Last night’s nose-to-tail’up at @st.john.restaurant was also a mighty whoosh of excitement to launch #TheBookOfStJohn @eburybooks, by @fergushenderson & @trevorgulliver (with @kittymariahcooper and @jonathanwoolway) a gentle gold-edged tribute to the iconic restaurant now in its 25th year. Yeah you’ll want it. Raw and gutsy upfront, feathered with whimsy and eccentricity throughout. Beautiful photography by @emperorofhoxton.
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It also aims to clarify again what the restaurant is about, stressing that it became “British” by default, from my memory of the time it seemed to make more sense to outsiders to describe it as British whereas in truth it was a localised expression of French bourgeois cooking or a locanda del macellaio – a butchers inn – might be if it was transported to Britain. At the time St John opened in 1994 London’s markets were still quite open, I remember going with sous chef Paul @bellytimber (whose partner Mina @okosho took these pics of Mr H & me, above) to try and buy pigs blood for cooking from #smithfieldmeatmarket at 2am.
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Fergus’s aim as I recall: however something simply bakes, braises or boils, well, that is enough without decoration. He’d guide us cooks to appreciate all we could about the ingredient we had in our hands, leaving wiggle-room for the things we didn’t appreciate but would appear at some point when we heated, or cut, or tore ingredients for serving. Of course some dishes are more complicated but in tackling them you must only gingerly add in extra ingredients or bother lest you lose the breathe of the dish. I still 25 years later follow these principles as much as I can, and feel very unsatisfied when I don’t.
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I was going to add the line that as we get older our adherence to once-cherished values diminish. But that’s exactly the bold and still-inspiring part of St John after an extraordinary 25 years: those values started at the beginning still hold strong.
