Daytime on 14th Street NW just got a lot more island flavor. St. James, the modern Caribbean restaurant on the corridor, is sliding into the neighborhood’s daytime routine with a move into midday service. On Thursday, the team welcomed local TV hosts to sample plates and preview plans for an expanded lunch offering, giving U Street regulars and nearby workers a fresh reason to stop in before dinner service.
The television segment showed hosts Roxanne and Megan tasting several dishes and noted that the St. James team announced “a new lunch menu coming soon,” as reported by Good Morning Washington.
According to St. James, the restaurant currently lists a weekend midday lineup that includes Bake & Fish sandwiches, dhalpuri rotis, curried rice bowls and an oxtail rice bowl, with service beginning at 1 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. The website also notes a 20% “fair wage” fee added to checks, along with other menu and hours details on its dinner and lunch pages.
Menu highlights and cocktails
Owner Jeanine Prime has said she wants St. James to celebrate the Caribbean’s “rich and diverse” culinary history, drawing on Trinidadian, East Indian and West African traditions. The kitchen leans on dishes such as callaloo topped with lump crab, soft shell crab with taro dumplings, paratha roti platters and a 12-hour jerk brisket, while the bar emphasizes rum-forward cocktails like a West Indian Old Fashioned and Pineapple Chow. Those choices and Prime’s approach were profiled in earlier coverage of the restaurant…