ST JOHN HOTEL: THE ORIGINATOR

There's a pleasing circularity about the opening of this latest branch of St John, a hotel and restaurant in the heart of London's Chinatown, which only occurred to me as I was having a less than satisfying second starter (restaurants, eh?) there: I was eating only a short hop away from Polpetto which occupies what had once been the French House Dining Room AKA St John Mk1.

In the seventeen or so years since the mothership proper opened in Clerkenwell there have been many imitators - the "School of St John" as HS has coined it - which have developed the idea of a few primo ingredients, simply prepared and arranged just so but few have had the chutzpah of the original to leave things as they are. Like that old stalwart Manzi's, the fish restaurant (and sometimes hotel) which occupied this site five years ago, StJ has remained pretty immune to the fads and fashions of the London dining scene.

Walking into the new joint the other day gave me a little frisson of recognition. the clean, white room which always reminds me of a secure facility, where you half expect to see R.P McMurphy (waiters as orderlies); here, the terse menu; there, the small glass tumblers and the smiley, efficient service.  All present and correct.  

And The food? Well they don’t call Fergus Henderson the Mies van der Rohe of the restaurant world for nothing (actually they don’t - I just made that bit up). So there are dishes where the use of white space on the plate is as important as the food. Ok, so the portions are not the most generous around but you get the point (that the plating is part of the shtick).
 
I liked my first starter of Veal Tongue very much.  It had that effortless quality you might get in a plate of food on the continent but seldom find here. Some waxy potatoes, watercress and a mustardy dressing enlivened by capers were mixed with the slices of tongue. It was a little underseasoned for my tastes but that seems to be the modern way - I like things pushed a little in this department.

The dreaded portion control was in the house in a second starter. The pressed Pig’s Head - a variation on the brawn theme - was rather good but there was so little of it that it was more like a seasoning than the main element.  C'mon St J, is your bottom line really going to be compromised by serving up a couple more slices?  Hmmm? The flavours of the rest of the assembly may also have come through more clearly with less dressing.

A main course of Pigeon was better and almost an exemplar of the StJ philosophy. A couple of leg joints had been cooked to rare and were of excellent quality.  There’s no indication of the provenance here - you just take it for granted that the raw ingredients will be very good. The innards had been mashed up and spread on fried bread. They didn’t have a particularly gamey hit, but they weren’t awful. The bitterness of the turnips worked well with the rich bird but I could have done with less liquid sloshing around. Not very St.John.

Desserts have always been a major strength of the kitchen. One was a vibrantly coloured (and tasting) Blood Orange Jelly served with  some segments of that fruit, a blob of preternaturally rich and thick Jersey Cream and the shortest and crumbliest of shortbread biscuits.  The second an oh-so-boozy Marc ice cream, sweetened by the addition of Sultanas and accompanied by a glossy sablé biscuit.

Some decent coffee tailended the meal but at £15 a shot La Vieille Prune was a bit de trop for this diner.

Obviously, this style of food won’t be for everybody - sometimes you just need a bit more of yer actual cooking going on, especially at the prices charged - but if you're in the mood for a bit of minimalism or you want to know where it all started then the St John Hotel will pretty much do the job.  It did for me anyway.

ST JOHN: THE CHILD IS THE FATHER OF THE MAN

I think when Gerard Manley Hopkins (amongst others) wrote that line he was referring to the unity of youth and adulthood, but underlying it too, is the sense that as parents grow older and then old, the roles of carer and cared for are reversed with their maturing offspring.

I thought of this last night as I had my first supper at St John (a jolly for the launch of Trotter Gear aside) for nearly over two years. It was, in fact one of the first posts on our then nascent blog and, looking back on what was written about that meal, St. John’s place in the upper echelons of London dining was already under threat as we were served a meal memorable only for tired cooking and over pricing.

Since then, the challenge from ex St. John alumni and those inspired by Fergus’s “Nose to Tail” philosophy has grown from a baby’s rattle to an incessant teenage din with the opening of Great Queen St, Hereford Road, Magdalen and enough other modern British dining rooms to make you feel that this sorry country of ours is actually threatening to deliver its own cuisine at last. DH were keen to see if St. John, after its recent refurbishment, could still compete with the young contenders.

Precious little has changed from our combined total of over fifty previous visits. There is a fresh lick of paint on the walls, some uber modern Dyson hand dryers in the toilets and, er that’s about it. The bar remains buzz central for London’s media and fashion juniors and the dining room retains its stark smokehouse austerity.

