St. John Restaurant, London

I don't quite remember how the conversation around St. John started. But it's vaguely around the Restaurant magazine's best restaurants 2008 winners list:

1. El Bulli, Roses, Catalonia, Spain (Best in Europe)
2. The Fat Duck, Bray-on-Thames, UK
3. Pierre Gagnaire, Paris, France
4. Mugaritz, San Sebastián, Spain (Chef's Choice)
5. The French Laundry, California, USA (Best in the Americas)
6. per se, New York, USA
7. Bras, Laguiole, France
8. Arzak, San Sebastián, Spain
9. Tetsuya's, Sydney, Australia (Best in Australasia)
10. Noma, Copenhagen, Denmark
11. L'Astrance, Paris, France
12. Gambero Rosso, San Vincenzo, Italy
13. Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, London, UK
14. L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon, Paris, France
15. Restaurant Le Louis XV, Monaco
16. St John, London, UK (Highest Climber)
17. Jean-Georges, New York, USA
18. Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athénée, Paris, France
19. Hakkasan, London, UK
20. Le Bernardin, New York, USA

I have heard about St. John a number of times, and I have always thought that the restaurant is at some out-of-city location (like El Bulli, Fat Duck). But it turns out to be right by the Smithfield Market!

Just to get off track a little, SP and I visited the Smithfield Market when we first arrived in London. We were jobless, and we had nothing to do. So we visited the Smithfield Market, which is a 800+ years old meat market (well, the site has been a meat market for 800+ years). Just like the Billingsgate Market, the Smithfield Market mainly caters butcher, shops and restaurants. The trading hours are from 4:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon every weekday, making it just as inconvenient as Billingsgate.

Anyway, back to St John. It is located on St John, which used to be the principal thoroughfare to the market in the old days. The restaurant is specialised in "nose to tail eating", with a strong devotion to offal and other cuts of meat rarely seen in restaurants. The menu changes every day but it covers things like pig's ears, trotters, duck's heart and even squirrel when it is in season (there are so many of them in Hyde Park I can't imagine them not being in season!)

The famous bone marrow and parsley salad. yummmm

Langoutines & Mayonnaise. It was very fresh and the 'flesh' is sweet and firm. It's a bit too much work though.

Cured beef and celeriac. The celeriac goes really well with the cured beef (someone has started eating before I took the photo!!! hehehe)

Chitterlings (pig intestines) & chips, with a BBQ/plum- sauce-like sace

Venison offal & Chicory. As Ms SL said, "best eaten together"

Overall, the chefs, Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gullive, try to follow traditional British recipes, so it's a good place to take overseas visitors to, only if they don't find offal offensive! They also have a big winelist and you can almost get everything by glass, which is great.

Thanks Ms SL for taking me to St John!

For more information:
http://www.stjohnrestaurant.co.uk/