I've been to the one in Covent Garden. Service was very slow (and the place was very loud), but the food was pretty good.

Well I can see why they haven't opened in Edinburgh - all sounds a bit mediocre compared with what I can eat here.

Not been, but the one in Cambridge has been queued out (they don't take reservations) whenever I've been past. Actually, that's specifically why I haven't been!

As for being the best dining choice in town - well, I'll reserve judgement until I've been. But there's an awful lot of good places to eat in/around Cambridge.

Similar for my nearest one in Brighton - friends that have been said that it's OK but nothing special - there's a lso a lot of good competition within a few minutes walk of it in The Lanes

I agree with your point of view, in the provinces with rather mediocre competition from the usual chains (The Pizza Expressification of the High Street if you like) Jamie's Italian is a notch above the average. I suspect in the majority of cases it isn't neccessarily the best in town and in London certainly there is much better value elsewhere, nevertheless it does fill a gap that I'm not sure anyone really knew existed.

I had dinner with a Greek friend at the Canary Wharf property. She was enthusiastic, I was underwhelmed to the utmost degree: service overhyped and actually lackadaisical, food nothing special, wine subpar. Is it too much to ask to have a basic Chianti Classico and not just a Chianti? As I was staying in Canary Wharf for a few days, I had dinner at the Italian restaurant at the Four Seasons the following evening; it was just twice as expensive and much, much better. I haven't tried the Italian restaurant at the Four Seasons Hyde Park corner yet, though ;). Not coming back to Jamie's, ever.

By the way, on my last trip to Milan, I ate excellent spaghettini for about EUR 7.00 and had a great ristretto for ... EUR 0.85. Great memories !

I think you are missing the point rather. It's not supposed to be the Four Seasons or Le Gavroche.

Around the country the typical high street dining scene consists of:

Nandos - well-executed but basically low-grade ingredients
Pizza Express - well past its sell-by date
(at least one more subpar Italian chain - Ask, or similar)
several Indian restaurants, independent or part of a local group
Wagamamas - slightly tired noodle concept
Yo Sushi - dreadful stale sushi
several Thai restaurants
sometimes a mediocre tapas place
Giraffe - not sure what the point of this place is
one of a number of variants on 'posh burger'

If you go out of town, things get even worse - Frankie & Benny, Chiquito, Harvester et al.

So for casual dining really not a great selection. I actually just went to Jamies now after taking the kids to the park, me and two children, I like my food but I wouldn't have wanted to sit down at a starched table cloth with a waiter scraping the crumbs off the tablecloth. Obviously if you always go out for dinner wearing a suit and tie, this might not matter to you, but clearly there is a big market for casual dining, yet most of it is absolutely terrible.

Oh stop being a foody snooty Jenbel. :p

We've been to the local one in Kingston a few times. I agree, it's a great value place to eat with decent food.

The only criticism I have is that they don't allow you to book in advance unless you have a large party. On the night you turn up and either queue or put your name down. If you put your name down they call you and you've five minutes to get back there to claim your table. As they're so popular I guess they can afford to do this.

Bonus, The Edge (U2), was dining there one night last summer with his family.

I think he meant the deep-fried mars bars and Irn Bru. ;)

I've been to the one in Kingston a few times. Service is a little slow as others mentioned, they were quite busy but I've been to other places that know how to deal with it. I suppose it was fairly close to opening the first time I went also.

Food was nice, but it's nothing stellar. I don't believe they pretend to be otherwise.

While I'm on the subject, we did the fish filleting lesson at Recipease (http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipease/easy-to-learn.html) and it was a fantastic deal. £30 each with a glass of wine, for that we got about 2 hours with 3 of us and 1 instructor, and the food at the end:

poached sea bass with salsa verde
pan-fried seabass with butter sauce
fried and baked mackerel, lemon sole, sea bream and sardines
salad of artichokes, rocket, cherry tomatoes with lemon dressing

There was easily £30 of raw fish there all very fresh.

You would pay £875 for two days at Le Manoir (not being taught by Raymond Blanc of course) http://www.manoir.com/web/olem/fish_and_shellfish.jsp - Recipease is great. I'm still not sure about Jamie Oliver though.....

I'm not sure you're living in the same country as me!

The divide between "casual dining" and "fine dining" really isn't to the same degere here as it is elsewhere (e.g. the US). There's a huge range of places, chain and independent, that happily straddle the divide between voucher-code fuelled adequacy and starched fiddliness.

Naturally, in smaller towns, you don't get anything approaching the range you get elsewhere (although, particularly in the country, and on the edges of these towns, there's a growing number of pubs who have finally realised that Brake Bros is not the way to get the customers in). However, the locations you've listed for Jamie's Italian aren't these small towns - they're decent sized towns and cities, with already well established independent restaurants.