The menu style, now copied all over the world, is little changed too, five word descriptions, the token choice for fish eaters and vegetarians and enough game and offal to please any would be Bourdain, but the ingredients are now so common in London it lacks the ability to shock that was once one of its main selling points.

If the dishes don’t shock, the pricing does. St. John was never cheap, but notions of value seem to have been thrown out with the old loo fittings. HP’s classic starter of “Roast Bone Marrow & Parsley Salad” came in at £6.80. It is still a great dish, but HP, who dined at St. John in its opening weeks, declared that it had probably “jumped the shark” at the turn of the Millennium. My starter of “Venison Saddle & Celeriac” was a whopping £9.50, which became even more painful when I was presented with a plate containing four slices of the beast so thin you could read the price on the menu through them. The ingredients themselves were top notch, superb celeriac remoulade and perfectly pink venison, but I could not help think when I saw plates with only three slices going out later in the evening that the piss was very much being placed in the taken category.

An Ox Heart main course came with chips. Bad chips. There was a reason why St.John only ever used to do chips when they had tripe on the menu, that’s because they never knew how to cook them properly. These could have done with another frying and been about half as thick. I always say that you should work as hard eating the meat of an animal as they did growing it. This Ox must have worked damn hard because the tough slices, resembling slices of a kebab, required plentiful chewing to release their lovely offal flavour.

HP’s Lamb’s Tongues was a real misfire. Served with Borlotti beans, the delicate little morsels had been slow cooked to mushiness and had consequently lost their flavour. The beans added little and at a little shy of £17, you have to think there are a whole load of little lambs out there who can’t talk for no good reason.

If main courses failed, puddings were, as always, a delight. Prune & Armagnac Ice Cream for HP inevitably and Ginger loaf with butterscotch sauce and cinnamon ice cream for me, proving that this ageing old girl can still pull out the stops when she wants too.

The bill, a massive £120 included a tip for service which was as friendly but slightly awkward. A bottle of Pic St Loup was added to by the generous contribution of a couple of glasses of vieille prune from top General Manager, Thomas Blythe and sent us staggering out into the increasingly chilly night air.

I can’t help feeling that we are not the only ones staggering. St. John has always been an important restaurant for DH, the daddy of modern British food, but on last night’s showing it feels like an elderly relative that people come to visit because they think they should, not because they enjoy it. I think I may well be spending more time with the children from now on.

ROCHELLE CANTEEN

Yowie! - it’s Connie Lee
At the wheel of her Shark-de-Ville

I did a JKD course once. That’s Jeet Kune Do, the martial art developed by Bruce Lee. During one session the instructor was giving us some practical advice on what to do “if it all kicked off”. As he demonstrated, on me, how to take someone down then break their arm, I could see all the other students – all nice middle class folk to a man and woman – give a big grimace. Then it was someone else’s turn. It got me wondering when I was last in such a situation. Sure, it can get a bit crowded down at Borough Market and there was some jostling once at my local deli when they had samphire in, but as a rule we don’t get into dodgy or dangerous predicaments, especially as we get older.

Another place high in the “least likely to kick off” stakes is Rochelle Canteen, a very middle class enclave in the heart of The Ditch. There’s a couple with their little son, chowing down on Grilled Squid and Coriander Sauce with a side order of Spring Greens and gulping Fentimans Ginger Beer. Look, it’s Margot Henderson, the owner, with her husband Fergus (of St John fame) sitting at an impromptu outside table with friends, laughing and drinking and smoking. There’s a man by himself with a half bottle of Chianti and a guidebook to Northern Spain enjoying a Smoked Mackerel, Dandelion & Horseradish Salad. This a place where people don’t have to be told what Bavette is.

Rochelle Canteen is only open for lunch during the week, which is my excuse for not having visited during the two years it’s been going - even though I’m only a short hop away. It used to be a super secret place that was known only to those in the er….know. But now you can book or chance your arm and just turn up. You still need to be buzzed in though, this is Hackney after all.

The food is more akin to St John Bread and Wine, a sort of St John Lite. It’s simple, it’s seasonal and the prices are ungreedy. What’s not to like ? Well, the cooking is a little uneven although to be fair I didn’t give the menu a good seeing-to.

Bread and Lucque Olives to nibble on were excellent. The aforementioned salad was nice: the bitter leaves working well with the smoked fish, although the advertised horseradish seemed non-existent. Bavette tasted ok but had been overcooked and was a bit tiède. The chips were great. Chocolate Pot for sweet was nicely done. Of the other dishes I saw going out the Foie Gras Terrine and the Grilled Squid both looked good.

