Weekly Review: Sael
Jason Atherton's reinvention gets off to a good start.
Quick hit: Polished brass, polished marble, and polished food.
Details: Booking essential. St. James. ££££.
Restaurant website. More on Instagram.
Find it on Google Maps. 1 St James's Market, SW1Y 4QQ.
Jason Atherton has been a driving force in the restaurant scene for so long that it’s easy to overlook his significance.
His “Social” restaurants have been havens for food lovers for more than a decade. Pollen Street, the original, held a well-deserved Michelin star for ages.
But then last year, Atherton announced it was time for a rethink. He closed most of “social” eateries, and said he was aiming for something new.
In recent weeks, his version of “new” has come to fruition. In the the old Pollen Street Social location, he has unveiled Mary’s, his more casual take on British. He is due to open Three Darlings in Chelsea in the coming months.
And in St. James Market, in the old Aquavit location, he has launched Sael.
According to its website, Sael — pronounced “sale,” obviously — is “named after the Old English word that signifies season, time and occasion” and intended as “a tribute to British heritage” and “dedicated to the traditional recipes and produce of the British Isles.”
The vibe in Sael is literally polished. There’s polished brass and polished marble and soon-to-be-polished service and polished food.
The food was classic Atherton. Great concepts, well composed, and delivered with real professionalism.
The highlight was the “100-layer Hereford snail and ox cheek lasagne.” It’s a brave concept that was every bit as rich as it sounds. A real nap-after-lunch classic, especially if you pair it with a glass or two of red wine.
“Cod cheeks and parsley casserole” were also excellent, bursting with colour, and delivering a wonderful sense of Britishness on a plate.
Sides also stood out, especially a Hispi cabbage perfectly cooked in brown butter and served with “English miso.”
Service was surprisingly out of sorts. We had to ask for the sommelier about five times and the wine then arrived after our food. Later we had a hard time getting the bill. And our mains arrived just a tad too quickly.
I’m generally happy to write off all of these issues to early teething problems. Atherton himself was shepherding the open kitchen on the day we visited, so he is clearly invested in ensuring that Sael delivers at his high standard.
I also had a nitpick about the menu: These days, I’m used to needing a solid briefing about a restaurant’s menu on arrival. I encountered one recently that was essentially written backwards, with starters and small plates among the last things you would naturally read.
But I found the Sael menu particularly difficult to understand, even after the requisite welcome chat from our server. It offers snacks, starters, “mid-plates” and “from the embers” then sides.
What the heck are “mid-plates”? Well, it turns they are mains. Why not just say so? Why make it more difficult for diners to understand? Why the unnecessary complexity?
My final nitpick is about the wine list. It needs work. It’s arrange by price, with a smattering of selections under £50 per bottle, a few more between £50-100 per bottles, and quite a lot at £100+. But there is only one Pinot Noir in either of those lower-priced sections, and it’s a questionable choice at best. I appreciate that prices for good Burgundy are quite high, but on such a global list, I’d expect a restaurant like Sael to do a little better.
But those are just nitpicks. Sael is almost tailor made for a Professional Lunch. Its polished atmosphere and food make it a great place to host a client or colleague, and a good place to have a conversation. Its location at the heart of St. James is also appealing, and everything is more interesting than its predecessor, Aquavit.
With Sael, Atherton has succeeded yet again, and we’re all the beneficiaries.
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