Review of The Jones Family Kitchen
At the end of last year, I visited the Jones Family Project in Shoreditch. The delicious prime rib was a highlight of 2017. I had heard about the opening of their sister restaurant “The Jones Family Kitchen” in Belgravia and had to check it out.
The Jones Family kitchen
The Jones Family kitchen is set in an oasis of calm in the renovated Eccleston yards, a short stroll from the maddening chaos of Victoria Station. The restaurant has a prime location with a large outdoor terrace and a unique proposition for London: the possibility of having steaks in the sun (weather permitting!).
I visited on a sunny Friday evening and was seated at the outdoor terrace where I exchanging stares with Frida, who never stopped starring back.
Long Horn Steak
Between three of us, we ordered 850g of Prime Rib (cooked medium-rare) and 300g of rump steak (cooked rare) that had been aged for 55 days.
The steak at the Jones Family Kitchen is Josper cooked steak exclusively provided by the Ginger Pig (a farmer and butcher-chain that ethically raises its animals and believes that the best meat comes from happy animals that are well looked after).
The Jones Family Kitchen only uses steak from Long Horn cows. This is an English rare breed that almost went extinct. The breed is distinguished by their… long horns, a calm and docile temperament as well as highly marbled and tasty beef.
A ‘steak moment’
There is a wait for the steak, but it proves itself to be worth the wait. It comes served on a large wooden platter with the carved prime rib bone separating the sliced prime rib and sliced rump steaks.
The prime rib was thick with a perfectly seasoned and caramelised crust. The middle of the steak was soft, tender and succulent with a smokey beef taste. I grabbed a piece of the 55-day-aged rump steak, which had super rich and deep taste. It did not have the tenderness of the prime rib, in fact it had a decent chew, but each chew delivered powerful bursts of flavour. The two pieces of steaks were perfect compliments to each other: the succulence of the prime rib and the intensity of the rump steak. The steak was so good I had a “steak moment”.
There are many different ways of judging whether you’re eating a good steak, Laurent Vernet has even developed a lexicon to describe the taste of steak (such as flavours of waxed wood and an after taste of cucumber), but I think the ultimate test or rather the ultimate way of tasting a good steak is a simple one: it is when you’re hit by such a sensation that you lose sense of time and space – the only thing that exists is you and the delicious steak. I call it a steak moment.
The rest of the steak was quickly devoured and then only the frenched rib bone was left. Now, the parts closest to the bone are crisp and tasty. I grabbed the bone and tore at it with tooth and tongue until I had scraped every fibre from the bone.
The steak wasn’t the only food we had. We also enjoyed the potato dauphinoise and salad. The drinks also deserve a call out, the bourbon based ‘always dark in central park’ was so good that I knocked back three of them.
The verdict
I could say that the steak at Jones Family kitchen is magic, but that would betray the careful selection of quality rare breed beef that is cooked to perfection. With a lower price point and an arguably superior product to London’s steakhouse chains, I highly recommend checking out the Jones Family Kitchen.
No missed steak
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