A FAMILIAR face in Jersey’s culinary scene has realised her dream of owning a restaurant in St Aubin this month – offering Middle Eastern food – supported by a three-generation family team of women.
Elke Jacques’ new Meze Bar, located above the St Aubin Sports Bar, provides dinners inspired by renowned chef and food writer Yotam Ottolenghi.
Ms Jacques is no stranger to the culinary business, having worked with her parents at their restaurant and owned various pop-ups and a café.
Her focus now is on creating a welcoming “family community vibe” and offering private parties at her Meze Bar, which operates under the Flavour brand – a business she has owned for over a decade.
It is located in what was originally a Mexican-inspired restaurant, Air Mex West, and has an entertainment licence for live music and a DJ.
She stated that the emphasis was on “mostly healthy and wholesome food”, and that she was “proud” to offer a diverse range of vegan, and vegetarian meals, as well as Lebanese chicken and Persian lamb dishes, with her entire menu being naturally gluten-free due to everything being “freshly-produced and home-made”.
She creates the menu and dishes with the help of her sister, saying: “My mother has been an integral part of creating Meze, as has my sister Tamara and my beautiful daughter Milla.
“I couldn’t have fulfilled my food and bar dream without a three-generation family team”.
Ms Jacques said that she “inherited the flavour gene” from her restaurateur parents, Hannes and Joan, who owned Bistro Soleil during the 1980s, which has since become Mark Jordan.
As she puts it: “My passion for hospitality was inherited from my father and his mother, who were in the industry”.
She added: “I spent my time working there, mostly in the front of the house, and a little in the kitchen. A lot of the time was spent standing by the hot plate watching in awe how my father cooked without measuring, throwing delicious dishes together full of flavour and passion.”
One of her standout memories was watching him expertly create enormous sheets of apple strudel (or “apfelstrudel”) pastry. “He was Austrian and there never was a tastier strudel to be had,” she added.
The Meze Bar currently operates from Thursday to Saturday – but has plans to expand its offerings by introducing ‘Bistro Sundays’ with a roast dinner and speciality coffee “as homage to the Soleil days”.
Ms Jacques’ journey with Flavour.je began in 2009 when she launched her new business that provided nutritious soup made from local and seasonal ingredients to various catering and retail outlets in the Island.
Over the years, she ventured into different pop-up initiatives, such as a soup bar in the market in 2010 and a kiosk at Noirmont during the summer of 2013, all leading up to her search for a permanent venue.
In 2017, she operated a world food café opposite Liberation Station at the Esplanade, offering a fusion of international cuisine, including both Asian and Middle Eastern dishes, created with locally sourced, free-range produce.
In 2019, she opened a beach café in the gardens of the Biarritz Hotel at St Brelade’s Bay for three summer seasons.
