Is Jöro worth the hype?

It’s fitting that you have to travel some way to get to Jöro. True, it doesn’t compete with the sorts of treks that foodies undertake to get to the finest dining establishments in Cumbria and Cornwall. But the drive out into the quietening far reaches of the Don Valley, through Oughtibridge and beyond, makes you feel you’ve made a minor pilgrimage to the new shrine of Sheffield’s fine dining scene. The original builders of the paper mill it’s housed in could never have dreamed that one day tasting menus would be served here. It’s a very different feel to Jöro’s former Shalesmoor home in a shipping container, just off the ring road.

When Jöro arrived in Sheffield eight years ago, they were hoping that enough of a certain kind of diner lived here. They weren’t the first to bring fine dining to Sheffield (Rafters, The Old Vicarage). But unlike the others, they weren’t offering an elevation of the regular restaurant experience, but going for the take-it-or-leave-it tasting menu. They were also swerving refined surroundings and starched napkins, with an altogether more modern pitch. Had it any hope of success? 

“Lots of people were giving us stick, saying it’s going to be shit, it wouldn’t work here”, Luke French, the chef behind Jöro, tells me. Clearly, it stung. And, for a while, the detractors looked like they were right: the market just wasn’t there. “I could count on one hand the number of days we were fully booked,” French recalls.

Salvation came from an unlikely quarter: The Daily Mail. A review from food columnist Tom Parker Bowles arrived at the moment when hope seemed lost. Giving Jöro four stars out of five, he concluded: “Jöro would be lauded in London. In Sheffield, it’s a downright delight.” The phone started ringing off the hook.

After a few years, French and his wife Stacey Sherwood-French had seen enough to decide that making a major financial investment in bigger premises was worth it. They’ve opened an expansive new restaurant, plus a hotel option if you’d like to stay over after eating. But many Sheffielders will still be sceptical of Jöro’s pitch. Should you really be prepared to spend £125 for the experience?

Jöro — Old Norse for “earth” — channels the darkened atmosphere of Viking dinner halls. The walls are mostly black. On the way in, you walk past what you’ll eat — fish and ducks hang in glass-fronted fridges, a cube of pink salt the size of a breezeblock at the bottom.

A classic rock soundtrack — The Eagles, Stevie Nicks — adds to the Valhalla vibes, as do the almost entirely male team with their intricate tattoo sleeves. Shaggy sheepskin rugs are slung across every other chair.

But despite the Scandinavian trappings, Japan is the leading culinary influence here. Yuzu, miso and nori all grace several plates. A particular treat is the Japanese milk bread, shiny and pillow soft. It’s accompanied by exquisitely concertinaed butter; a dewdrop of maple syrup nestled into every fold. 

Each top tier chef has his or her gift. French’s seems to be an ability to accentuate the flavour of each ingredient to an almost improbable degree. I’ve eaten chanterelle mushrooms before — they have a pleasant, mildly apricot-y flavour. But in this broth, I could convince myself I was actually eating apricots. Another mouthful and, despite the fact this is essentially soup, the flavour profile changes quite dramatically, but in a way that beguiles rather than confuses. 

Small portions can offend the hungry, but I’m glad that most of these are served this way — a whole dish would just be too much. The biggest, and the only one that could be described as a “main” in any sense, is the duck. Again, it’s just more than the duck you’ve had before — the flavours of the dark meat are gamier and deeper. Alongside is a fat black morel mushroom, its webbed skin glistening and cavity stuffed with chicken liver pate. I adore it, but for my dinner companion it’s far too rich.

French is an interesting character. Neither shy nor showman, he tells me his philosophy is to “use the best of the best, wherever we can get it from.” The trout comes from a chalk stream in Hampshire, because that’s where the best trout comes from (this was, in my book, the best dish, with an achingly buttery sauce — it felt criminal to leave any drops in the bowl). Hamachi, a fish in the tuna family, from Japan. Obscure pepper varieties flown in from Mexico. There’s no attempt to source everything from within 20 miles (though there is a classy local nod when a selection of sharp knives arrives, made just up the road in Stocksbridge).

I get the sense his experience of the difficult early days taught French a lot about trusting his instincts, instead of trying to give people what you think they want. “We’re cooking for us, not for you”, he insists. “To be a great chef, you have to cook what you love.”

That may be so, and my tastes match up pretty well with French’s style. But not everything works. Early on, there are two amuse bouches — a choux bun with cheddar and pickled onion inside, and some pineapple — a knowing nod, French tells me, to children’s parties of yesteryear. The bun is gorgeous, puffing then melting in an instant. But serving a little bit of pineapple on its own feels weak, the addition of pepper and kaffir lime not giving it the gravitas it needs to justify its presence.

But my main complaint with Jöro wasn’t culinary, but atmospheric. Traditional restaurant dining centres the diners in the experience — the food and service will allow you to have a memorable time together. The tasting-menu eateries of this world have another agenda — putting the chef and his or her team at the heart of things. Jöro is set up like a theatre — with all the seats angled towards watching the action.

The only problem: there isn’t any. This is theatre without the theatricals. If you’ve seen the film/TV drama Boiling Point, the intensely dramatic chef drama with Stephen Graham, imagine the precise opposite. Much like the Norse and Japanese cultures that Jöro is seeking to emulate in its food, the preparation is calm and orderly, with the sous-chefs finding ample time for a bit of a natter. And they were just slightly too far away for us to get much of a sense of what was going on anyway — and we were sat at the front.

And, while those Viking waiters are remarkably friendly (one kept slipping me small glasses of wine or cider on the house), at times they felt a little too present. That cosy restaurant anonymity that lets you and your companion chat, observe, and laugh unseen has been stripped away — but not replaced with any compensating spectacle.

So, if you can afford to spend £125 on a meal (or a more modest £55 for the lunchtime option), you’ll definitely have fantastic food that will linger in the memory at Jöro. There’s a good reason it’s featured in the Michelin Guide, and a star might be forthcoming at some stage. But the missing ingredient might be what really made Viking feasts in darkened halls such a great place to be: conviviality.