St James Restaurant

I have been through Selma several times, and searched for restaurants on Unilocal while there, but this one has never come up for some reason. It is located on the first floor of the ultra historic St James Hotel, on the banks of the Alabama River, near the world famous Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma Alabama. This is an Antebellum hotel (built in 1837) and is reportedly haunted. Not that I saw signs of that during a visit to the restaurant.
The restaurant opens for lunch at 11 AM, but I didn’t see any hours posted so I can’t report what they are. I did post photos of the lunch menu for the day we tried it out.
We arrived just after 11 to check it out, having just finished a meeting down the street and not wanting to drive back to Birmingham with out lunch.
We both ordered the Low County White Cheddar Gulf Shrimp and Grits. I love checking out different restaurants’ takes on this dish, especially when they have a chef on site. While this restaurant was not busy while we where there (from just after 11 to around 12:30, Executive Chef Emmanuel Kimaro was on duty. The dish was served with a Beurre Blanc Sauce, normally just a yellowish white butter sauce, but the Chef’s take on it was more of a brown gravy. Buttery as the name suggests, but an unusual Umami flavor not typical of this French style sauce. Not what I expected from beurre blanc, but what I would expect from a talented executive chef. So hats off to Chef Kimaro! A totally different take on Shrimp and Grits, and quite wonderful.
So, if you are in Selma during the week, There is a restaurant at the St James Hotel, and I hope you check it out!
Okay, so why only 4 stars? They weren’t particularly busy, and had some sort of Jerry Springereque confrontational TV show on by the bar. To each his own, but I found it distracting to have under dressed folks on TV yelling at each other about who done wrong during a $ 15 lunch. News, or no TV would be better. I was surprised that on a beautiful fall Friday afternoon they weren’t packed, considering the quality of the food. Better outdoor signage and advertising might help. Like I said, I’ve driven past and had no idea there what a top tier restaurant that could go against Hot and Hot Fish Club or Bistro 218 in Birmingham at this hotel. Selma is lucky, they just need to turn the TV off.