Saint James — Restaurant in Hamilton

Excellent coffee, amazing food, top notch staff.

Coffee: They can make drip and espresso based drinks, but they've also got a Steam Punk system. They're one of the very few cafes in Canada that have a Steam Punk. If you ask them about it they'll happily explain how it works. It's quite magical to witness it in action, and I would highly recommend it. It results in a clean, full-bodied, perfectly extracted cup of coffee. Their espresso and drip have never disappointed. I usually get an Americano but I've also had many excellent lattes here. The nitro cold brew is also superb.

Food: The food here is always super fresh, creative, and of top quality. It's clear that they put time and care into not only cooking the food, but also in sourcing the ingredients. You might pay a bit more here than you would elsewhere, but that's because it's simply more expensive to make ingredients in-house and use high quality stuff. I've had the avocado toast many times and I am in love with it. Its very filling, they're generous with the avocado, and it's perfectly seasoned and balanced. I've also had the pancake stacks a few times. Those are fluffy, rich yet somehow light, and absolutely unlike any other pancakes I've had before. The pancakes and avocado toast are both to die for. The other cool thing about Saint James is that they switch up the menu fairly often. While the classics like avocado toast tend to remain, it's nice to have new options when the menu rotates.

Staff: Somehow they have managed to find some of the friendliest people in Hamilton and hire them all. Everyone is also super polite, warm, respectful, and attentive. While the place does get quite busy sometimes and it's clear the staff are juggling many things at once, they have the ability to remain in control and still handle everything well.

Its hands down one of the best places to grab a coffee, breakfast, lunch, dinner, or even a cold beer. Exceptional staff, food, and coffee. I highly...

TL;DR: Friday dinner. Nice atmosphere. OK value. appetizers excellent. Mains way too salty. Service was good.

I went into St. James hungry and left still slightly hungry.

Let me explain.

We went for Friday dinner expecting a bit of a wait, luckily, there were tables open and we were seated immediately. St. James is a very small intimate place and there's a quite limited amount of seating, with everyone seated quite close together (so don't talk about your bank pin or password). The space itself is brightly lit, very clean and tastefully decorated, with lots of nice little touches.

We ordered two apps which came quite quickly in succession and these proved to be excellent. The calamari was fresh and crisply fried, with a perfect accompaniment of olive oil and sour cream to dip. The chicken wings came in a larger than expected portion and featured the right amount of zing and some delectable breading, the meat was tender and among the best we had. Service was friendly and quite quick and attentive.

So far so good.

For mains we had pork chop and fettuccine. These came beautifully plated. We dug in and found... They were way too salty. I'm talking potatoes chips for days kind of taste. The pork chop otherwise was juicy and moist (not dried out like at some places) and the fettuccine was creamy but not too rich. Unfortunately, the saltiness overwhelmed all other taste. We each only ate about half before leaving. I had the rest of my leftovers with copious amounts of water.

I don't know if the kitchen was having an off day, unfortunately, St. James was not the 5 star experience I...

TL;DR is that I don't regret going, but probably won't be going back. Overall, the experience was good, but not great. I wouldn't go out of my way to come here, but wouldn't be upset if a friend really wanted to try it.

For starters, the coffee was way overpriced. Close to $4 for a drip coffee, $4.50 for their "SteamPunk," which as far as I could tell was an overly fancy french press. No refills. It was a decent cup, but not worth that much.

We had the brunch menu, which was a limited menu. Which is fine, it is brunch after all. I had the Woodsman, which is an open-faced breakfast sandwich on grilled sourdough. It was good, not necessarily awe-inspiring. The homefries were pretty bomb, though. Very tasty. My SO had the avocado toast, which, judging by the other tables, is the one thing anyone comes here to get. The avocados were brown (not a huge deal taste wise, but presentation matters), and the lentils didn't really add much to the dish. Much like mine, she said it was good, but not great. We had a cookie afterwards, and in keeping with the rest of the meal it was good, but not great. (Sensing a pattern here?)

Service was a bit slow. They have all of 9 tables in the place and 6 people working, I would have expected a bit quicker turn around. We had to get up to go order our cookie and had to find the sugar and milk. Maybe that's standard practice there, but I was slightly miffed given the staff to table ratio and the...