2010 really was the year of the restaurant. And I don't mean in terms of eating out a lot or just spending too much money (both of which happened), I mean the really good restaurant. Or the restaurant which I'd planned to go to for ages. If two years ago, you told me that by autumn 2010 I would've eaten in Hibiscus, Le Gavroche and Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, I would've laughed. What a year it was.
But it was only September. It wasn't over with the glorious trip to Ramsay's main restaurant. That seemed to kick-start a new, less high profile but equally fulfilling spate of restaurant visits. The first one of these was a trip that I had been planning for many months: to St John to eat a pig.
St John has been one of London's most idiosyncratic and special restaurants over the past 15 years or so. Founded by Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gulliver - heroic chef and business partner respectively - in 1994, the restaurant is probably the most important in London. It's no secret that modern, fashionable eating in Britain means seasonal, local and uncomplicated. St John is the zenith of fashionable modern eating. It is the synthesis of these three features in the most assured, perfect way that make St John so vital.
Two years ago St John got itself a Michelin star, after years of waiting in the wings. Almost certainly the cooking here isn't as good as it was in days gone by, but Michelin have now started realising that showy Euro-centric cuisine isn't necessarily what deserves the most kudos when it comes to handing out the accolades. Cutting to the chase, I was thrilled to be going here.
To order a suckling pig, you need to have at least 14 people, some £350 to spend between them plus the costs of whatever else it is you choose to eat. The process of booking such a large table is rather protracted, since you have to select from a feasting menu, where you can only order a maximum of two dishes per course, with everyone sharing. The process is difficult, but the idea is excellent. People eating together, sharing the same combinations and enjoying the same experience is a wonderful thing.
As you may suspect, I loved this meal. I loved the restaurant, the occasion and the food. But that's not to say it was all wonderful. The foie gras to start was a bit thick and stodgy, which the finest paté never should be. The stuffing for the pig was predominantly bread, wine and onion. It was too thick in all honesty. The bread and butter pudding with dessert was laced with some sort of alcohol which literally soured it.
That said, it was an amazing evening. They are quite right that the same grand meal brings a whole group together. Since we were a party of fifteen, a good few of the table didn't know each other well, or even at all. This didn't matter. Brought together by the sense of occasion and the best roast pork I have ever eaten, we tucked in and didn't look back. The pig itself was glorious. Crackling skin, silky soft fat and the most moist and succulent flesh there is. We passed the head around at the end of the meal and had a go at cheeks too which were amazing - the tenderest part we tried.
One dish we had all been dying to try was the signature starter of the place: bone marrow and parsley salad. It sounds dry and minimal and isn't much to look at, particularly as a stellar dish. This is the genius of Henderson: simplicity, elegance, offal. My personal tips for the dish are:
1) Let the marrow cool down before spreading it on the toast
2) Go easy on the salt and the salad
3) Pray that the toast isn't too dry
If all goes to plan, this is a heavenly starter but I found you need a bit of practice to get it spot on. For the idea alone, they deserve kudos. The execution may have been technically flawed in a few areas on our visit, but I don't think it even matters, such is the sense of occasion.
The other area of the evening that deserves a howling from the rooftops mention is the second dessert. If the bread and butter pudding was good but not great, the apple pie with custard was great and greater still. It looked like a pie gone wrong, a TV cooking disaster that had been thrown out with the plastic forks but tasted like something else. Probably the best apple pie I've eaten and when a dish looks like that but tastes the business, you need to pay serious stomach-hugging, peace-making respect.
I cannot recommend St John highly enough. Not a restaurant for the faint of heart - I could barely move the next day and it took me all of Sunday to recover - but one for anybody keen on finding great English food. The meal itself divided opinion; one-time contributor Mike wasn't overly impressed whilst another friend of mine lauded it even more than I.
The whitewashed walls, hardwood floors, labcoated waiters and simple paned glass of this converted smokehouse harbour an institution. One that is almost as vital as the great Smithfield Market which resides so near by. I may have only been once but that is enough to show me that St John is quite probably the heartbeat of London's culinary history.
St John
