St John

We went to St John the other week and it was decidedly average. We had the sole and roast chicken (it was Sunday lunch). The food was underwhelming and what you would have expected at your local gastropub – sole OK but flabby and soggy, the chicken boring and bland. Lovely service though, and the wine list had some good choices at reasonable prices. Overall however, the pricing was way out of line for the quality and skill of the cooking. Very hard to believe St John has a Michelin star. I won't be going back.

Eaten at St John 3 times in the last 18m. Our most recent visit was April 11, having not eaten there since early 2010 (always booked up). Its pretty much unchanged, and every bit as good, with its focus on simple high quality English dishes, especially the “unpopular cuts”.

The main white walled dining room is rather stark and cold, especially with its warehouse style lighting – but perfect abattoir décor ! OK when busy, but it must be very “cold” if there are times when the restaurant is quiet.

The waitress and serving staff were very professional and knowledgeable, able to properly answer questions about the menu. However, not particularly friendly or charming. They coped very well with the very busy restaurant.

We love the simple high quality, very tasty and very earthy style of the dishes (eg fantastic pigeon), unusual off-cut and offal dishes (eg chitterlings). Our venison offal was a little uninspiring; mainly liver. However, on a previous visit, it would have been difficult for the very gamey grouse to have been any more “red”, which might not be to everyone’s taste. The menu really focusses on the gutsy stronger tasting cuts and dishes.

We had absolutely delicious trifle and apple cake for dessert. Possibly the best restaurant trifle I've eaten – Following on from Gary Rhodes great achievement 10+ yrs ago with Shepherds Pie ?

We liked the wine list, with its unusual bias to well selected regional French.

Great value at circa £75 for 2 for 2 courses inc service ex all drinks.

Overall, a great restaurant, with professional staff serving very tasty and sometimes very unusual dishes. Long may it continue.

A sustained exercise in sleight of hand .
Indifferent and unpleasant staff serve mediocre food to posers whose main concern is to see them selves reflected in the eyes of other narcissists…avoid.

So much has been written about St. John Restaurant, I feel I’m only adding to the love letter pile. The humble little cave in Clerkenwell serving overt British organs and cut-offs has become cult. A holy shrine. True believers, once they’ve marked off Jerusalem and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, come here.

Fergus Henderson’s straightforward combinations have drawn plaudits from across the globe. AA Gill commented that: “I have few regrets as a restaurant critic, but one is that I didn’t give Fergus Henderson a better review when he opened in Clerkenwell years ago.” And Anthony Bourdain – in his Introduction to Nose to Tail Eating: A Kind of British Cooking, says: “After eating the Roast Bone Marrow and Parsley Salad at St. John, I declared it my always and forever choice for ‘Death Row Meal’, the last meal I’d choose to put in my mouth before they turned up the juice.”

And now I pen where so many have before me, proclaiming the glories of Henderson and the Roast Bone Marrow and Parsley Salad. Assuming you’ve eaten at St. John, please, sing along with me.

Unfussy presentation, stripped simplicity of Carnivorousness affection. The culinary connection you share with the beast on your plate. The enthusiastic licking of lips. The pilgrimage complete.

St. John is not just a must-try on the London culinary circuit. It summons grumbling bellies from all corners of the globe. It has become a reference point: for simplicity executed, its A-Z of nose-to-tail-eating, and frankly if you haven’t eaten there then you’re frivolously shunned from circles and made to stand in the corner with PETA.

Reading the menu you’re enticed immediately: pea and pig’s ear soup, rolled pig’s spleen, duck’s neck terrine. The descriptions roll off like prayer. It goes without saying that all are unusual delights, missing from the majority of restaurant menus across the land, and because of this omission often suffer a lack of flavour and exercising the variety of textures that can be found in a healthy organ or off-cut.

Henderson’s belief is both simple and respectful: “‘Nose to Tail Eating’ means it would be disingenuous to the animal not to make the most of the whole beast.” And I’m with him. Let me explore and smack my lips around pork belly, wrap tongue around tongue, chew the heart, puncture a lung, and snap a crispy pig’s tail.

