St. John Bread and Wine | Spitalfeilds, E1

It was by accident that I ended up at Fergus Henderson's St John Bread and Wine. You know the story, it's late December and Gunpowder is closed for the festive period; Bread and Wine is next door to the pub so you decide to go there instead...

Fergus Henderson is the gent who pioneered the whole nose-to-tail movement, saying that, "If you kill an animal, you should eat all of it. It's only polite," and I couldn't agree more. This is the man who serves Crispy Pig's Tails alongside Pig's Trotters and Crab Meat on Toast. And this now means is that many chefs are using uncommon cuts of meat and offal in their daily offerings. In fact, at Meatopia last year, I sampled Franco Fubini's (Natoora) Bone Marrow served with Vesuvian Bull's Heart Tomato. It was absolutely fucking glorious and worth standing in line for 25 minutes for. Thinking about it now is sending me off to my pleasurable memory bank of meaty delights from that weekend...Alas, I digress... 

Henderson appears on Anthony Bourdain's The Layover when our boy Tony stops over in London. It is here that I first see Henderson's Blood Cake with Fried Eggs. In this episode, Tony is staying at Henderson's St John Hotel (which closed in 2013) and has the blood cake for breakfast. He sings its praises and, if it's good enough for Tony, you better believe it's good enough for me. So once I saw an incarnation of it on the specials board, I knew that one of these bad boys was coming my way. This evening, it was being served with my least favourite condiment, brown sauce, but I was big enough to overlook that. I have seen versions of it made sans brown sauce and with a duck egg instead.

Breaking a yolk and eating it over a blood cake may seem a bit cloying at first. Actually, what the yolk does is cut through the earthy, blood-richness of the cake, leaving each mouthful unexpectedly lighter, in the most luxurious, silken way. The cake itself is smooth and creamy, not particularly crumbly like you get with some black puddings. There are little chunks of pork fat running throughout which melt in your mouth like little nuggets of porky ecstacy. I did try some with the brown sauce, though as I am not a huge fan of its fruity, tart vinegary-ness I enjoyed the simplicity of the dish without it. 

N.B. This is a bold choice when your friend doesn't enjoy black pudding (though this was revealed post-ordering). This obviously worked in my favour as I was able to eat the whole plate myself. Not that I'm greedy or anything like that...

Another great dish we had was the Crispy Pig's Cheek. The pig's cheek is roasted over a piece of bread so that all of the meat juices soak into it. The bread is then crisped up, torn up, and tossed through a watercress salad with a mustard-y dressing. I would be lying if I said that I ate this with any sort of restraint and this, along with the blood cake, was another favourite of the evening. 

Bread and Wine is a 'slow dining' restaurant meaning that you order at your leisure without the rigidity of the Starter followed by Main set up, and dishes arrive when they're ready - kind of like Wagamama but posher. And the staff were great - very knowledgeable and steered us so that we had a well-rounded dining experience. Bread and Wine is certainly sophisticated dining which is defiantly casual. 

Will I be back? Well, I have no choice but to return to one of Henderson's outposts after Anthony Bourdain described the Bone Marrow and Parsley Salad as his "death row dish". High praise indeed. Once I get there, I will be sure to share it with you.

The damage: £68.90 

(we shared a bottle of wine and ordered the Cauliflower and Salt Hake as well. Both very nice but the two above were the heroes of the evening, in my humble opinion) 

St John Bread and Wine 

94-96 Commercial St

London E1 6LZ

For your reference, please find below a couple of images of Fubini's Bone Marrow served with Vesuvian Bull's Heart Tomato, taken from the Natoora Twitter...