Restaurant Review | James: In the Neighborhood, and of It

Many people have had an indirect hand in the small, sweet new restaurant James, starting with James Calvert, for whom it’s named. A great-grandfather of the restaurant’s chef, Bryan Calvert, he too made his living as a cook in New York, setting an example, showing the way.

The list goes on to include the writer Susan Sontag, who died in 2004, and the photographer Annie Leibovitz. Bryan Calvert worked as their personal chef at their country house upstate, where he tried to satisfy both Ms. Leibovitz’s desire for farm-fresh, unembellished fare and Ms. Sontag’s affinity for French flair. The menu at James balances the two.

But I like to think that we owe James to Britney Spears above all others. Through his affiliation with Ms. Leibovitz, Mr. Calvert occasionally catered celebrity photo shoots, and he still vividly recalls a session involving the onetime priestess of teen pop.

He said he unveiled the usual bountiful spread, only to be informed that Ms. Spears ate nothing but BLT sandwiches for lunch. So he hustled back into the kitchen and re-emerged with a stack of these, only to be told that he’d erred anew. He’d used mayonnaise. That wasn’t how she liked her BLTs, and that wasn’t how she was going to eat them.

Is it any wonder that he retreated to the everyday agita of the restaurant business, where the customer is perhaps always right but the customer seldom has an eccentric nutrition regimen and an entourage on guard against rogue condiments?

James, tucked among residential buildings in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, is the kind of modest, warm refuge produced by a chef who wants to simplify things, to personalize things, to work on a scale that doesn’t require or invite the meddling of too many outsiders.

Mr. Calvert owns and manages it with his wife, Deborah Williamson. They live in the apartment smack above the space it inhabits, which used to belong to Restaurant Sorrel. When Sorrel went out of business they pounced, recognizing an easy commute when they saw one.

For the renovations they didn’t hire decorators. They themselves decided to reclaim the pressed tin ceiling that had been obscured. They chose the chocolate color of the banquette against the white brick wall opposite the long bar. They picked out the 16-armed translucent lighting fixture in the center of the room.

And they didn’t reach to consultants for help with writing the succinct, appealing menu, which takes advantage of herbs they grow themselves in an outdoor garden adjacent to their apartment, on the roof of a garage next door. James is a Mom-and-Pop operation for the Alice Waters era, giving locavores sage, basil, oregano and rosemary they can feel especially virtuous about.

It’s also an example of how quietly sophisticated the food at restaurants fashioned as affordable neighborhood bistros has become. No bigger, brasher restaurant around town served me an heirloom tomato salad this summer that I enjoyed any more than one at James.

The tomatoes were bright and juicy and didn’t taste of the refrigerator, and the warm goat cheese fondue with them was a perfect tangy, creamy counterpoint. It marked the dish as the product of smart thinking and skilled execution, not just righteous purchasing. Locavore letdown alert: the tomatoes didn’t come from the couple’s limited garden. This is a densely populated section of Brooklyn we’re talking about, not Sunnybrook Farms.

A spinach salad was similarly impressive. Could spinach salad sound less sexy, or more like an ascetic Midtown lunch on the go? I loved James’s. Each gorgeous, unblemished leaf was crisp and only lightly dressed with a balsamic vinaigrette, and shiitake mushrooms and Parmesan cheese made sure there was plenty of umami afoot. The salad had a deep, satisfying flavor.

The seared scallops over a watercress purée in another appetizer and the grilled prawns over a sunchoke purée in yet another had been cooked with care and dressed up with restraint and sound judgment. Mr. Calvert’s time years ago in the kitchens at Bouley and at Union Pacific was well spent. For the most part he combines flavors sensibly, and he doesn’t lose sight of a dish’s centerpiece attraction.

An entree of roasted chicken, brightened with lemon thyme, hit its mark — crunchy skin, tender meat — both times I had it. A roasted loin of lamb was even better, its powdery coat of pine nuts and rosemary enhancing the luscious meat without eclipsing it.

And for a sweet finish both a chocolate ganache cake and a grilled lemon pound cake provided the uncomplicated pleasure I sought in this kind of setting, steering clear of the excessive fussiness of a few other desserts.

James certainly has weak spots, inconsistencies, befuddlements. Mr. Calvert seems to be struggling to nail the rhubarb honey glaze with crispy sweetbreads: it was medicinal one time, borderline cloying another. His fettuccine with shiitake and Manchego was a dry, bland heap of pasta crying out for something wet, something more.

The restaurant’s brief wine list, while sensible, won’t wow anyone, though James provides a full bar, which many restaurants like it don’t. And it mixes a few winning cocktails, including one with gin, St. Germain, lemon juice and fresh mint, often plucked from the garden nearby. Vice linking arms with virtue: that’s a partnership we can all surely toast.

605 Carlton Avenue (St. Marks Avenue), Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, (718) 942-4255.

ATMOSPHERE About 45 seats, 15 of them bar stools, in a simple, inviting room with a pressed tin ceiling.

SOUND LEVEL Moderately loud.

RECOMMENDED DISHES Spinach salad; tomato salad; scallops; lamb; roasted chicken; shell steak; chocolate ganache cake; lemon almond pound cake.

WINE LIST Short and mostly Western European; most bottles under $50.

PRICE RANGE Appetizers, $8 to $16; entrees, $14 to $29; desserts, $8 to $10.

HOURS From 5:30 to 11 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.

RESERVATIONS Accepted only for parties of six or more.

CREDIT CARDS All major cards.

WHEELCHAIR ACCESS Entrance and restaurant at street level; accessible restroom.