The Jam Tree - Chelsea

Have eaten here twice and had a drinks only evening once. Love the fact they accept Taste card.

Fabulous garden. I prefer the simple food like the Sunday roast or a burger and have not been disappointed!

Went to the Jam Tree on Saturday night for a friends birthday before hitting Embargo’s.
I’d only really heard of the Jam Tree as a place that the MiC crew hang out (sadly, they were nowhere to be seen last weekend) and from the reviews on here.
We arrived at about 8.30pm, and the bar was already pretty full. Service was polite and efficient and drinks prices were pretty reasonable (£4.00 for a G&T on the King’s Road is reasonable to me).
We decided to migrate outside to the garden/ smoking area. And what a garden it is! There were about twice as many people outside as there were inside! Can’t quite remember if the outdoor area was heated, or whether there were just plenty of people around. The other bonus of this outside area is that it also has a bar, so you don’t have to keep going back inside to get a drink. And the smell wafting around from the BBQ was in-credible!
The crowd were the typical King’s Road possey (18-early thirties, and a pretty even mix of guys and girls).
My only complaint about this place would be the toilets. Whilst they were very nice (look out for the cassette wall), there were only two of them, and the general toilet area was very small. So when a there’s a queue (which there seemed to be for most of the time we were there), it gets a bit cramped. But i’m nit-picking.
All in all, a nice little bar, and i’d really like to try the food next time.

Some friends and I visited The Jam Tree Chelsea for lunch a couple of Saturday's ago and we were more than impressed. I had eaten here before for dinner, which I'd enjoyed, but hadn't yet tried the BBQ.

The menu was superb, far superior to most BBQ menu's you're likely to see, with options, based upon their colonial theme like Jerked Chicken Leg and Malaysian Beef Rib Steaks. I had the Monkfish wrapped in Banana Leaves with sides of Puy Lentil, Artichoke Heart and Smoked Tomato salad and Gado Gado Crunchy Vegetables. Absolutely delicious!

The staff were great too, we found them to be very friendly and attentive but not over bearing.

We sat in the garden which is a fabulous space and sun trap and ended up staying until early evening, enjoying some Jam Mojito cocktails, a twist on the old classic with raspberry jam!

It was a really lovely venue and I’d definitely recommend it.

I'd seen a few things around Qype and an advert in man's favourite man-gazine Shortlist about The Jam Tree. There's two branches, one in Kensington and the other on the King's Road in Chelsea. The Kensington one has had good reviews and as the food was the same across both, we decided to take a trip to the Chelsea one which was closer! Both are in the Taste Card range and the Chelsea one had 50% off the food price if you booked through Qype as well so I did that and got a confirmation email straight away. All set.

We rocked up to a nice greeting from the lady inside. I was impressed with the decor, particularly words like 'push' and 'pull' on the front door spelled out using scrabble tiles. An amusing touch. We got handed the menus and ordered some drinks. They had an impressive double sided A4 wine menu packed with wines from around the world, but we settled for something non-alcoholic and ordered our starters and mains.

To start I had their duck and ham terrine with red onion marmalade, pickles and toast. It looked pretty good when it came to the table, there was a sizeable portion of terrine and a big chunk of bread. Unfortunately when I went to pick up the toast, it felt stale and on inspection with my teeth and tastebuds, they confirmed the theory. The terrine was overcooked and dry and the only redeeming feature on the plate was the red onion marmalade which served as a moistener for the duck making it a bit more edible.

We then faced nearly a half hour wait for our mains which, with music playing and the laughter of the men on the table next to us the same number of decibels as aeroplanes taking off, meant a very noisy 30 minutes, without food or drink. When it finally came, it was probably the only meal of the night worth waiting for. I had Caribbean Goat Curry and rice with mango salsa. The goat meat was wonderful, cooked perfectly and very tender. The curry was spicy and, when combined with the small amount of salsa, was tasty. However, although the food was half price, normally this would have cost £13.50. For that cost, I'd have expected either a fantastic curry, or something else to go with it. The curried goat was exactly that, just sauce and goat, and there was only a small spoonful of the salsa. If there was something else on the plate, or vegetables in the curry, it would have been a lot better, and worth the cost.

We'd got used to little or no attention by now but nothing had prepared us for the 30 minute wait between being handed dessert menus, and finally being asked what we wanted from the menu. That was awful, and I don't think I've ever had to wait even more than 5 minutes in such an instance, let alone half an hour. As it turned out, we did want a dessert, but it was getting to the point where if we weren't paying half price, it wouldn't have mattered if their dessert was the best in the whole world, we'd have decided to walk out (if we could have gotten the bill that is...).

Even when it came, the sticky toffee pudding wasn't worth the wait, and you couldn't taste the rum in the sauce. We quickly finished it off, got the bill (which surprisingly and thankfully came a little quicker), paid it (minus the service charge) and headed out.

So overall, the place looked good enough (we peeked out at the back garden as well at the end and wished we'd been out there). However the food, while we only paid half price, was nowhere near worth its full cost on the menu. The service was slower than a postal strike and there was more ice than drink in the drink. The only vaguely redeeming factor for me was the goat curry which was the tastiest part of the meal, but that's not saying an awful lot.

The reviews for the other branch of The Jam Tree were so enthusiastic, we decided it was definitely worth a visit - and Qype's 50% off offer didn't hurt either. We arrived at 7.30pm for an evening meal, and first impressions were very positive. The decor is very nice - a bit stark and echoey for my taste, but that's a personal pression, nothing else. The staff were friendly and attentive - and the friendliness lasted throughout our visit.

Sadly, the same cannot be said of the attentiveness. Orders were taken quickly and starters weren't too slow either. But that's were the attentiveness stopped. We waited at least 25 minutes between our starters being cleared and our mains appearing. And then it took half an hour for anyone to take our order for dessert - that's 30 minutes between being given the menu and being able to catch someone's eye to order. In total, our meal took 2hours and 15 minutes.

Which is far longer than I'd ever expect of a three course meal, but which could have been forgiven if the food was exceptional. It wasn't. There was nothing desperately wrong with any of it, but none of it was truly exciting. Not once it turned up, at any rate. My starter - curried crab samosas - sounded really different, but fell flat, and was a disappointing start to the evening. The filling was a little boring, and not very crabby in flavour, and the pastry casings were a bit greasy. Which would become a theme. The raita that came with the samosas was the highlight - lovely and fresh and well seasoned. I'd have eaten more of that...but not of any of the rest.

My main was a tart of English asparagus, leeks and Cornish Yarg if puff pastry, topped with salad. The tart itself was tasty enough - the leeks maybe a little creamy and a little too abundant, but the asparagus and cheese making up the difference. The major issue I had with this was that the plate was drizzled with oil, and the salad drenched in dressing. And when you put oil anywhere near puff pastry, it ends up tasting and looking oily. And excessive oil is not something I'm a fan off, so that rather ruined my main.

We did wait for dessert, but regretted it. Sticky toffee pudding with vanilla ice cream and rum toffee sauce. The sauce was nice, the ice cream ok, and the sticky toffee pudding itself was both stodgy and tasteless. A disappointing end to a disappointing evening.

I think the main problem with our visit is that we went for a meal, and The Jam Tree is better suited to being a wine bar or pub. As long as you're willing to be served at the bar, it seems great. The wine list is extensive, and the garden out the back looks like a lovely place to spend a few hours. So whilst my visit was disappointing, and probably won't be repeated, I wouldn't entirely write the place off.