So Rochelle Canteen is worth a punt if you’re in the area and fancy a lunch that’s a bit more evolved than an Egg and Cress sandwich or Pumpkin soup. The other attraction is that it’s BYO with no corkage, so if you don’t have to be completely cm in the pm you can have a really good time. And you won’t have to spend an arm or a leg let alone break one.

St. John

Brut and charisma
Poured from the shadow where he stood

Popped along to the launch of the new Fergus Henderson tome: Beyond Nose to Tail. Not a great deal to report on the food front apart from the fact it's an extremely pleasant experience to be served Bollinger Champagne, Anchovy Buns and The World's Best Pork Scratchings by nice young women. Just thought I'd let you know.

TROTTER GEAR

A BAG OF WOBBLY GOODNESS

Until about two years ago whenever anyone from outside the UK asked me to recommend a restaurant in London that was unlike anything they may have tried before or were unlikely to find outside the UK, I had only one answer. St John.

The austere room, the menu pleasingly bereft of explanation and the unapologetically French wines served in small beakers. There was no where like it.

A few years ago, during a Q&A on a website, I asked Fergus Henderson why no one had tried to replicate what he did. His answer was that he did not know, but he was replicating himself by opening St John Bread & Wine.

That’s all changed now, of course. The “school of St John” is now a fully recognised part of the UK food scene with direct descendants such as Magdalen, The Anchor & Hope and Great Queen St and those who pay homage to the groundbreaking work of Fergus on just about every gastro pub menu throughout the land.

Even on a recent trip to Australia, I visited Bistrode where just about everything from the food to the graphic design of the menu was an ‘homage” to St John.

With the proselytising of people like Anthony Bourdain and Thomas Keller “ nose to tail” eating has become a fully fledged cuisine in its own right and St John has been placed firmly on the map of all gastro tourists.

The slightly sad thing is that, in some ways, the original originator, has been left behind and recent meals at St John and St John Bread & Wine have been disappointing where as The Anchor & Hope and, particularly Magdalen have been exceptional. What did Wordsworth say? “The child is the father of the man”

So, when I received my invitation to the press launch of TROTTER GEAR, I will freely admit that I viewed the thing with a certain trepidation.

TROTTER GEAR is, apart from books, the first stab by Fergus at making a commercial gain out of the brand that is St John. At its most basic, it is a carton of stock. But, like all things St John, it has been quite some time in the gestation and the combination of Chicken stock, Pig’s Trotters, Onions, Carrots, Madiera, Leek, Thyme and Celery has been through innumerable revisions before Fergus was prepared to launch it on an unsuspecting world.

Judging by the dishes served up to us at today’s launch (all made with TROTTER GEAR) they have got it just about right. A dish of pork belly and prunes was thick and unctuous as was a dish of meaty snails with chickpeas served with slices of fried bread. Best of all was a pigeon & trotter pie which came with a crust which reminded me why I loved St John so much in the first place.

It’s a small scale launch starting at Selfridges in London and then rolling out to their other stores around the country before being offered to other retailers and at £4.50 a pop is definitely worth a punt instead of the thin, watery offerings of most supermarkets.

I can’t think of any other single restaurant in the UK that has a strong enough brand recognition to give its name to a food product. A chef, maybe, but no restaurant. So, whatever your view of St John’s place in the current restaurant scene, it is good to see that Fergus is still thinking that one step ahead of everybody else.

ST. JOHN

THE NIGHTS OF ST JOHN

With the possible exception of The Fat Duck ( ground breaking molecular gastronomy or toy food for simpletons depending what you read. I tend towards the latter ) more words have been written about St John in Clerkenwell than any other restaurant in the UK, perhaps anywhere.

It is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the restaurants that London has that is not replicated anywhere else ( with the exception of it's own offshoot St John Bread & Wine ) and although many have tried to tap into the same schtick, you don't see the Anchor & Hope on too many "must visit" lists of visiting foodies. Mind you that may be because of their hugely dumb no reservations policy. Something I detest with a passion.

People often refer to St John as "traditional British foof" it is, of course, no such thing. I cannot think of any period in UK history where food was prepared like this. The fallacy comes, I imagine from Fergus' belief in nose to tail eating which was certainly part of the agrarian society of Britain. I think, in fact, the cooking at St John has its roots more in Fergus love of European peasant cookery. In any case, what I would argue is that Fergus is creating or, indeed, has created his own tradition and alumni of St John are now opening their own places ( Medcalf's, The afore mentioned Anchor & Hope etc etc ) and taking his passions to a wider audience.

