Sunday 29th June, just gone 3pm. I wanted to go out somewhere for lunch today that served really traditional British food. I asked around a lot to get the locals’ opinion, and the majority of them said the best place to go for tasty, traditional British food is St John, so this is where I went today for lunch.
St John’s quick history:
- St John is an old smoke house turned restaurant. The renovation has been minimal, cosmetic (paint) so it looks practically identical to the way it was in the 60’s.
- It currently has one Michelin star
- The restaurant has been here since 1994, set up by British chef Fergus Henderson, who is still behind the restaurant today
The inside is completely white, a very sterile looking environment – but not in an off-putting way. All the front of house wear crisp white jackets – sort of like chef jackets, with aprons and chef shoes, it’s very different, very funky though.
I had a menu recommended to me with all their flagship dishes, to really get a feel for what dishes represented St John the best.
I started with the bone marrow. When it come out it looked very rustic, they’re not trying to make it look fantastic, it really was all about the flavours speaking for themselves. So I got four cannon bones with marrow inside, nice and hot, served with a parsley salad, toasted bread and wet salt, and that’s it, really simple, but really nice.
For the main course, I had the pigeon and chard. The chard had been braised off in some mustard, and the pigeon cooked to medium rare. Again the plating was very simple, these dishes aren’t meant to be eaten with the eyes, it’s definitely all about the palate, and about what you taste.
For dessert I had an Eccles Cake – I had never had this before and I really liked this. It was puff pastry filled with sultanas, and then served with a huge slice of Lancashire cheese. It was beautiful; that sweet, salty, savoury combination was great! So the locals definitely know what they’re on about, and I really enjoyed this quintessential British meal.
That’s about it for today, I am about to go and iron all my uniforms, as I start bright and early at The Berkeley tomorrow morning, so I’ll be able to fill you in all about it at the end of my shift.
Leave a Reply