A notably welcoming World’s End newcomer, maintaining the ‘handy rendezvous’ status of its predecessor on the site, Bacio (RIP); the food on our week one visit was almost invariably satisfying, but without any particular flashes of genius to suggest the chef’s Ramsay-group background.
Chelsea may harbour some decent restaurants, but its principal artery – the King’s Road – has always been infamously iffy as a dining destination. Latest venture to seek to break the spell is Jimmy’s, whose patron used to cook for the Ramsay empire.
Bacio, the previous occupant of the World’s End site, always struck as as a pretty useful sort of place, even if it wouldn’t have appeared on anyone’s gastronomic map of London. Early impressions of the newcomer are rather the same. Given the chefs’ antecedents, we had hoped to be wowed a bit by the food, but what we had was all somewhere round pretty good, but never approached being startling. Highlights included a nicely varied bowl of good breads, a light and tangy salad, a tasty lamb-and-mutton pie, and a fulsome Knickerbocker Glory (but how can you go wrong with that?).
Dishes which came under the umbrella of acceptable included a fractionally undercooked seafood ravioli, and a beef Wellington with curiously insipid beef. Coffee was weak.
We felt about the décor rather what we thought about the food: no reason to avoid the place, but no particular reason to seek it out either. In the old Chelsea days, the bright chrome and white décor might have been considered a bit ‘nouveau’ (but that was in those far-off days before the area was inescapably linked with ‘tractors’ in the popular imagination).
If Jimmy’s does have a particular strength – and we think it does – it’s the staff. Uniformly amiable, they were trying very hard indeed on our week one visit.
