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Café Clement, the all-day restaurant inside Nick Jones’ new St Clement Hotel at 180 The Thames in central London, opened with a bang in June and immediately rocketed to the top of every “sell your grandmother for a terrace table” list in London. Which isn’t that much of a surprise, seeing as Jones, founder of Soho House, is the master of restaurant rumpus.

Within days, Stanley Tucci, Nick Grimshaw and full-length-trouser-phobic heart-throb Paul Mescal were all there, tucking into oeufs mayonnaise and lobster omelettes while politely ignoring the fact that the place was still, in many ways, a building site. The hotel itself isn’t due to open fully until early autumn, when a rooftop restaurant, Lunette, will also arrive with some of London’s most wondrous views and Florence Knight at the helm. Still, Café Clement opened to frothy praise, and I am forever curious as to how these kind of sizzling places feel on a normal Tuesday two months in, when the celebrities are all off sunning their bottoms in Tuscany and, frankly, lunch is not free.

Café Clement is elegant but not overdone: white linen, vintage Cassina chairs. The staff, of whom there appear to be about 345, are a joy: everyone seems to have been hired for their personality and for having the chops to nail a busy service. There’s an open kitchen behind ornate glass screens, a south-facing terrace that gives itself to debauchery and a garden out the back. The menu, which is that of a broadly European, fancy, all-day bistro, offers the likes of spatchcocked chicken with speck and green bean vinaigrette, Dorset crab with marinated tomatoes and aïoli, and hearty meat and fish casseroles. There are pastas and grills, plus chocolatey, tarty things on the pudding menu.

As with most central London celebrity brasseries, the food offering here is designed to mollify and comfort: steak haché with crinkle-cut chips, roast duck with dripping potatoes, with cosmos on the cocktail menu and a hulking sharing chocolate mousse that will soothe any recent knock-back for a starring role. And if anyone can keep all of this classy, it’s chef Danny Bohan, who spent 20-odd years at the River Cafe, most recently as head chef, working alongside Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers, both of them names that make foodies genuflect. A reader told me recently that his life’s ambition was to eat at the River Cafe, where starters run to £51, pastas to £46 and mains to £69. Unfortunately, his partner misunderstood the assignment entirely and booked the now defunct and unmissed Rainforest Café in Piccadilly instead. Here’s hoping said errant partner finds out about Café Clement and tries to make amends by booking a table, because it turns out that it’s really rather good.

Café Clement’s food offering could be merely passable and many would turn a blind eye, but it’s pleasing and careful in equal measure. A plate of eggs mayonnaise arrives jammy and generously stuffed, the mayo earthy and mustardy without ever tipping into sickly. The eggs are served starkly – there’s no trout roe, no caviar – and they are all the better for it. You get the sense that this is a kitchen that wants to spend money on exceptional produce, rather than on garnishes that may well end up in the bin. The cheese soufflé is stunning: upright, luscious, deeply cheesy. A sharply pickly, well-seasoned steak tartare comes free-form on the plate, and is served with carta di musica Sardinian flatbread. Sea bass carpaccio is simply and beautifully arranged, all sweet and sharp in exactly the right proportions. A side of summer beetroots at £7 is, quite frankly, gorgeous: sweet, plump, properly baked, buttery, and made me wonder why baked beets aren’t on every side menu going.

Not everything lands, however. The fish casserole is thin and pale, a bouillabaisse in search of a meaning: some mussels, a piece of fish, not a lot else. Definitely good for those on a diet, though. A side of crinkles, or retro potato wedges, meanwhile, isn’t really worth the carbs. The £18 chocolate mousse for two, on the other hand, turns up with the energy of an unstructured brownie and the ability to put you on your back with a sugar high. Neither of those things is a quibble. A fresh, wobbly slice of custard tart is delightful, and comes with a mush of sweet strawberries and more custard.

Café Clement quietly surpasses expectations, and I’d go back any day. It is fun, joyous and well thought out. As this stretch of the Thames around 180 The Strand finally starts to flourish, it will become even more useful and ridiculously difficult to get into. Come for the celeb rumpus, and, if none of them is there, stay for the oeufs mayonnaise.

• Café Clement St Clement, 180 The Thames, 12 Temple Place, London WC2, 020-4632 6660. Open all week, 7am-11pm (9pm Sun). From about £60 a head for three courses, plus drinks and service