Jamie's Italian St Martin's Courtyard

This place is always busy and there's a good reason why! The menu is small but varied, the drinks are reasonably priced and the waiters are cute to boot!

Very busy and enjoyable bistro type atmosphere.

Serice was very efficient and friendly

we ordered a number of items for starters including a wondeful marinated fresh anchovy dish. the only snag is the tables are rather small and there wasn't enough room !!!

Jamies own prosecco is wonderful, do try it and at around £23 not too expensive.

We ate one the ‘specials’ which was fresh mackeral seared on a charcoal grill served with a salad of peas and mint and it was gorgeous.

my only gripe was the over use of large flatbread, which on one courde and given a prevailing wind could have taken my friend and I on a tour of covent garden.

I will return

With no pre-booking allowed, we arrived mid-week at 12.45pm only to find that we were to be alloted one of the last few remaining tables. No bread was offered although the waiter was pleasant and welcoming. I chose one of the daily ‘specials’ for a main course but then there was an enormous gap of about an 45 mins between the starter and the main course. At this point, I was told that my chosen main course was not available and that I would have to chose something else. I queried whether I would need to wait a further 45 mins but was told it would only be about 10 mins. A further 20 mins later, the food (it was only a pasta dish) finally arrived.

Both courses were very nice – the starter being a crab bruschetta and the main, a carbonara. The salad that arrived with the main course was positively tiny (served on something not much larger than a coaster) – not enough for two sharing. The waiter offered free coffees to make up for the lateness of the meal. I suspect that the table of twenty in the middle of the restaurant considerably slowed things up for everybody else and I would suggest that perhaps this style of restaurant is not suited to large parties ordering ‘on the hoof’.

I noticed that the couple next to me had queried their bill so I checked mine carefully. I found that I had been charged for the meal that they had run out of, as well as my second choice – not good. One of my colleagues had previously visitied this restaurant and found that the waiting times were excessive. It is a shame because anyone on a lunchbreak would be hard pressed to enjoy their meal without rushing at the end. The kitchen definitely needs to speed things up and the management need to check their bills before handing them to the customers.