An Evening At… The Jones Family Project
April 25, 2016The beginning of Spring marks the commencement of many wonderful things: a new season, new life and, in the restaurant world, new menus. East London is always particularly exciting at the beginning of this season, especially Shoreditch where one can find almost anything: Louisiana-style cocktails at NOLA, Damien Hirst installations at Tramshed, the ‘World’s Best Cocktail Menu’ at Callooh Callay and a highly creative team of staff at The Jones Family Project. The latter is the subject for this writing.
The Jones Family Project was set up by a close group of friends intent on sharing their “passion for food, drink and enjoying time with friends, colleagues and family”. From the very start of their independent venture this group of friends have prided themselves in taking the utmost care in sourcing each and every product that appears on the a la carte menu, cocktail list and extensive wine list that has a staggering 20-plus wines available by the glass or carafe. In addition to the pride taken in creating such substantial menus, The Jones Project also takes a great deal of pride in their tight-knit family of employees, even promoting each member in a ‘Read About Our People’ section on their website which highlights each member’s strengths. As the co-creator of the new wine list, Assistant General Manager and resident wine guy Alejandro “loves to delve into the stories behind wines and their makers”, whilst waiter Bernado is “a talented photographer [who] takes fabulous photos for himself and for [The Jones Family Project]”.
With DrinkUpLDN’s 2016 London Wine Week just around the corner, there is one new introduction at The Jones Family Project that is particularly enticing. The Coravin Model Two Wine System has allowed the Jones Family wine list to be more accessible than ever before. A tiny needle is inserted into the cork of a bottle and Argon gas – which is “regularly used during the wine making process, does not react with wine, and has no effect on the taste profile of the wine” – replaces any oxygen in the bottle as the wine flows without disturbing the condition of the bottle. This means that The Jones Family Project can now offer their customers glasses that were not before possible. Technically, an £1000 bottle of wine can now be enjoyed by the glass over an endless period of time. The wine world has been changed forever and this Shoreditch bar and eatery is right on trend as per usual.
Duncan Watts has been central to the introduction of the Coravin system and also the creation of the new wine list: “I’ve wanted to have a Coravin here for years but there were a few problems with the first model so we’ve had to wait for the second to come out. The wait is finally over and it’s a very exciting time for the restaurant”. He continued: “This is a fantastic way of being able to offer such lovely wines and we can now offer a wine by the glass that we wouldn’t otherwise have done as we wouldn’t have dared open something so expensive to just have one glass when we would end up throwing the rest away (well not being able to sell it, anyway). We’d make a huge loss on that bottle”.
Although it not just profit margins that benefit from the Coravin introduction. It is an exciting time for consumers wanting to try something new, or even for someone who has drawn the short straw of driving for the night: “One is no longer limited to the standard wines by the glass and this really adds another element of enjoyment to the evening”. He continued: “The same applies to businessmen coming in for a quick glass before heading back to their hotel down the road… Getting up early no longer means that one can’t enjoy a fine wine - and this new system doesn’t break the bank either”.
The new wine list is laid out in two different ways depending on what way you open the menu. “We did some research and found out that around 75% of people choose their wine by style and about 25% by country, and this correlates with our personal experience of wine selection, so at the front of the menu, wines are listed by style and at the back, they are listed by country”.
Whilst creating the menu, strict criteria had to be met: “We needed to have a mixture of interesting, slightly challenging wines but at the same time we had to remember that this is a restaurant wine list and it can, therefore, be quite difficult to get people to try new things at restaurant prices. In a wine shop you’ve got much more chance but, here, the guest has to really trust you to try a style they don’t know”. He continued: “We’re certainly not the sort of place to try to sell you a really strange Greek wine or something similarly unheard of. We want our guest to be comfortable to try new things”.
With such fine examples available to try, has made the restaurant even more memorable. In Duncan’s opinion: “You remember places that have something unusual on the and, in my experience, you want to return to try such things again”.
The Jones Family Project even have a wine club: “We do a couple of things”, Duncan explained. “We have a wine email list to inform our members of roughly four wine dinners per year where you come and have dinner with a wine-maker. We keep them small and very casual with less focus on speeches and more on enjoying the evening’s meal. We charge for the food and sell the wines at cost price to make it all affordable for the guest”. He proceeded: “The last producer we had in was Stags Leap, the first wine-maker to ever trump all the French wines forty years ago at the French Tasting Event”. “We also allow about twenty or thirty of our members, depending on space, to keep a case of their own fine wine on premises so whenever they return they can always enjoy their favourite tipple at a £5 corkage charge”.
