Joe's Southern Kitchen & Bar (Bar, Restaurant)

Top 10 things we discovered about Joe’s Southern Kitchen when we visited:

1) This is the place to head for some deep Southern, home cooking comfort. I'm not sure if there is a big Mama cooking away in the kitchen, but it suuuuuuure does feel authentic.

2) The restaurant itself is actually more slick than homely. It wouldn’t look out of place in a big town in Tennessee or Louisiana with its big neon Coca Cola sign and its Jailhouse Rock posters. The look hasn’t changed too much since its Navajo Joe days here in Covent Garden with the giant coloured panel bar still acting as centrepiece.

3) The Jailhouse rock theme extends to the music. It’s Elvis heaven for fans of the era.

4) It is one restaurant where it’s not fashionable to arrive late. I was there around 8pm on a Saturday night and the ribs were all sold out!

5) If you are allergic to fried food, stay away. It’s all about the crispiness here; whether it’s the tempura seasonal vegetables or the crispy skin of the famous Joe’s Southern Fried Chicken (they actually use a pressure fryer to make it healthier).

6) Thank God for fried food when the staff challenge you to a 1-Night-In-Jail cocktail. It’s so deadly, guests are only allowed to purchase two per night. It’s mixed using three types of bourbon – Wild Turkey 101 (50.5%), Noah’s Mill (57.15%) and Jim Beam Devils Cut (45%) - and if the devil ever made a cocktail, this would be it!

7) If you want to pick up the southern accent, head for the toilets; a southern drawl on loop helps you learn the lingo.

8) It’s nice to see they have a sense of humour: the towel wipes are covered with “Caution – WET” and the Methylchloroisothiazolinone listed on the ingredients sure smelled nice.

9) The kind of music they play calls for a little party and luckily they have a cosy dance floor in the basement to work off those calories.

10) They’ve cruelly crushed my image of James Bond as a vodka martini drinker. Their menu kindly educated me that his first drink in Ian Fleming’s first novel was, in fact, an Americano. For me, I rather liked the look of their cocktail, Son Of A Peach....read more