Restaurant Recommendation: St. John Bread and Wine

I keep going back to St. John Bread and Wine for leisurely weekend lunches, and I’m always impressed. The menu never makes the food sound especially appealing—offering up such cursory descriptions as “langoustines,” “plaice with chickweed,” or “lemon sole”—but then the food comes out, and those are the best langoustines you’ve ever tasted, or the puffball mushroom with bacon turns out to be heavenly, or the bowl of black mussels in a broth of cider and lovage is perfection. The bread is so good, I could just eat a platter of that and be done with it. (Of course, tons of people have reviewed this Fergus Henderson restaurant: here’s what the Guardian said when it first opened.)
      And here’s one of the chef’s recipes, or maybe just an adaptation of his technique, if you don’t have his cookbooks: The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating and Beyond Nose to Tail: More Omnivorous Recipes for the Adventurous Cook (which I don’t have, because although I’m a fan of daring eating, I’m not such a fan of tracking down odd pig parts and cooking them up in my kitchen).

An added benefit of eating lunch at St. John Bread and Wine is easy access to the refurbished Spitalfields market across the street, so you can spend all day (especially Sunday) in the area.

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