posted on February 28, 2011 13:59
At St. John you can eat some of the best meat dishes in London, from whole suckling pig to roast mutton, in refreshingly unfussy surroundings. What's lacking in pomp is more than made up for in technical ability. Its Welsh rarebit is easily one of the finest of its kind in the world. Therefore, London is proud to have another world class restaurant in top 50 best restaurants in the world. At St John the founders Trevor Gulliver and Fergus Henderson have been busy becoming hoteliers this year but its business as usual at their stalwart British restaurant-cum-canteen.
Fergus Henderson and restaurateur Trevor Gulliver opened their current world class St. JOHN in October 1994. The former smokehouse, situated around the corner from London's Smithfield Market had fallen into serious disrepair since ham and bacon smoking ceased in 1967.
The Georgian building had been part townhouse, part smokehouse (this part having been built later over the townhouse gardens) and following its abandonment had been used variously and in no particular order as squats, a greenhouse for harvesting bean sprouts, a Chinese beer store and the occasional rave.
The Restaurant stylistically is very simple. The aesthetics of the restaurant, housed in a former smokehouse, has clean lines, with wooden tables and white bricks inside, red bricks outside. The baking operations has moved from Smithfield to Spitalfields in 2003 when it was opened St. John "Bread and Wine" though they still sell their breads and other baked goods at St. John and at the occasional farmer's market and food festival.
The cooking at St. John is not only honest, but also impressive enough . Anthony Bourdain apparently knelt in respect before chef Fergus Henderson after his first time dining there. Chef Mario Batali said of his cooking “it makes me want to torch my own Babbo restaurant and move to London to heed the master's call.” Chef Erik Desjarlais called him “a living god in the world of head-to-hoof cooking.”
The St. John crew are planning to open their third property in Leicester Square, called St. John Hotel. The hotel will have 15 rooms, plus a top floor suite, and a restaurant open for breakfast, elevenses, lunch, afternoon tea, and pre-theatre dinner through dinner to the early hours. The site is well-known to Londoners as the former Manzi’s.
Chef Fergus Henderson was born 1963 and is an English chef who is the founder the St John. He is often noted for his use of offal and other neglected cuts of meat as a consequence of his philosophy of Nose To Tail Eating (see details of his book below). Following in the footsteps of his parents, Brian and Elizabeth Henderson, he was initially trained as an architect at the Architectural Association in London. Most of his dishes are derived from traditional British cuisine and the wines are all French.
His stoic approach to Parkinson's disease which was diagnosed in 1996 increased the regard in which he was held and he was awarded an MBE in 2005. The same year he underwent innovative Deep Brain Stimulation which vastly improved his mobility.
Fergus, is probably one of the UK's most influential chef. His eating' philosophy is influencing the British cuisine and introduced a new generation to the delights of bone marrow, gizzards and chitterlings. His eponymous restaurant 17 years after it opened, hasn't lost a crumb of its zeitgeisty appeal. The little sister restaurant, St John Bread and Wine, which opened in Spitalfields in 2003, has become the canteen for Tracey Emin and the East London art crowd. And now there's a hotel, four years and £6 million in the making, joining the stable.
Chefs Anthony Bourdain and Mario Batali have both praised Henderson for his dishes, which optimise British food while making full use of the whole animal. A. A. Gill famously retracted his initial hostility to St John in the Sunday Times.
Contact Details
Address: 26 St John Street, London, EC1M 4AY, UK
Telephone: +44(0)20 7251 0848
Web Site: stjohnrestaurant.com
Opening Times: Supper is served from 6.00 pm to 11.00 pm Monday to Saturday and closed Sunday evening. Our bar opens from 11.00 am to 11.00 pm during the week, as per the dining room on Saturdays and from noon to 5.00 pm on Sundays. St. JOHN is open for lunch in the dining room from Monday to Friday between noon and 3.00 pm and on Sunday from 1.00 pm until 3.30 pm.
Interview: Find Eat Drink
Reviews: This is London also Daily Telegraph has a good write up.
Good Blog: Abergavennyfoodfestival
Publications: Fergus first book was: Nose to Tail Eating - A Kind of British Cooking, first published in 1999 and re-published both in the UK and the U.S. (as The Whole Beast) garnered much acclaim and won the Andre Simon award for food writing. There is a follow up book, "Beyond Nose to Tail Eating" which was published in 2007, co-written with St. John's head baker Justin Piers Gellatly. Regularly featured in the food pages of both national and international press and one or two appearances on television in the UK as well as America, Australia and Europe, Fergus enjoys a culinary reputation beyond the two restaurants and the hotel.