All eulogies are correct, the Roast Bone Marrow and Parsley Salad is food to love. Four sawn-off bones contain hot jellied marrow for you to spread on toast, along with a sprinkling of coarse salt and chopped parsley. It’s warm and rich and fun to assemble. The marrow is grilled to leave a burnt surface that you can crack with a spoon or sharp implement. It’s no nonsense and all the better for it.

Straightforward ingredients present my main too: ox heart & chips. Nowadays you’re used to reading plate descriptions that take you off the page and contain so many characterisations that you’re baffled as to exactly what it is you’ve just sent for. This elementary listing informs me of exactly what it is I want to know: I’m expecting ox heart (yep, the beating pulse and lifeline from the beast itself – flappy ventricles and all) with chips. Simply, chips. And it was fantastic.

A single gulls’ egg was one of the finest orbs I’ve had the pleasure of popping into my gob, and I’ve tasted many an egg, from all the Scotch varieties, plus quail to duck to Ostrich. It was a true gastronomic delicacy served at the beginning of season with celery salt. Pushed out from the tight backside of the black-headed gull, these eggs are rare, creamy in texture and of a fine size. For all the agonising heavy breathing and constipation the black-headed gull endured, I must say, she’s some sport and I honour her.

A bottle of Minervois was good, an appellation for distinctive red wines from the western Languedoc and recommended by a friend. St. John is great fun. Even better when inebriated. Better still with toffee pudding, and tipped over the edge by the warm Madeleines – the best I’ve tasted! Fresh and doughy, melt-in-the-mouth, cushion shells. I now crave them every day. It’s torture.

I have thought about reviewing this restaurant for some months now and decided to do it finally for the most awful experience I had. I saw the mice running out from the kitchen while eating… Yes, not mouse, not one, but two different during the whole meal.
Needless to say I didnt have much appetite after that. But since it was an anniversary surprise dinner in October 2010 organised by my boyfriend, I did not raise an alarm. I ve grown up in country- side, so seeing mice does not freak me out per se, but seeing them while eating is so very disgusting. I have not felt like being back. Ever. Although before that occasion I had been in St John' s couple of times since the food is indeed very good. You can question how Michelin star restaurant can have such a pale, cold and at times even dirty decor, but still go and enjoy the food. But Michelin star restaurant with mice running around… well, no comments really!

No matter how good the starters on the menu are (and there are always some tempting offerings), nothing can compare to the bone marrow on toast, and it gets me every time. I know that I should try something else, but once again I failed. Four pieces of melting bone marrow, encased in burnt bone, with a parsley and caper salad. There is truly no finer single signature dish in London. OK, the great Piere Koffman is back with his pigs trotter stuffed with thyroid glands. That is hard to beat; but Fergus has been doing this for fifteen years without a break, and it never tires.

Why though is it every time that I go that Mr H is sitting eating here? Surely he should be behind the stove? I remember not too long ago that this was the case: you would see the great man in his apron, directing traffic. Now he sits and eats. Maybe this is like going to a Chinese restaurant full of Chinese: go to a restaurant where the chef is eating.

There is nothing fancy on offer here (even if it does now boast a Michelin star); if the menu says Old Spot, that is what you get: one perfectly cooked pork chop, perhaps accompanied by its cooking juices. If you have the time (and the numbers), I recommend the whole sucking pig. Not the tiny little fellas that grace the tables at Segovian restaurants: all single servings, cut with a plate. No, a slightly bigger version, ready to feed ten or more, served whole. Head on (alas no apple though). If you don't have ten, nor have you ordered the day before, there are always good specials, as well as the staples.

Today it was grouse. I love grouse. It is probably my single favourite dish, and the reason why I love autumn above all other seasons. I am always pleased when St Johns has it on the menu as it is one of the finest there is in London. Here and Rules. Unlike Rules, however, you get proper bread sauce. Yum. The season has just started, so the grouse, whilst flavourful, is not as strong as it will get by December. My companion had the aforementioned Old Spot, another staple that never fails to impress: smoked and pot roasted today, and very fine too.

The wine list is a decent one too, with plenty of mid ranking bottles: the grouse and old spot went beautifully with a bottle of cote du Rhone, at a more than reasonable £26 a bottle (and £6.50 a glass!).

