Best restaurants in Jersey
Published 16 March 2024

*Callum Graham is leaving and being replaced by the restaurant's former sous-chef Tom Earnshaw (ex-Moor Hall, Northcote etc).*

.Launched in 2003, Bohemia is the brightest culinary star in all the Channel Islands – though, from the outside, it cuts a discreet figure, huddled beneath a luxury hotel not so far from the sea in St Helier. Stepping inside, there’s a whiff of a vintage ocean liner to its dusky wood-panelled walls, leather chairs and Art Deco flourishes, although no one seriously doubts the radiance of the cooking. Feedback suggests that head chef Callum Graham has ‘hit new heights’ and added ‘another element of refinement’ to his intricate and ceaselessly imaginative menus – an ongoing seasonal celebration of produce from Jersey’s fertile fields and the bountiful waters surrounding the island.

Tasting menus come in vegetarian, pescatarian and omnivorous incarnations, although re-imaginings of dishes and meditations on textures are a recurring leitmotif across the board. This is evident in a pairing of Normandy sand carrot with Jersey mussels, coriander and sea buckthorn or roast veal sweetbread on a silky butternut and Parmesan purée with cacao nibs, toasted pumpkin seeds and chicken jus. Local supplies also shine in a dish of line-caught sea bass with charred braised octopus, fennel, chicory and bouillabaisse sauce, although venison is sourced from the Cartmel Valley in Cumbria and served with beetroot, fig, nasturtium and venison jus, all invigorated with Szechuan spices. Artisan cheeses from Jean-Yves Bordier warrant special attention, while desserts might usher in a tarte tatin laced with local apple brandy and served with clotted-cream ice cream or a caramelised pear and mascarpone crémeux with roasted hazelnut and a dash of white balsamic vinegar.

The food is matched by service that is ‘warm, welcoming and professional’ to a fault. France dominates a heavyweight wine list, parts of which may have you reaching into the deepest fathoms of your pocket. One aficionado was also delighted to discover that Bohemia is the modern-day home of Lanique – an iconic and delectable rose-scented liqueur.

Sections of this historic edifice, including its stone entrance arch, date back to the turbulent mid-16th century, but there is nothing unsettled about the place these days. Indeed, its head chef, the highly accomplished Andrew Baird, has been cooking here since Sir John Major was prime minister. From the civilised lounge bar to a linened and mirrored dining room that feels like the salon privé on a luxury liner, the hotel radiates a sense of welcoming contentment, with staff who exude effortless courtesy to non-res and resident diners alike. The whole place runs on well-oiled rails.

Baird's cooking has gently evolved over the decades, absorbing the better ideas of the modern repertoire, ignoring the silly flummery. His supremely well-judged dishes can be as simple as a terrine of slow-cooked pork, guinea fowl and ham hock with pata negra, pickled vegetables and golden raisins or as complex as an array of Jersey crab with watermelon, lime, prawns, garden shoots and Bloody Mary gel.

Main courses might see classic preparations slightly tweaked, as in Creedy Carver duck breast with glazed fig, butternut squash, pomegranate and a duck confit salad or line-caught local sea bass and crab exotically paired with spring onion, ginger and lime leaf, all offset by Jersey Royals and a Champagne sauce. The prime materials are of unquestionable quality, the timing and seasoning flawless. Signature Longueville desserts could bring pumpkin mousse with sea-buckthorn ice cream and pumpkin cake croûtons or Jersey yoghurt mousse with orange blossom and honey ice cream.

A wine list running to 5,000 bins could just be a boring grand-hotel trudge past the familiar names. At Longueville, it exudes imagination and care at every turn, as witness the enthusiasm with which the sommelier serves the Coravin glasses (and if you haven't seen the device in action, this is the place to watch the magic).

Almost hidden from the coast road to the east of the harbour town of St Aubin, Mark Jordan's destination venue is a seaside restaurant of the purest stamp. The beach and the briny are laid out before you, best of all from the glassed terrace when the Jersey wind abates. Everybody is made to feel properly looked after, thanks to the courteous expertise of the staff, who advise on an extensive brasserie-style menu that offers plenty of choice.