Everyone, of course, has their favourites and on this new list there are plenty to choose from. For Duncan, there are a few essential wines: “One of my favourites comes from a young Australian winemaker by the name of Glaetzer. We have his top-end Amon-Ra Shiraz amongst a few other of his wines on the list, which is really great”. He continued: “We also have a couple of examples from a mad Italian winemaker called Sylvio Jermann who, if you ask me, is one of the best winemakers in Italy and I think many experts would agree with me on that… His Vintage Tunina is very full-bodied and rich so it would be quite hard to sell a bottle but by the glass it is truly fantastic”. “Although, that same Vintage Tunina can become a really great table wine if you’re really in the mood for something fuller and you’re looking for something more interesting… It pairs excellently with a scallop dish”.
“On a side note”, Duncan mentioned: “Jermann loves the band U2 and names his wines accordingly. His top red wine at the moment is called ‘Where Dreams Have No End’”.
As we sat in the downstairs open-plan restaurant space we sampled a nutty, moreish Chateauneuf du Pape Blanc supplied by the aforementioned Coravin and perused the brand new drinks list in search of a pre-dinner aperitif-style cocktail, settling on a Lost Negroni and a Teatotal-Tastic which uses birch syrup – a far smokier, earthy alternative to maple syrup: “It is an ingredient that not many people know and they find it extremely hard to identify”, Duncan explained. “It is also very hard to come by but the best can be found in this season”.
Both of these carefully crafted cocktails made the mouth water and opened a very hungry space inside: space enough to warrant a Jones’ Prawn Cocktail accompaniment to the already substantial charcuterie board. The board comprised of three meats, varying in spice level, Italian-style Giardiniera made up of jerusalem artichokes, capers, carrots, pickled onions and sun-dried tomato while the sweetness of the house blend marie rose sauce from the prawn cocktail helped to tone down and sweeten the potent spice of the warmest of the meats.
The most interesting of the new menu dishes can be found in the mains section, including Atlantic Cod and, a personal favourite, the duck breast. This dish is extremely well-constructed and presents each ingredient in a rather interesting fashion: the broad beans are puréed, the tomatoes come in red, yellow and green and the duck is perfectly pink and fanned across the garnish below it and the quail’s eggs are served soft boiled. The Creole Spiced Free Range Chicken does much the same in its presentation but attracts the braver of foodies and certainly has a kick to it. Although this kick isn’t totally unbearable – the chicken itself is served atop a mild avocado salsa, cooling greek yoghurt and cucumber and aromatic mango. If one would prefer even less of a kick the skin of the chicken takes the majority of the spices with it when removed from the meat.
Elsewhere on the menu, a Seasonal Risotto changes daily – as does the Bone In Prime Rib’s serving weight – and the Lamb dish of the previous menu has been reinterpreted from an excellent Lamb Rack to an even more sumptuous Lamb Cutlets and Slow Roasted Belly combination accompanied by fantastically textured purple potatoes, grilled shallots and a luxurious, rich truffle vinaigrette. All of these meat dishes, besides the Duck Breast, are cooked in the in-house Josper Charcoal Oven and, as stated on the menu, are “supplied by the Ginger Pig in Levisham, North Yorkshire and other farmers [they] know and trust”. It is this trust and respect for their suppliers, along with an incredibly creative team that has made The Jones Family Project so well-loved across the Capital and further.
No visit to The Jones Family Project is complete without a special treat to end the evening. As the matriarch figure of the original Jones family, Anna Watts “is just the kind of gentle encouraging mother you want. As well as looking after all of [Jones’] people she spends her time tweaking [their] chocolate brownie recipe” and handling all the PR side of things too. That Chocolate Brownie has been tweaked time and time again, but for this Spring 2016 menu, Anna might just have stumbled upon brownie perfection. It is sweet, rich, creamy, soft and warm in all the right amounts. Just like bar and restaurant as a whole, Anna’s brownie finds balance and encourages one to take their time, and to take a well-earned break from the manic rush of London life. The Jones Family Project is a credit to its creators and continues to surpass itself with each and every visit.