Where St John has it over these offal-come-lately's is its setting. The whole space is unlike anything else one can see in the restaurant world and its sparce minimalism reflects the ethos of the restaurant perfectly.

I have been to St John over thirty times and it was probably my favourite restaurant in town. However, I had not been for nearly two years. My last visits had been more miss than hit ( with the exception of a couple of excellent feasts of whole suckling pig), the food had been tired and the service lacking. It had all the hallmarks of a restaurant resting on its laurels, even if those laurels were used to stuff a rolled squirrel spleen.

So, it dropped off my radar for quite some time. However, recently, there has been a swell of publicity. Fergus' brain op seems to have miraculously given him the chance to work in the kitchen again in the future and a number of friends have reported good to excellent meals there.

Tonight, I had supper there with my good friends, Anny & Gavin just out on bail after another bout of hooliganism watching Harlequins Rugby club.

Our table was for 8pm, so I arranged to meet them at Vinoteca almost directly opposite on St John St. This is an entirely agreeable place which, I think, deserves it's own post. It has a great wine list, food that looked hearty and "Modern British" cooked by a delightful chef called Carol who, she told me, used to work with Simon Hopkinson at Bibendum and cheery, efficient service. Anny & Gavin arrived soon after me and, after polishing off a bottle of Costiere de Nimes, we headed across the road.

Rather worryingly, the main dining room of St John was set up for a party of nearly 40. Fortunately, we were seated well away from them and I was delighted that one of my favourite servers was still there and looking after our table.

As their menu changes daily, St John can go from having two or three things on the menu that you would devour in a heartbeat to having nothing on the menu that jumps out and entices. The day before, they had squirrel on the menu which I had before and would not have minded trying again. Unfortunately, some vermin had eaten the rodent. Or is that the other way around? There was little on the menu that really screamed out to be ordered.

Anyway, we found things to choose. To begin, Gavin had the signature roast marrowbone. When St John first opened, I swear these were bigger. Now, four or five small bones served with parsley and toast. It is an exercise in minimalism and, no longer really repays the effort. The marrow, when you manage to scoop it out, is delicious, melting and unctuous. But, it is just the wrong side of the effort:reward ratio for me.

Anny's starter of cold middlewhite with a celeriac ( I think ) salad was better and, being a good person, she left the fat for me to try a bit of.

My own choice of rolled spleen with cornichons and red wine vinegar was interesting, but nothng more than that. Also, so rather mean in portion.

For the main courses, Anny chose Plaice. She declined the side dish of cucumber and dill that came with it as she hates cucumber. I only know one other person who hates cucumber. It always seems very very strange to me to dislike such a harmless thing so much. But, according to Anny, it is Crippen, Jack the Ripper and King Herod rolled into one. Strange some people, no? Whatever, the plaice was a little overcooked from what I tried and I am not sure that Anny enjoyed too much.

Gavin ordered pigeon which came with radishes. Now, I know that this should be served rare, but they should at least kill it first. This looked like it had not been cooked so much as walked by itself into a room with a 60watt lightbulb on for a few minutes. I did not mind this and polished off what Gavin left whcih was quite a lot.

My own main course was probably the most successful. Braised veal cheeks with shallots. A decent amount of veal which is not always the case with St John where the portionage can be a bit small.

We ordered an agreeable bottle of Pic St Loup from the Laungedoc @ £26 which suited perfectly.

We shared three desserts which were, in truth, the highlight of the meal ( once the techno dimwits at blogspot get their collective fingers out of their collective arses and fix it so I can post pictures without taking an hour for each one, I shall post some more images including dessert ) The eccles cake with Kirkham's Lancashire, of course. The perfect combination the discoverer of which deserves a knighthood, Rhubarb Eton Mess and Blood Orange Sorbet with a shot of vodka. We persuaded ourselves to a glass of something with this. A Marc, a Poire William and something else which I have entirely forgotten.

The bill, including tip for service which was efficient and hugely friendly, was £159 (£53 each) which is about typical for a meal at St John.

So another curate's egg of a supper at St John. A lot of money to eat, OK food ( in this instance ) in unique surroundings with charming service. I am not sure if that is enough to get £50 of my money on a regular basis.