There are some niggles; even since the revamp, it is basically still an austere, white on white decor, which isn't to everyone's taste (the bar is a more buzzy place to be, without being brash and overbearing), but worst of all, the service can be extremely slow. I'm sorry, but the bored looking waitresses really should liven up just a little bit. Prices are keen but not cheap, and you are supposed to be helping those that wish to dine here: ungrump please.

These are, however, mere niggles for what remains, after more than a decade-and-a-half, one of London's finest restaurants and, should you believe the hype, one of the top restaurants in the world.

Just a very special restaurant, sparse and plain in decor, even sparser and plainer menu descriptions, and the best food I have ever tasted. Would be cheap at twice the price. My pigs cheek with dandelion and kid offal with lentils were the best dishes I have ever had, bread and desserts merely wonderful by comparison.

Regularly featured in ‘best of’ lists and highly revered throughout the world, St John is an institution on the London dining scene. Housed in a former smokehouse around the corner from Smithfield Market, St John features simple, pared down British cooking that celebrates great ingredients and uses offal and neglected cuts as part of its ‘nose to tail’ ethos.

The food at St John is always great. Simple, Authentic and Tasty.

I always have a great meal here. There are some Items I go back for (Bone Marrow, Snails, Suckling Pig), but generally I love to go to see what there will be.

I can't really fault anything, the decor is not to some peoples taste, but neither is the food. To those people I say ‘ptscchh’

The wine could be a little more than an encyclopedia of France for my palate, but what it does have is outstanding.

The eccles cakes are great and whenever I drive past I always try and pick up a couple.

The bar is a great place for a drink and a snack. If you have not been, you must go. If you have been, why are you reading this, surely you should be there now…or are you reading this on twitter?

This is the surprise place to bring your French and continental visitors that are riding on the belief and impression that english cuisine does not exist. Play it down, be english and self depracating, sort of i take you to a gastro pub and let the magic of the St John do the hard work.
If you friends are architects, you can mention the following urban myth – what is known – Fergus originally studied architecture before his thoughts turned to cooking. He studied at the Architectural Association – the myth – during his stint there, all his physical architectural models where made up of food stuff – perhaps somebody at the AA told him, go and get cooking – I wonder if this did happen and who was it that say so. A great loss to architecture but such a fine chef.

Still one of the best places in Clerkenwell. Lovely airy and bright out in the bar, and serving excellent food and wine for a wide range of tastes. A joy whether just a quick glass of wine, or sitting down for dinner.

Terrific food and the eccles cakes with lancashire cheese for dessert were the best eccles cakes we have ever tasted.
The service is intellegent and adult and nothing was too much trouble for the most obliging waiter.
every restrateur in london should be made to go to this restaurant which in our book is one of the best restaurants in london.
British food at its best

Robin Weir.

Fergus Henderson truly is one of the Gods of what I consider to be the Good Food renaissance along with Tony Bourdain, Anthony Demetre et al. As someone that was brought up on the cheaper offal ‘off’ cuts of meat I find it staggering that many people today refuse to go near them. St. John's was for me a trip down memory lane spliced with a toe dip into some slightly more left field offerings. What you can be assured of at St. John's is complete honesty. Food that is well thought out and lovingly prepared. Cured Sea Trout, Cucumber & Dill, Smoked Pork Chop with Spring Greens and the best ever Welsh Rarebit – Oh yes! Washed down with a very well priced Cotes De Provence. Highly reccomended. One of my favourite ever restaurants.

Ate here on the evening of Friday the 17th of April and the food was excellent. Sadly the somewhat chilly reception by an over officious maitre'd got the evening off to a cool start but the approach of the rest of the waiting staff was very good indeed.

Between us we had the roast beef, the best piece of beef I have tasted in a long time and the saddle of rabbit which was also beautifully cooked. this was followed by eccles cake and lancashire cheese, a combination which worked better than expected,

All in all a very pleasant dining expernence and if somebody could warm up the maitre'd before he starts work of an evening, it would have received 10 out of 10.

Excellent British food, good service despite lunchtime rush. Lighting in the dining room was harsh, but didn't detract from the excellent food.