St. JOHN

We went to St. JOHN on a chilly evening. We were sat upstairs directly in front of the door, and with the aircon also turned on it was verging on cold. I arrived a bit early and noticed people dining, whilst wearing their outdoor coats.

St. John, like most restaurants in London these days, operates on a “sharing concept” which is fine, but doesn't work for all foods, like soup for example.

We shared the venison rissole, which came with an extremely punchy aioli — a bit heavy on the raw garlic to be honest — which was nice. I then had a delicious artichoke soup and my husband enjoyed the smoked mackerel, with its bones in place, as starters. The smoked mackerel was served with some lemon herbed potatoes, which complemented the flavour of the fish well.

My main, the middle white pork, was underwhelming, with something of the school dinner about it. The pork was very dry and served on a cold plate with carrots that were well on the overcooked side. For some reason the entire dish was also drowned in what appeared to be gravy and oil, which didn't improve or moisten the dry pork, it just made it tepid and greasy. My husband's hake dish was better, served with leeks of just the right firmness, and a not-so-garlicky mayonnaise.

We had a bottle of the house white wine which worked well with all the dishes.

The mains took forever to turn up. The serving staff apologised for this, and offered us a bag of their madeleines as recompense, which we took away. Those fresh warm madeleines were absolutely delicious, and by far the best thing served. We'd go back for those, and the soup… But not for the mains.

Venison Rissole with Aioli

Smoked Mackerel

Artichoke Soup

Middle White Pork

Hake with Leeks