Located on the historic William IV Street and just a stone’s throw from the National Gallery and Trafalgar Square, The Jones Family Affair is your answer to delicious steak in the heart of London’s Covent Garden. With a second site in Belgravia (Jones Family Kitchen) the two jointly are all about sharing a passion for food, drink and enjoying time with friends & family. Set up also by a group of friends, the restaurants aim to provide the best of all three things and it does just that perfectly.
Inside The Jones Family Affair, they’ve spared no expense on its interiors as it looks stunning. A sumptuous bar for sipping on cocktails, skylight conservatory seating at the heart, and an upstairs balcony to look down on fellow eaters and into the kitchen. If you’ve not quite got time to eat – stop by for a drink (or many).
Speaking of drinks, we started with one of the restaurant’s signature cocktails – Old Smokey. A heady mixture of Vida mezcal, Briottet grapefruit liqueur, agave & Angostura bitters. I’ve become quite a fan of mezcal laced cocktails as of recently and this certainly didn’t let me down and packed all the punch I was hoping for.
Our first dish was this lovely-looking plate of pan-fried scallops & black pudding. Perfectly cooked, the black pudding complemented beautifully (as it always does) and so did the rest of the dishes’ ingredients. Smoked orange, lots of tru ffle butter and some samphire for decoration. An excellent start and just the right size given the gargantuan steaks that were about to arrive.
I’d never actually heard of The Jones Family collection before coming here and so I had big hopes for the steak. Quite honestly the last 12 months have presented me with nothing but poor quality cooked and sourced steaks that I was on the verge of giving up on it (at least in a restaurant anyway). Thankfully, the steaks here aren’t just good – they are excellent. I’d even go as far as saying they’re now firmly in my Top 5 London Steakhouses. The meat here is sourced from the also excellent farmer & butcher, The Ginger Pig, and mine was a hefty 350g of sirloin. Cooked to absolute perfection, as soft as butter to cut through and seasoned just right – all with a nice smokiness running through it. Beautiful.
Don’t even get me started on the macaroni and cheese. I think this will go down in history as the best version I’ve likely had to date and so if you’re visiting – please don’t leave without ordering – making sure you share a spoonful with absolutely no one. Laced with truffle for extra indulgence, this may spend a few weeks on the hips – but it’s worth every single bite. We also enjoyed a side of some fantastic chips, buttery mashed potato and wilted spinach.
For dessert, we somehow managed to tuck into two and the first wasn’t quite what I was expecting, but still provided lots of joy. This is the chocolate & peanut cream cake. I was expecting a big creamy topped cake, but instead what arrived was a neatly sliced chunk of three layers of hazelnuts, cashew, cocoa & cherry. It’s dense, but delicious – so save room.
Better still was the white chocolate cheesecake with lemon curd. I’m a huge cheesecake fan and more times than not I can be a little disappointed (honestly I’m not as fussy as I sound) – but there was no disappointment here, just more enjoyment. The cheesecake top half was whipped and light, whilst the biscuit base was crumbly and full of flavour. The lemon curd smear was also just the right lemony sharpness to make my mouth salivate instead with excitement.
We had such a lovely time at The Jones Family Affair and after about a year of mediocre steak, I’m so glad I finally found somewhere in London serving up some of the best the capital has to offer. It looks great inside, the service was attentive and friendly and for the quality of the meat – I also thought it was great value, especially given its location. Would we come back? Absolutely
