St. John Review - Clerkenwell - London - The Infatuation
"Ask someone what they did last weekend and you’re usually met with a list of this and that. Sometimes, though, there are answers that don’t require any elaboration. Things that are entire days and nights unto themselves. Like a family meal or The Sopranos . A special type of restaurant can be like this as well. The kind where the name is the only thing you need to say. What did you do yesterday? St. John. St. John is an all-day, all-night, and all-seasons . Not because it’s open 24 hours. But because once you’re in this Clerkenwell sanctuary, it’s all you’re doing. More importantly, it’s all you’ll be capable of doing. Pheasant and trotter pie isn’t exactly get-up-and-go fuel, after all. Especially when it’s chased with a couple of black velvets. Once here, you have options. Whet your whistle in the bustling and wonderfully 5G-less bar and bakery? Or hunker down in the all-white dining room? Both are heavenly—in aesthetic, in feeling, in the fact that everyone hopes this is what the afterlife is like. The smell of just-baked bread and doughnuts while you sink a pint? Lord, just take us now. Both spaces are equally intent on filling you with all manner of elegant British cooking and, like whatever comes next for everyone, once you’re in St. John, it’s impossible to leave. Of all London’s restaurants this is the one most often referred to as . ‘Nose to tail’ cooking gets bandied around a lot these days, but this place was the first to do it. People come from all over the world to sample its oozing roast bone marrow on toast or pre-order a whole suckling pig. On weekdays you’ll find regulars, as well as founders Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gulliver, using the quasi-holy bar area as a place for peace, quiet, and soothing Welsh rarebit doused in Worcestershire sauce. The food, offal and all, will not be to everyone's taste. But St. John doesn’t care and nor should it. This is a restaurant for the ages. Cocktails are made from midday sharp and a plate of freshly baked madeleines will lift anyone’s soul. It’s as much a fixture of London as Big Ben or Buckingham Palace and, when the plan is St. John, it needs no further explanation at all. " - Jake Missing