A pressing of duck and foie gras with home-cured duck ham, fresh figs, caramelised nuts and fig chutney made an impressive opener for one reader, or you might begin with a zingy escabèche of Jersey mackerel with Jersey Royals and chive salad. Truffle oil works its way into a fair few dishes, notably the celeriac purée that accompanies 30-hour braised short rib, while impressive fish specialities have included cod with mussels in a Thai curry broth with crushed new potatoes.

If you are calorie-counting, you may not want to contemplate the desserts, each of which is a creamy, spectacular showpiece in its own right: crispy thin apple tart with maple syrup and Jersey black-butter ice cream has received a ringing endorsement, likewise a white chocolate and pistachio cheesecake adorned with griottines like huge rubies and offset by pistachio ice cream. ‘Our food was excellent, great-quality ingredients and beautifully presented,’ noted one visitor. We thought the wine list was rather run-of-the-mill, though the house Champagne (Vazart-Coquart Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru) is excellent.

Tucked away in the upmarket St Brelade district of Jersey, the Atlantic Hotel looks toward the Rue de la Pulente and the beach from a stand-offish distance. Inside, an old-school tone prevails, with attentive, well-drilled but friendly, service in the expansive spaces of the Ocean Restaurant. Here, menus are formulated to suit every eventuality, from a taster highlighting Jersey produce to a short 'market menu', vegetarian/vegan offerings and a carte.

A certain air of restrained classicism pervades Will Holland's dishes, witness a ballotine of foie gras with home-cured duck breast, sour cherries and bitter leaves. For the main business, locally landed fish is always a strong suit, from pan-roasted monkfish with salt-baked celeriac, locally foraged vegetables and a dill cream sauce to butter-roasted brill fillet on hand-rolled tagliatelle with a rich Jersey crab butter sauce and a touch of chilli. There’s plenty of meat and game too – perhaps roast venison loin with smoked mushroom purée and fresh figs or a duo of pork with pickled blackberries, apple fondant and sauce of La Mare apple brandy.

Desserts are very much the grand finale, with bursts of inventive flair in the likes of strawberry bavarois with pink peppercorns, shiso and strawberry ‘cheong’ syrup. A thoroughly encyclopaedic wine list strays well beyond France, even to the extent of dividing Germany into its regions (more or less unheard of now). The glass selections represent a decent range of flavours and quality levels, from good to outstanding. 

Shoehorned in between the coastal road and the promenade above the strand at beautiful St Brelade's Bay, this chic beachside venue makes the most of its location. There are spaces indoors and out, with tables on the terrace strip particularly covetable. A cool, relaxed feel pervades the place, in large measure attributable to the brigade of friendly, on-the-ball staff.

Naturally, there are Jersey rock oysters, regardless of whether there is an R in the month or not (there were battalions of them in late June), and a lot of good fish too. A starter of grilled scallops is served in the shell with parsley and garlic sauce, Jersey cream and samphire, while mains could range from the sustainably sourced ‘catch of the day’ to a roast cod and king prawn curry.

Meat and veggie dishes also figure prominently, from duck confit, pork tomahawk steaks and roast sirloin of beef for Sunday lunch to Thai-style cauliflower with green mango. Dessert could be anything from piña colada rice pudding with mango and basil sorbet to hot chocolate and salted caramel fondant. Cocktails, including non-alcoholic variants, are a strong suit, while wines offer decent drinking at fair prices.

Something of a surprise in the centre of bustling St Helier, Jersey's urban entrepôt, Samphire is a sleek, seductively lit place run with great attention to detail by staff speaking softly enough not to disturb the restful ambience created by sumptuous Prussian blue sofas in the main dining rooms. There's a terrace outside, but on a deserted chilly evening, it's more likely to be populated by smokers than customers. A long window affords views of Tom Radiguet's busy but calm kitchen, where dishes with a strong note of exploratory British modernism are fettled.