I'm quite willing to accept that Jamie's Italian can be rather good. But a revolution in casual dining? Well, if one opens in Biggleswade, or possibly even Hitchin, maybe I'll agree then...

Nice user name MagicWok, you wouldn't happen to be named after an establishment in nearby Surbiton would you? Best around, we enjoyed some of their delights last night.

Any reliable eating option in the regions is to be welcomed. While there are some superb restaurants around the country they can take some hunting out. Having eaten everywhere in 20 mile radius of my mother's house I have also found that for every cracker there are 10 truly awful establishments.

Quite why you'd want to go to Jamie's in Covent Garden when the magnificent Bocca Di Lupo is 10 min walk away is beyond me. There is even an excellent tapas option in Westfield.

Well IME ethnic places (Thai, Indian) tend to be good for something semi-casual.

For European food however you basically have the gastropubs, starched tablecloths or IME low-quality garbage. Some of the gastropubs are a bit too much on the formal side for taking the kids too. Sometimes you can find a good casual tapas place or whatever, but they are not common.

I can't comment on all the towns - but Guildford, Portsmouth? Not exactly foodie havens are they? As a chain concept seeing one in every fair-sized city would be much better than Zizzi or Ask or some such.

By coincidence, we were in the one at Canary Wharf only last night. I like the place.

Good :

They do a spectacular display of their vegetables in the centre of the restaurant, and prepare all the salad dishes there in the open in front of everyone. We commented that the display reminded us of a grand greengrocers shop outside the train station in Ventimiglia, which had been Mrs WHBM's :) very first sight of Italy (and which we took photoraphs of).

It is apparent that the kitchen staff know absolutely what they are doing. Which is what you would expect where a prominent chef is the principal.

All the dishes were so nicely prepared and worth having.

Hot evening but their air con inside must be spot on, not intrusive, perfectly pleasant.

Proper Italian drinks (and beers not by Peroni or Moretti, but independent brands).

The cured meats as antipasto were indeed spot on.

Still getting there :

Very noisy on a busy Friday evening, to the extent that it's difficult to have a conversation. Interior design is totally hard and echoing, which leads to this. Needs some sound-absorbing soft linings.

Menu has rather too many oddball dishes, I felt rather bland going for a spag bog in the end (which was so nicely done and the opposite of the glutinous mass you might get elsewhere).

Serving staff need to be up to the standard of the ktchen. Actually, a few of them looked like they were. But not ours.

No, she meant the six Michelin starred restaurants around the place, in addition to a clutch of restaurants which are close to Michelin standard. You really need to have a look at the Edinburgh restaurant review thread.

But I guess if all you see are chains when you travel, then you won't notice those...

Sawney Bean thought the same.

What, him out of "Sharpe"?

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Is Mr Oliver paying you for this??

I've been to Jamie's and as has been said it is nothing special for a high street chain except maybe the prices. It's certainly not a good value place to eat.

Haha - funny that you mention it. No I'm not, but I have been there!

I've had this username for years and years, oh around 10 years I'd say? I went to Kingston Uni and my first day drove past the restaurant.

Have you any conception of how much cookery classes typically cost?

It's actually pretty good for a high street chain..

It's not cheap, no. But at least you won't get reformed ham in your pasta as is common in many of the low-end (chain and non-chain) Italian places. Different people have different perspectives on value, I value good-quality ingredients and I know that they are not ubiquitous and am quite happy to pay a little more to get something decent.

Incidentally, Mr Oliver's fellow celeb chef Raymond Blanc is far more of a sell-out IMO. Blanc has a range of Waitrose desserts (poor), a patisserie chain (average) and a brasserie chain (below average).

I ate in Mr. Blanc's Brasserie, which is aiming for a similar market to Jamie's Italian - the pastry there had no lightness of touch, the leeks were overcooked and clearly not 'market fresh' and the whole thing basically could have been run out of a Brake Bros. van. (The waiter otoh demonstrated American efficiency in serving us and quite a number of other tables at the same time - something Jamie's Italian doesn't always deliver on).

As I have said sourcing fresh produce across a chain of restaurants is not entirely simple - Raymond Blanc, for all his TV posturing, has failed at it, even with only 8/9 branches, whereas from what I have seen Mr. Oliver has managed to pull off light, fresh food across a chain of restaurants that I have no doubt will continue to expand in the years to come.

And btw as a post script, might I explain how I ended up in the Brasserie Blanc, a 'chain' restaurant?

