30 DAYS OPEN PURCHASEThe Book of St John is the documentation of the restaurant, whereas Nose to Tail Eating was the argument. The distinction is worth understanding before choosing between them.
Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gulliver opened St. John in 1994 in a former smokehouse next to the Smithfield meat market in London. The walls are white, the walls are bare, the menu describes each dish in a single line and the kitchen has worked ever since on the principle that the whole animal should be eaten. The restaurant holds a Michelin star and has been named the best restaurant in the UK by The World's 50 Best Restaurants.
This book was published for the restaurant's twenty fifth anniversary and contains more than 100 entirely new recipes, written together with Gulliver as co founder. It covers the whole operation rather than just the dining room, including the bakery, the breads, the doughnuts and the wine they make in France.
The fundamental philosophy has not changed. Nothing is thrown away. Stale bread becomes pudding, bones become stock, and the parts of the animal other kitchens discard end up in the middle of the plate. Calling it zero waste is something that came later. At St. John, it has always simply been called cooking.
The dishes are the ones that made the place an institution. Roasted bone marrow with parsley salad, considered one of the most copied dishes in modern British cooking. Welsh rarebit. Eccles cake with Lancashire cheese. Madeleines baked only when ordered.
Henderson's own story runs underneath it all. He trained as an architect before becoming a chef, was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in his forties and has spoken openly about it ever since without stopping work.
If you want the manifesto, choose Nose to Tail Eating. If you want to cook the food, choose this one.
Number of pages: 320
Number of recipes: Over 100
Co author: Trevor Gulliver
Publisher: Ebury Press
ISBN: 9781529103212
Language: English
First published: 2020
