You might not know it, but St. JOHN changed the way you eat.
In 1994, when chefs were obsessed with foie gras, lobster and only prime cuts of meat, Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gulliver opened St. JOHN restaurant in the shadow of Smithfield Market, serving jellied tripe, pea and pig’s ear soup, grilled lamb heart and many more unfashionable ingredients.
It felt like a “fuck you to all that was haute”, recalled the chef Tom Harris in 2015, and slowly, its influence started to grow.
Those who have enjoyed duck neck sausage in Mýse, Yorkshire, beef offal ragu in Manteca, London, or lamb belly and heart skewers in Erst, Manchester, have St. JOHN to thank.
Similarly, anyone who has ever stepped foot in Black Axe Mangal in Islington or Lyle’s in Shoreditch will feel its legacy.
As Jon Hatchman noted in this publication in ’21, St. JOHN is a rare Michelin-starred gastro temple without redundant affectation. A London icon for people who simply love food.
With its white walls, industrial lights and policy of no music, no art, and no flowers, St. JOHN might not be what you expect of such a revered restaurant when you first walk through the hallowed entrance.
But it doesn’t take long to get it.
Chefs casually walk past with whole pigs tossed over their shoulders, while the bakery symbolically sits counter-to-counter with the bar.
One of their key beliefs is that a great restaurant should insist on making a human shape to the day, beginning early with the baking of bread, and ending late with a final glass of something special.
An evening at St. JOHN certainly feels like that. It’s stripped back, slow and contemplative.
The rationale Henderson outlined in his 1999 cookbook, Nose to Tail Eating, that it is “disingenuous” not to eat the whole animal.
There are delights, textual and flavoursome, beyond the fillet that should be enjoyed not because one should, but because one really must.
Bone-marrow toast, bone-marrow pie funnels, brain, kidneys, liver, tongue, roe. And, of course, all those long-lost classics that became unfashionable in most places, but not here.
After opening in Smithfields in October 1994, St. JOHN will now be rolling back the clock and serving up its most famous meals at 1994 prices between September 9th – 27th.
Dishes will include its infamous roast bone marrow and parsley salad, as well as crispy fried pigtail and eel, bacon and mash, as well as the likes of apricots on toast – which has long been off the menu.
Reservations open at 10am on August 22 through OpenTable, and the special merch will drop mid-September on the St John website.