Oysters and raw specialities open the show, ahead of starters such as lobster linguine dressed with lobster cream and basil or duck liver parfait accompanied by blackberry-stuffed French toast, ruby port and thyme. Fish is a big theme when it comes to main courses such as grilled Jersey lobster or poached cod fillet in olive oil with artichoke purée, confit salsify and celery chimichurri, while meat might yield dry-aged steaks, salted duck breast or venison loin with blue cheese, beetroot, English pear and game sauce. Despite the occasional misfire, there is more to love than regret here, with desserts offering the likes of chocolate and coffee-infused ganache with salted coffee crumb and malted ice cream.

A classy wine list suits the deepest pockets best, especially when the Coravin gadget is all gassed up and ready to go. Around 30 pounds will buy you a slug of Olivier Leflaive's 2018 Puligny-Montrachet, Les Meix, a wine with all the oiliness of low-yielding grapes and the penetrating aromatic blast of thoroughbred French oak.

Sheltering under the promontory of Mont Orgueil Castle, which makes a splendidly Wagnerian floodlit backdrop after dark, Sumas is very much a one-off. Its entrance is on a rising road, but the restaurant faces the marine view (best caught when there is at least a little water bobbing about the boats), with a few tables on a little balcony for the luckiest.

The kitchen continues to maintain the house style of straightforward modern bistro food, attractively delivered with positive flavours. Breast of pheasant with Parma ham, celeriac and pickled winer berries makes a fully loaded starter, finished off with some game chips. Cured salmon tartare is adorned with avocado, cucumber, pink grapefruit, nasturtium and tapioca crisps.

Treacle-glazed beef fillet and braised short rib (in full bourguignon array) benefit from creamy dauphinoise, savoy cabbage, cauliflower purée and a rosemary-redolent jus, while fillet of wild brill comes with braised leeks, caramelised onion purée, fennel carpaccio and artichoke velouté. Finish in classic style with tarte tatin or choux craquelin with vanilla rice pudding, Chantilly and winter berry compôte. The wines are a reasonably enterprising bunch, the star of the whites being the dazzling Mâcon-Azé of Domaine des Terres Gentilles, which almost tastes as though made, like so much else, with Jersey butter.

Tassili is the fine-dining option at the Grand Jersey Hotel, which sits at the head of the Esplanade on the approach road into St Helier. It's reached along a corridor to the right of the lobby, behind a frosted glass door that swings open and closes repeatedly, as staff come and go with enormous trays from the kitchen down the way. Tasting menus are the thing, with a pair of 'grazing' formats (one vegetarian) supplementing the principal 'land and sea' offering. What looks like roughly six courses expands with canapés, amuses, a pre-dessert and an optional cheese plate, so that the overall production is more French grand opera than classical symphony. There were many thought-provoking ideas at our inspection, beginning with an array of mackerel riffs, including a 'cannelloni' wrapped in apple jelly, teamed with hot horseradish ice cream. Blue lobster with heritage tomatoes in traffic-light colours had fresh appeal, and the shellfish-boosted saffron risotto with a piece of plain turbot was gently rich and aromatic. Three tiny cuts of lamb were garnished with girolles, peas and an expertly produced courgette flower filled with creamed goat's cheese. A dessert partnered Menton lemon with Saint Ouen island honey and lemon thyme. There is hardly anybody alive now who thinks that Jersey Royals still taste as they used to, and an intermediate course in which they starred did nothing to persuade us otherwise. The 'baked potato consommé' poured over them added nothing, the dish being mainly saved by some lovely smoked eel. We are duty-bound to report that the pace of the tasting menus is tormentingly slow. Bring plenty of patience and small talk. Opting for the 'surprise' wine flight means that whole swathes of the evening go by in becalmed stasis, awaiting the next small course and the next couple of mouthfuls of wine, between which one is doing little more than sipping water. It would help, too, if staff felt able to give the producer of each wine as it's served, rather than just its generic regional identity – cava, sherry, Chianti...