St John - London

There can be no doubt that St John is a legendary British restaurant. Chef, Ferguson Henderson’s austere, stripped back style is widely credited with almost singlehandedly kick-starting a renaissance in eating offal with it’s ‘nose to tail’ menu policy. Chef and outspoken ‘no bullshit’ food pundit, Anthony Bourdain credits St John as being his favourite restaurant in the world and describes Fergus Henderson as a ‘reluctant spiritual leader’ to a whole generation of chefs.

Back when I worked in London, for years I was ensconced in an office, just a few minutes down the road from St John. In fact, I walked past it at least twice daily. That’s the closest I ever got. I never ate there once. I wasn’t confident enough. I often stopped on the pavement outside to study the menu. It seemed pretty expensive and I didn’t know what most of the dishes were, in fact, some of them sounded positively horrific, words plucked from abattoir sweepings and deposited straight onto a plate. I always backed away, intimidated.

Last Friday, finally, I returned to my old stomping ground, older, wiser, fatter. Lunch for one booked at St John and far from being intimidated, I was incredibly excited.

The restaurant itself, housed in a former bacon smokehouse has an unusual feel to it. You initially enter a cavernously high ceilinged, blinding white, bare walled, factory space, flooded with natural light. This area, houses the bar, a bakery counter and a few tables. Just to the right, up a small flight of stone steps is a door marked ‘dining room’ and this is where I headed.

This room is also large, but much lower ceilings give it a darker and definitely more intimate quality than the almost industrial glare of the entrance hall. Despite sharing the same spartan whitewashed walls and stripped back utilitarianism, it feels somehow very comfortable. The stark architectural design softened by being well worn and lived in. It’s a fantastic space and in the middle of lunchtime, it was bustling.

One of the most pleasing aspects of eating on your own, despite the fact that it feels so indulgent, is that the whole dining experience is somehow intensified. Your concentration, with no distraction offered by a companion is pin sharp. You take absolutely everything in.

In between reading the menu, I idly scanned the room, watching the waiters and waitresses work, jacketed in long sleeved chefs whites and white aprons. Admiring their professional hustle, constantly glancing in hurried passing at their tables, checking. Well-drilled service is a joy to observe.

Chewing on excellent sourdough bread, I waited for my starter. I’d ordered a St John classic, an iconic dish that is apparently always on the menu, Roast Bone Marrow and Parsley Salad. Before arriving, I’d actually consulted Twitter for recommendations on ‘must order’ dishes, and this one came up again and again, unanimously in fact. Anthony Bourdain has singled this out as the last thing he’d wish to eat if on Death row. No pressure then.

My waiter explained to me that the best way to eat it, is to hold the bone over the sourdough toast, push the marrow through with the supplied pick type implement, spread it, sprinkle liberally with salt and then heap with the parsley salad. What can I say that probably hasn’t already been said? It’s absolutely bloody amazing. It doesn’t get simpler than some roasted veal bones, toast, a parsley salad and some salt but combined together? Oh frigging yes. My first bite of this was a definite eyes rolling back in the head moment, the soft jelly like marrow oozing over and into the crisp, hot sourness of the bread, cut through with the sharpness of the piled on parsley, capers and shallots. Simply incredible.

 I’d asked my waiter for a glass of wine to accompany my roasted bones, and he recommended a ‘Fantasie 2010’ Chateau de Jurque, Jurancon which at £8.10 a glass was a bit more than I normally like to splurge (one could get two whole frigging bottles of Asti Spumante for that) but I decided to push the boat out and it was a great choice, absolutely spot on match.

Roast Middle White Loin, Carrots and Trotter arrived, personifying the admirable St John aesthetic of no needless decoration or frippery. This was a very functional looking plate of food indeed. Middle White is a particularly tasty rare breed pig and here the meat was beautifully cooked, tender and full of flavour with attendant perfect crackling. A whole braised carrot was a surprisingly decent vegetal accompaniment. The trotter aspect of the dish was presumably personified in a small piece of porky jelly. It was all undoubtedly good, but it didn’t blow my socks off, like the previous course had.

Comfortably slipping into the fine dining booze groove and feeling mistakenly affluent, I asked for another recommendation to accompany my pork. A chilled red, ‘Les Copines Aussi’ 2010 at £7.40 a glass was, once again, well chosen by my waiter and would have been a really nice drink at anytime really.