We were in Winchester having intended to visit Hinton Ampner but found it closed, so we drove onto Winchester. I went to the tourist board and asked them about restaurants in particular the Black Rat, which I found on my mobile phone as being the Michelin-starred place in town. It was closed, being Monday (or lunchtime, or something, I don't remember the reason), the tourist board told us to go up a certain road where there would be lots of restaurants. There were several, a medicore dim sum chain (Dim T), a Loch Fyne, a few takeaway-type concepts and Brasserie Blanc. Brasserie Blanc seemed like the best option available (the Michelin starred place being neither convenient nor open), so we gave it a try but it was rubbish.

Whereas fine dining places typically keep limited hurs, somewhere like Jamies is open noon till 11pm - you can go in and get lunch at 3pm if you desire - whereas many independent places are unhappy if you enter within half-an-hour of closing time, and will try and get you out or not serve you to start with. A casual, open-all-hours chain that serves decent food certainly has its place.

My Observation......
 

Have eaten in both Reading and Covent Garden outposts and found them both a cut above the competition - which maybe Strada or the like.

The food is good value for what you pay and the menu is original for the high street - how many other "chains" sell rabbit pasta sauce?

I'll happily go back.

When I moved to North America I was wowed by the number of places to eat, so many low to mid end (price and food wise) places, just waiting to be tried. And then I tried them. And beyond the name on the menu, I was hard pushed to tell you which one I was in. I even, as a bit of a bet' walked into a chain I had never been to before, and ordered without looking at a menu, given that the exact same dishes, with a flourish of this added or subtracted, were on all of them. They do everything you could ever want (your wife wants pad thai, you want a steak, your 3 kids want a pizza, nachos, and reformed chicken fingers with plum sauce - not a problem! ) Now I seek out new places (tons in the city, far less in the suburbs) that are not chains - and I am much happier.

I find it quite worrying that the UK is going towards MORE chain restaurants - I thought Ask etc. were quite bad, putting some smaller places out of business, but the new 'out of town' frankie and benny's and the like have really spelt out a death sentence, especially in smaller towns.

I'm sure Jamie's is very nice, I can't see him deliberately designing something that is nasty. But I wonder until people become bored of his version of Italian and are ready for the next chain? (I remember when Bella Pasta was considered good...!) My favourite Italians have always been small, chef-owner or at least chef speaks to the owner type places, where there aren't 25 types of pasta on the menu, because the chef only has time to make three by hand each morning, a shape to hold sauce, a long type, and a filled type, maybe a lasagne too. I love the fact I never have any difficulty in ordering veggie food, as it is made to order, so the chef can easily make a spagetti with garlic for me, and they will often bring out nibbles with the drinks that are things the chef has been playing around with to try out, or something lovely and seasonal he just had to grab it for people to try (like courgette blossoms). A no-label red wine in a litre carafe, and some good homemade ice cream and I am a happy little camper!

Now this is true. Is there a single restaurant in Canary Wharf which is not a chain ?

Is there a small restaurant that could afford to open in Canary Wharf without the backing of a chain?

Ooooh, harsh. If Jamie's Italian gets you out of casual dining chains, then so be it. Go and queue and get mediocre service and overpriced fast food. Let's re-look at your list:

Nandos - you're right: cheap ingredients (90% gross margin on chicken - rock on!), but also excellent value, friendly service and served fast
Pizza Express - fast, reliable and fantastic value (given that nobody pays full price)
Wagamamas - tired concept, but fast, reliable (something like half of customers order one of two dishes - katsu curry and fried udon, IIRC) and good value (free tea!)
Yo Sushi - stale sushi - I concur - try Itsu instead
Giraffe - the point of which is to serve as a magnet for braying middle class parents of spoilt toddlers, so they don't clog up normal restaurants
'Posh burger' - see above on Pizza Express

The clue to all these places is that they are fast, reliable and excellent value for money (especially thanks to Vouchercodes and similar websites). The UK may not have the nicest restaurants outside of London and Edinburgh, but it does have the most vibrant chain casual dining scene in the world - you can always get a fast, friendly, reasonably-priced sit-down meal, whatever town you are in, and even if you are not familiar with local haunts. For this, I am grateful

If Jamie is to jump on the bandwagon, he needs to (a) improve his shockingly inconsistent, unreliable and amateur service execution and (b) lower his prices

I've been to the one by the Bullring Shopping Centre in Birmingham and my girlfriend and I thought it was a bit too expensive for what we got. For example, the Risotto that we got was so small and taste so bland that we thought that we can do a better job. I think people are mostly paying for the name.

A small defence of chain restaurants: I work across the road from a very large shopping mall. Rather than having to endure the staff canteen, on Sunday, I was able to get a half price pizza from Pizza Express for my dinner.
They have their uses! :)