Café Clement, the all-day restaurant inside Nick Jones' new St Clement Hotel at 180 The Thames in central London, opened in June to the kind of frenzy only Jones — founder of Soho House — reliably generates. Stanley Tucci, Nick Grimshaw, and Paul Mescal were in within days, eating oeufs mayonnaise and lobster omelettes while the hotel was still, in many respects, a building site. The full hotel opening is due early autumn, at which point a rooftop restaurant, Lunette, will arrive with Florence Knight at the helm and what are billed as some of London's most wondrous views. The real test of a place like this isn't opening night — it's a normal Tuesday two months in, when the celebrities are in Tuscany and lunch isn't comped. The room is elegant without overcooking it: white linen, vintage Cassina chairs, an open kitchen behind ornate glass screens, a south-facing terrace, and a garden out back. The staff, of whom there appear to be approximately 345, have been hired for personality as much as competence, and it shows in service that stays warm through a busy cover. Chef Danny Bohan spent 20-odd years at the River Café, most recently as head chef alongside Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers — names that carry genuine weight in London food. The menu is broadly European all-day bistro: spatchcocked chicken with speck and green bean vinaigrette, Dorset crab with marinated tomatoes and aïoli, steak haché with crinkle-cut chips, roast duck with dripping potatoes. Cosmos on the cocktail menu. A hulking sharing chocolate mousse. It is designed, consciously, to comfort. What Bohan does with that brief is the story. The eggs mayonnaise arrive jammy and properly stuffed, the mayo earthy and mustardy without tipping sickly — and served starkly, no trout roe, no caviar, better for it. The cheese soufflé is upright, luscious, deeply cheesy. Steak tartare, sharply pickled and well-seasoned, comes free-form with carta di musica Sardinian flatbread. Sea bass carpaccio is simple and well-arranged, sweet and sharp in the right proportions. A side of summer beetroots at £7 — sweet, plump, properly baked, buttery — is quietly the best thing on the table and a minor argument for why baked beets belong on every side menu in the country. Not everything works. The fish casserole is thin and pale — a bouillabaisse in search of a reason to exist, some mussels and a piece of fish and not much else. The crinkle-cut chips, sold as retro potato wedges, don't justify the carbs. These are real misses, not polite quibbles. The £18 chocolate mousse for two, however, arrives with the energy of an unstructured brownie and lands a sugar high that earns its keep. The custard tart — fresh, wobbly, with sweet strawberries and more custard — is a proper finish. At roughly £60 a head for three courses before drinks and service, Café Clement is not a casual proposition. But it is a materially better proposition than the celebrity-brasserie category usually delivers. Bohan's instinct — spend on produce, not garnishes — is visible on every plate that works. As the stretch of Thames around 180 The Strand continues to develop, this will become harder to get into and, based on what's already here, more worth the effort. Come for the scene if you like; stay because the kitchen is doing something real.
