Charming St James

Big restaurants with high ceilings can be intimidating. Take the Wolseley, for instance. It's grand, enormously tall and very impressive, but just a little over-powering. It makes you feel like Alice in Wonderland after she's eaten her first half of the mushroom - dwarfed.

In a nearby street Just St James bustles in an equally great building, but it's not so scary. The room is regal - it has huge marble pillars and a double-height ceiling - but this is blended with warm leather sofas, soft banquettes and light and airy windows. As the banks move out of these great spaces, it feels right that the restaurants move in so we can all get to enjoy them.

The central swirling staircase takes you downstairs to Just Oriental, a spicy basement bar where you can have a curry with a lychee cocktail, while upstairs there's the party floor (available for hire), where you can survey the main room and quaff champagne. This place is ideal for a business lunch, or if you get one of the corner banquettes, a more romantic one.

And so on to the food: A bottle of Petit Chablis (£23.50 - crisp, peachy and refreshing — lovely for summer) was ordered while we mulled over the menu, which was just as well because choosing what to have took longer than usual. I changed my mind three times, but our excellent waitress was patient.

Head chef Jamie Younger's speciality is seasonal British food and I can tell you it is beautifully presented. A starter of chilled pea and mint soup with cheese straws was deliciously buttery and silky, off of the calorific scale I'm sure, but very good. My other half honed in on ballotine of foie Gras with honeycomb, black truffle and grapes which was satisfyingly rich and happily wolfed down.

I wanted some for myself, and so ordered Gressingham duck breast with foie gras for my main, accompanied by summer truffle and spinach. The meat was cheek-wateringly tasty and of good texture. The warm foie gras had that tender burst-in-the-mouth quality that is making me hungry again as I remember it.

Meanwhile t'other half had moved on to seared king scallops, with roasted yellow tomatoes and coriander vinaigrette. The scallops were 'juicy, tender' and clearly enjoyable, since I wasn't offered any until half of one was left ('oops'), but the couscous that came with it could have been replaced by something tastier, he thought.

To polish off we plumped for a pallet-cleanser of lime sorbet, which was tangy, sharp and refreshing.

Had it not been a school night we would definitely have ventured down to Just Oriental for a Singapore sling. Instead we thought ourselves very virtuous for dragging ourselves away and hailing a taxi. Just St James proved to be a very enjoyable evening with great food and excellent staff.