Bar Jules

There has been a lot of talk about Bar Jules in the past month. First I read about it in Food & Wine, and then my friend Dave said, "I heard about this new restaurant in Hayes that is supposed to fabulous!", and then Michael Bauer just reviewed it in last Sunday’s Chronicle. So my friend calls me up and says we’ve got to go check it out.

So I knew 3 things before going to Bar Jules:
1) They don’t take reservations
2) The menu changes daily
3) They only offer 3 entrees each night

Ok, so I checked the menu online before going and we got there 20 minutes before the restaurant opened. A whole lotta fuss for nothing!  I wasn’t sure if I was turned off by the snobbish attitude – we don’t hand out menus, we write the menu  (illegibly) on a chalkboard and we’re only going to offer 3 options for entrees. Forget about going with a group of 4 people. There’s definitely going to be overlap on entree selection.

I found the menu to be limiting, not focused, but limiting. We started off with the prosciutto and peas ($13). This was good but I could have easily put this on a plate.  We also had the house cured boquerones with grilled bread and aoili ($11). The anchovies were really tasty but almost ruined by the thick and buttery aoili and olive oil.  Diners had a choice of scallops, duck breast, or lamb. So if you don’t eat seafood or gamey meats, why bother going?! We decided to try the duck breast with farro ($23) and the leg of lamb with white beans, leeks, and warm olive sauce ($26). The duck breast was slightly on the overdone side. It was good but had a gamey taste to it. I told my friend Dave that his duck breast is 50 times better so I was seriously disappointed with this duck breast. The lamb itself was good and cooked perfectly but it was completely ruined by the olive and caper sauce. It was so salty that the dish was almost inedible. We didn’t order the quatra leches cake with strawberries that Bauer raved about but the table next to us offered us a bite. It was this huge piece of cake that was dry and just not that good.

The service was also pretty terrible. Our waitress would bring wine to the table next to us and not even bother checking our empty wine glasses to see if we needed a refill.

I’d have to say that I was pretty underwhelmed by Bar Jules. I had heard so much about it but was sadly disappointed. I might go back if the daily menu offers anything that peaks my interest. Otherwise, for a $75/person price tag, it certainly won’t be the neighborhood joint in Hayes Valley. And by the time we left at 7:30pm, the restaurant wasn’t even full. Even though Bauer gave it 3 stars, I’m guessing everyone was scared off by the potential wait for dinner.

(415) 621-5482