St John

Press Reviews (3)

• Jasper Gerard (27th July 2009)
  3/5
  
  The critic appreciates Fergus Henderson’s Smithfield trail-blazer for leading “the revival of meaty, masculine, English food.” However, with the “white and clinical” lack of ambience and the “efficient but... didactic” service, he has “never had a great time here”. “[W]hat’s so amazing about great hunks of slain animal presented without dressing?”.
• David Sexton (1st May 2008)
  4/5 stars
  
  The Standard’s number two critic (as he seems to be nowadays) also goes to Shoreditch, to visit the path-breaking English restaurant which recently won 16th place in the S Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. It turns out that he has “long loved” it, and he praises the “confident curtness of the menu”, and the food, which “follows through in its clarity and simplicity”. He does admit, however, that there is an alternative view: that this is a “theme restaurant — so devoted to pork, offal and game that it’s as much a macho exhibition as it is an eating house”.
• Jay Rayner (23rd October 2007)
  
  Mr Rayner is one of our best food journalists, but he needs to be careful if he’s not to end up in Private Eye’s Pseuds’ Corner: “If ever I doubted the degree to which my emotional responses are governed by what I eat, I needed only to examine my feelings about the roast bone marrow with sourdough toast that I was served at St John. I didn't feel excited or anticipatory. I didn't feel happy. I felt affection. We had been through a lot together, this dish and I, and it was a pleasure to see it again”. (And if you really want to know why, a whole further paragraph is devoted to explanation.)