I had started to write a heartfelt paean to Fergus Henderson and his cooking, explaining exactly why I loved his cooking (I’d got so sickeningly far as describing my feelings as a gastrocrush), but then after reading a few other articles about Henderson I realised that, it almost goes without saying that Brits who like offal tend to get a bit moist around the glands (only the salivary, of course) at the very mention of him, and therefore there’s little more for me to say other than I think he’s super cool. So without further ado here is a fully biased review of
St John Bread and Wine in Spitalfields.
Last August I moved to
Canada for a year (I won’t go into the various reasons as to why, but I will let it be known that logic didn’t play a huge part in my decision to go there), a fact that meant I would be away from my girlfriend (Natalie) for a dauntingly large wodge of time. Thus, just before I departed this verdant isle and with the inevitable symptoms of Future-Distance syndrome curdling our otherwise frugal minds, Natalie and I splashed out on a going away a meal at the original
St John in Smithfield and whilst there, had some of the most brilliant food either of us has ever eaten. I particularly remember loving my starter of (a Henderson special) veal bone marrow on toast and also from what I had of it, Natalie’s main course of rabbit saddle and courgette seemed extremely good. Essentially we both had a very nice time. Anyway to cut a long story short, I am now back living in England and recently had a birthday. For said birthday, I received the lovely present of a meal voucher (basically my dad made a printout saying that he and my mum would pay for me to go and eat somewhere swanky) and with this money behind us (us being me and Natalie), we decided that the idea of a trip to Henderson’s less pricey (though still quite dear if we’re playing the looking at prices for comparable cooking elsewhere game) St John Bread and Wine sounded like good fun.
We went on a Friday lunch time and the dining room-- which (like its older sibling) is decorated with a stylised minimum of fuss, that actually probably belies a large amount of fuss, but a style of which I’m fond all the same-- was fairly well packed. The next sentence I write, I’m going to hate myself for, but it has to be done. The menu at St John Bread and Wine works sort of like English tapas (bleaurgh, not to tapas, but for the lack of better words), in that you order a few smaller dishes to share. This works really quite well for the food served here, not least because there are probably only a limited number of people willing to gamble on a whole main course of pig stomach, whilst there are more than likely a decent number of adventurous souls willing to try just a chunk or two.
The menu changes daily and is available online a few hours before service (two facts that in the build up to our visit lead to the invention of the admittedly sad “what would you eat today” game, wherein Natalie and I would each look online to see what we’d want that day). When it came to choosing for real, we chose some oysters, a side salad, a dish of Ticklemore cheese and beetroot, some warm pigs head with mustard and radishes, and then finally a fried monkfish liver served with bittercress. Of these, I would say that the pigs head was the most successful dish, with the meat owning a delicious unctuous texture somewhere between flesh and fat that was stopped from becoming too rich by the sternness of the accompanying radishes and the mustard sauce. The Ticklemore cheese and beetroot was also an extremely successful plate of food that was sweet, milkily fresh and yet earthy all at once. I would also give the oysters an extremely high recommendation as they were salty, plump and Natalie (usually an oyster spurner) was so effusive in her praise as to say that they weren’t horrible. I would add though that, to my mind, the accompanying shallot vinegar was a little fierce and when added throttled some of the pleasure of the oysters. That being said, the vinegar was lovely when some of the excellent bread (that was replenished almost as soon as we ate it) was dipped into the vinegar. Alongside these successes there were also disappointments. The salad, although not a disappointment as such, was a puzzler. It consisted of purely chopped gem lettuce, vinaigrette and a small quantity of finely sliced onion. I feel as that this dish would have been good if ordered alongside one of the larger meat based dishes that, but with the vinaigrette and the onion, the salad tasted similar to the pigs head accompanying sauce, but with none of the fattiness of pork to raise the dish beyond a mustardy monotaste. Finally, I also think that it’s fair to say that monkfish liver needn’t really be eaten by anyone. If dry fishy tofu is your bag, then I’m sure you’d dig it, but otherwise I’d describe the whole plate of food as unnecessary.
For pudding there were more successes. I chose to have
bullaces with sour cream ice cream, a dish that after a fairly rich main course was extremely welcome. The mouth furring acidity of the bullaces had been censored only a little by poaching in a sugar syrup, and the sour cream ice cream was at once slightly tart and slightly sweet (neither criticisms) and together the two components were refreshing, satisfying and completely delicious. I think if asked today, this pudding would more than likely be my death row dessert—I never knew gone off cream could taste so good. Natalie also really, really and I mean really, liked her pudding. This is some feet considering that after long years of training, my girlfriend has achieved a level of ability and sophistication in consuming sugar that is really quite astonishing. In fact, it has been rumoured that in the early noughties, the
Swedish Academy considered introducing a new Nobel Prize for pudding eating, but on deliberation decided that it would be unwise given Natalie’s overarching superiority in the field, for on comparison with her, other pudding eaters would be rendered contemptible amateurs unworthy of being ranked alongside Natalie as a winner of the Nobel Prize for pudding eating. By which I of course mean Natalie knows when sweet things taste good, and at St John Bread and Wine, Natalie chose for dessert what she has said to be the nicest sweet thing that she has ever had. It was a seemingly simple and innocuous dish of honey and brandy ice cream that ended up producing such grins and sighs that I didn’t really know where to look. When I was eventually allowed a taste of the ice cream, it was admittedly wonderful. The ice cream was floral and dense from the honey, slightly boozy, festive, and sharp from the brandy and the texture, which for me was the really brilliant thing about it, was fluffy (not airy) and soft, though decidedly not melting. It really was a fantastic dessert, but for me, given its floral sweetness, I could only eat it in small portions, and the freshness of my own dessert was more satisfying.
Overall I’d say that St John Bread and Wine is a great restaurant, it offers a more informal option than the (still informal) original St John and also a more accessible menu (with the sharing plates) than the original. That having been said, it’s not really a matter of pitching the two against each other, but instead choosing one relevant to the occasion and as such I’d whole heartedly recommend St John Bread and Wine as a good quality place for an informal, though top quality lunch.
P.S. We drank the house white wine and
Meantime Pilsner, both of which I would say were good drinks. I think the beer was slightly too hoppy for me for the style (if that makes sense) but was still a more than just nice beer. As to the wine I would venture that it was nicely balanced with a good bit of fruitiness, but beyond that I will not dare to speak.