I’ve made the St John Eccles Cake recipe at home, and I was intrigued to see how my efforts compared (pretty well as it turns out). Another stripped back, almost geometric plate arrived in the form of a perfectly spherical cake, alongside a triangular slice of Lancashire cheese. Undoubtedly simple but the genius here being that the two seemingly disparate items complement each other perfectly. Beyond the crisp flake of the confining pastry, the Eccles cake filling was sticky, dry and beautifully spiced. The earthy creamy tang of the cheese was sublime.

After a decent coffee, and a momentary period of reflection and digestation (is that even a word? If not…it should be). I swayed outside onto the pavement swooning from feeling over £60 lighter. For me, that’s a pretty damn expensive lunch. But, you know what, it was worth every single penny.

I bloody loved St John. It’s a one-off and quite obviously continues to live up to its considerable reputation. The whole experience was just an absolute pleasure from start to finish. Every aspect is so perfectly pitched, the dining room, the friendly yet admirably professional staff, and the menu full of interesting, seasonal and often iconic dishes.

St John feels somehow imbued with the stripped back essence of what makes eating pleasurable. That it’s so very British is just incredible. There just isn’t anywhere else comparable.

St John
26 St John Street
London
EC1M 4AY

Telephone: 020 3301 8069
www.stjohnrestaurant.com

Last weeks highlights

I've recently noted that the first couple of weeks after pay day, I eat very well. Better cuts of meat, more experimentation with new recipes. On the flip side, in the last two weeks I revert back to old favourites, cheaper cuts, and the tried and tested budget recipes.

Last week was one of the 'flush' weeks, so a Sirloin Steak Salad featured on the menu, as did some experimentation with a Chicken and Basil dish, and a Portuguese stew, and finally I had my brother and his wife around for dinner Saturday evening, where; against all my dinner party good sense I cooked two completely new and untried dishes.

First up the Sirloin Steak.
It was from my local butchers, (the better, more expensive one). And was outrageously expensive, but it really was excellent steak, deep red and marbled throughout.
My new Eagle recipe book got another airing, and I used their recipe for 'Tagliata' which is an Italian cut seared steak salad.
The recipe combined boiled small waxy potatoes and a heap of rocket dressed with a tarragon, olive oil and balsamic dressing. On top of this, the seared slices of steak are draped artfully!
Very nice it was too, I was pretty impressed with this dish - simple, quick and quiet light. But I think I'd shop around for less eye wateringly expensive sirloin next time.

Next we have Chicken Breast with Pesto and Bulgar Wheat Salad. Bit of experimentation going on here, I had leftover Basil so made some Pesto, I cooked the chicken breasts in the oven for 25 Min's at 200c, I then covered the chicken with the pesto and put it back in the oven for 5 Min's. It melted and formed a perfectly even, and pretty attractive 'crust'. I combined this with a bulgar wheat salad (The recipe for which can be found in the comments section of this post).

I think this worked pretty well, the chicken coated with Pesto tasted great. My partner reckoned I put too much lime juice in the accompanying salad, at least, that's what I think she was saying whilst I screamed and shouted at her for being ungrateful and having the audacity to criticise my cooking.....just kidding of course, I always ask her opinion on what I've cooked and normally ask for a mark out of 10.....this scoring method normally produces air punches and undignified whooping on my part, but on the thankfully rare occasions my cooking scores low, it generates sullen looks and frosty silences which can make for some interesting evenings!


Next up we have 'Potaje de Garbanzos', a Spanish chickpea and chorizo stew. Again, this recipe is from my recently acquired 'The Eagle' cookbook and I really enjoyed it. I think I've cooked something similar before from one of the Jamie Oliver books. No photos of this dish I'm afraid. I forgot and stuffed the lot before I remembered, and in any case it wasn't the most photogenic recipe. But saying that, it was gorgeous - so much so, we'll be cooking this again this week. It combines chickpeas, spinach, chorizo, pancetta garlic and interestingly a chopped, hard boiled egg!


Finally we have Saturdays Dinner party menu. As I mentioned previously, I took a risk and cooked two untried dishes, and one I've cooked before. Of the three courses, two paid off, the third went a bit wrong, but I don't think anyone noticed.

For a starter I cooked 'Petatou' which is a French dish of potatoes, thyme, chopped olives and topped with grilled goats cheese.
This was gorgeous, really impressed with this recipe. (From Anthony Bourdains 'Les Halles' cook book). Only negative thing I'd say, the specified portions were massive, I'm hosting another dinner party this weekend and liked this so much, I'll be cooking it again - only this time in much smaller portions.


