The Story of St. JOHN

The ST. JOHN by Drake's Pt. II Collection

We were sitting outside a cafe in an unremarkable town in the Languedoc.  A lot of restaurant people.  A little subset of cynical hacks, a squad from Drake’s, wine people who’d flown halfway round the world. A weird but brilliant crowd. The occasion was the 2024 St John Fete du Vin. An annual party thrown by Trevor Gulliver, wine importer and half of St John restaurant and Fergus Henderson, chef, sage and saint of British cookery. Probably nothing but St. JOHN could have brought such a strange group together. About half way down the ninth anise somebody asked me …

‘So where do you fit in to all this? What’s your St. JOHN story?’ 

It’s a weird but perfect question. You’re not really being asked about a restaurant. It’s not the standard conversational gambit of ‘how do you know so-and-so’? When somebody asks you about your relationship to St. JOHN. they’re asking about a whole broader thing … the recent history of British food. Our much talked about Food Renaissance. It’s like, “So what did you do in the War, old man?”

I sought out the restaurant just after I moved back to London. I guess I was a nascent ‘foodie’ because I’d somehow heard about Fergus and his cooking upstairs at the French House in Soho. I’d certainly heard stories about offal. It must have been around the turn of the century because Gordon Ramsey and Jamie Oliver had already started appearing on the telly - the historically accepted critical point. Yet St. JOHN had already been open for a couple of years. Fergus had already been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and was beginning to move gently on from the kitchen.

When I finally walked in, it was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. Thonet-style bentwood chairs. A line of Shaker pegs around the room.  A tablecloth with a paper topper. Today the “whitewashed industrial” aesthetic is so prevalent in hospitality as to be a cliche, but then it sent a shiver through you. Henderson had trained as an architect, they said. He insisted on honouring the bones of a building the same as he would respect the parts of a pig. It was audacious and, as we were all just beginning to find ourselves as a nation of food lovers, it was incredibly British.

I bought the book that day. Back then, I think you could only buy it in the restaurant. We weren’t yet awash with celebrities and their cookbooks, and those early copies had something of the underground press about them. Today, those editions are worth a fortune. Mine’s too bloodstained and beloved to ever sell.

As I sat at the table, looking at the thrillingly minimal setup, I could see the people I would later know as Trevor, Fergus, and John Spiteri, but my focus was entirely on the waiter. I don’t remember his face. Just the white jacket … like a chef would wear… the respectful but utterly informal approach and the conversation. This kid was part of something. He described the food, not just like he’d tasted it, but that he loved it, understood it, and wanted to give me some of it.

It was an interaction with St. JOHN sure enough. It was on brand. But it also encapsulated everything I grew to love about our nascent food scene. For the first time, it wasn’t Them and Us, like in the sort of restaurants our parents would have saved to go. Places where people inherently unlike us … French people, Italians, cooked food we barely understood. They sneered as we made mistakes in choosing wines that scared us.

This waiter … this kid … was just like me. He was wearing the jacket of a cook; he was serving perfectly; he was looking me slap bang in the eye and we were talking about food we loved. It was as if every moment of the traditional hierarchy of hospitality had evaporated and I was instantly and irretrievably at ease. The democracy of it was disorientating and thrilling. I wish I knew who that waiter was, because, to be honest, the rest of my life began at that moment. But then, of course, it wasn’t just the waiter… it was the whole St. JOHN thing, and I’d somehow entered it.

I had my stag dinner in the PDR at St. JOHN. It was such a special meal I invited my fiancee and her mates too. It was a huge success and we later moved into a run-down doer-upper just south of King’s Cross, a vile hole but redeemed by fashionable proximity to St. JOHN.

It must have been a couple of years later that I took an American friend along.  We drank staggering amounts. I think he despoiled the basement bathroom with gallons of Cotes du Rhone vomit.  As we staggered to the door, I saw Fergus and Trevor, sitting at a table by the front door, quietly and proprietorially minding their own business. I fell to my knees in front of them and babbled.  A baffling and probably nauseating display, but I just didn’t have words in that condition to express thanks for what this temple meant to us. I never made it the 500m back home that night. I woke up in a doorway at about 4am without my wallet or my dignity.

Writing for the Guardian got me an assignment to be filmed cooking with Fergus. My diary says August 2009, but it can’t be that long ago, surely.  We bought half a pig head at the market and spent most of the day, slow cooking it ‘alligator style’… one baleful eye, unblinking on the surface of a rich braising stock. Shallots and watercress on the plate. Parkinson’s was beginning to slow his speech, but the meal went on for the entire afternoon.  We talked about cooking, about the respect inherent in nose-to-tail eating, but there was more. An afternoon of easy conversation taught me more about eating, enjoyment and hospitality that any other event in my life.

This year St. JOHN is celebrating its 30th anniversary.  You’ll read a lot about its influence over chefs, but to me that was just a tiny part of the impact. It affected all of us: home cooks, restaurateurs, designers, and writers. It feels like St. JOHN has been there from the very start of the renaissance and now we sit, comfortably established, at ease with our national food identity. We’re serious now, ready to move on with confidence. St. JOHN has been there with us for the whole journey and now I’m watching them like a hawk. I want to know what’s next.

Where St. JOHN goes, I shall follow.