For the main I cooked pan fried cod fillet from the local fishmongers, with Garlic Pomme puree and porcini mushrooms. No photos of this dish I'm afraid. The reason being, I was so stressed out and flustered cooking it, I was worried it would get cold... so served it straight away.
With hindsight, the Garlic Pomme Puree is a simple enough recipe, but for a dinner party would benefit being at least partly made in advance. I left myself too much to do.....and by the time I got around to cooking the Cod (and subsequently realising that I couldn't fit all four pieces in one pan, so had to have two on the go.....and then setting the smoke alarm off for good measure!...I was falling to pieces, well, I think we've all been there.

Thank God I made the desert in advance. This was the dish that went 'wrong'. A white chocolate and lemon mousse, easy enough. But, when I added the white chocolate to the sabayon mixture, it seized and formed a solid ball. I ended up folding the double cream through the hardened white chocolate mixture and breaking it up as I went.....I sort of got away with it, but the lemon flavour didn't distribute through the mousse completely as it should. Oh well. I've since found out that white chocolate is notorious for seizing up and basically being hard to work with. Lesson learnt. Although saying that, everyone seemed to enjoy it, and my Girlfriend even asked me to make it again this weekend. (I'm not going to though, choosing instead to make a much less temperamental tarte tatin!)

What I've been cooking, and eating.

I thought I'd write something about the food I've been cooking at home this past week. One's an old favourite, the rest are all new recipes I've tried for the first time. Looking at the photos, I just realised there's Definitely a real Middle Eastern vibe going on in my choice of recipes right now.


The photo above is two recipes from Nigel Slater's 'Real Food' (if you don't own it - buy it! some cracking recipes in there). We have 'Classic French Potato Salad' combined with 'Grilled Chicken with Chili. Lemon and Mint. Really impressed with these, especially the potato dish. So simple but so gorgeous. What's interesting is that the dressing (2 chopped shallots, 3 Tbs Tarragon Vinegar, 125ml Olive oil and chopped flat leaf parsley). Is poured over the hot peeled potatoes and then left for 30 Min's to soak in. And it did! completely soaked up, tasted gorgeous.
The Chicken dish was good too - very clean and fresh tasting, but the potato recipe was the clear winner here.

An old Favourite this, from Nigella Lawsons 'Forever Summer' cookbook, 'Lamb patties with Hummus and Pitta'. Another really fresh tasting plate of food. Rather than buy hummus I made my own - it's really easy, miles cheaper and tastes much better.

Another recipe from Nigella's 'Forever Summer' - 'Bulgar Wheat Salad with Pink-Seared Lamb'. First time I've made this, and very nice it was too - the Lamb Loins needed a bit more 'searing' I'd say, but still they weren't bad, the accompanying Bulgar Wheat Salad was lovely.

Finally we have 'Kosheri' from the newest recipe book on my shelf, 'Ottolenghi - The Cookbook'. This is apparently Egyptian street food, and is similar to kedgeree (without the fish). It consists of green lentils, basmati rice, vermicelli noodles (had real trouble getting these - it's no different to spaghetti really). This is flavoured with Nutmeg, Cinnamon and caramelised white onions. Then served with a spicy, chili spiked tomato sauce on the side. This recipe tasted truly fantastic. Only downside was, for mid-week cooking, it took quite a while to cook and generated a sink full of washing up.

So, that's what I've been cooking this week....

In other foodie related news, I ate the best Falafel I've ever tasted from a stall in Whitecross Street Market, EC1, It was wrapped in a flatbread with chopped tomato, pickled beetroot(?) pickled chilli's, a dash of Chili Sauce and finally Tahini sauce and all for £4-50. Which, was for a large one. (A size, which I've learnt is only for the truly famished! I just about finished it.) There was a queue down the road, so the stall is obviously very popular. (Follow the crowds!)
http://www.hoxtonbeach.com/index.php

And in some late breaking news - I ordered some new recipe books from Amazon....

'Big Flavours and Rough Edges'- Recipes from 'The Eagle'

One of my favourite Gastro Pubs, this book is out of print and priced at over £100 in some places, but I grabbed a second hand copy for £10!

Gordon Ramsay's 'Cooking for Friends'

I recently read about a recipe for Cardamom and Lime Mousse in another blog, and I had to get the recipe.

Last but not least,
Anthony Bourdain's "Les Halles" Cookbook: Classic Bistro Cooking

After reading 'Kitchen Confidential', I've had my eye on this for a while - and I love French Bistro food.

I'll let you know how I get on with these when they arrive.