St. John Hotel

Came here for a Saturday night meal with the missus. Really nice spot without being pretentious. Great food, good and hearty, lots of creative ingredients. It’s not a cheap meal but it’s also not outrageous. Good service. I would come back here for sure.

Although St John lives up to its reputation of preserving the integrity of the ingredients and showcasing them as such I felt the meal was a little flat. Nothing popped for me. Pork skins reminded of processed pork cracklings you can get in the Southern USA. The Queen of Puddings was outstanding. Those are the two major hit and misses. Everything else fell into mediocre territory.

So when my friend came to visit me from the US, he had watched «the layover» with anthony bourdain and wanted to try ALL the places that he went to. This was one of the places found on the tv show.
We had previously made reservations expecting this place to be PACKED. Wrong… we walked in and it was SOOO empty. That’s fine though no problems with that. We looked over the menu and were confused… I have no clue about REAL british breakfasts… and the one dish my friend wanted to order wasn’t on the menu.
He ordered a coffee and this sardine spread breakfast with some soft boiled eggs and I ordered some cheesy toast with a poached egg on top. (reddit?) Anyway all in all our food was pretty good just both dishes were quite salty.
This place isn’t TOO expensive but it’s definitely not cheap. They take discover though! :)
About the service, it was pretty good seeing how we were the only people in the place but it was quite disconcerting having the staff doing spring cleaning while we were eating. They were organizing the wine rack area and it was sometimes a little hard to get their attention to refill our water.
Don’t know if I’d come back myself but it’s pretty good.

Pretty solid meal here and a super friendly staff.
I had the pork ears with the row. The pork ears were pretty light, reminded me of the pork rinds that our high school vending machine sold. They were fine.
I also had the ox tongue, which was delish. Tastier than cow’s tongue and leaner. sliced deli style with some sorta slaw.
Lastly, went adventurous with the snails and duck hearts. The snails were fine, i think i prefer snails doused in garlic and butter, but the duck hearts were way better than i expected. very good.

Saw Fergus Henderson featured on some food show and have been meaning to try out one of his restaurants. Entrees all pretty top notch. Prices here are very reasonable especially given it is London.
My favorite were the bacon+beans and the pig ear. The pig ear looks funky but it is deep fried, meaty, and gelatinous.
Desserts were awesome. Custard tart was eggy wonderfulness. Warm out of the oven Madeleines are crisp and soft on the inside and great with some tea or coffee.
For those that can’t make it out to this London version of nose to tail eating, Publican in Chicago does the theme well.

Holy crap, the food here is amazing. If you had to convince a foreigner that British cuisine isn’t as bad as its reputation, this is the place to take them (although it would be kind of cheating…).
I came here for a post-​case dinner with work colleagues, and we pretty much ordered everything on the menu that night except for the green salad. I can more or less recommend everything. The least exciting dish was the mince beef pie (I guess it’s hard to make a dish like that particularly tasty to any non-​British person…). Favourites of the night would have to be Devilled Pig Skin & Smoked Cods Roe, Roast Bone marrow salad, and some kind of cabbage with a sliver of pork back fat. I probably ate 1000 calories in one meal, but it was totally worth it.
Service is very good, and I think the staff are supposed to act a bit funny (well, supposed to… not sure, but they were a little peculiar… in a good way!).
I also learned that duck hearts doesn’t taste as bad as it sounds. Actually… pretty tasty…

I didn’t visit St. John’s restaurant for a meal, but I can say that their afternoon tea service is delightful. And the star of the show? FRESH BAKED MADELEINES. What??? This is a thing? True fact: you order a half dozen or dozen of these delicious, buttery cookies and they make them to order. Maybe they have a Keebler elf back there, but these cookies show up at your table fluffy, warm and mouth-​wateringly awesome.
If the whole «fancy restaurant» thing doesn’t work out for these guys, I think they (or someone else) should make a business out of a fresh madeline stand/​food cart. Baked-​to-​order is a gimmick I think could be the next ‘in’ trend in dessert. People expect sandwiches, burritos, crepes, sit-​down entrees in general, and most recently vietnamese fresh rolls and rice balls here in San Francisco to be made to order. Why not a cookie?
Pro tip offered by a nearby restaurant employee — St. John also serves «buns» between the hours of 2 and 6pm (off menu!) for those in-​the-​know. The fillings didn’t sound particularly appealing the day I went, but just the idea of a secret menu item that is only available parts of the day makes me interested in trying it during some future visit.

Nope, I didn’t stay at the hotel, but I did try their restaurant.
If you’ve got the money to spend on excellent food and small portions, by all means try this place out. My friends and I stopped in since one of them heard the chef is amazing. The menu is a bit on the wild side, and by that I mean you’ve gotta be willing to try some unusual things like rabbit, duck hearts, pig head, lamb’s tongue, etc. I can’t bare the thought of eating those kinds of things so I skipped on the one dish we ordered with the poor ducky hearts. Thankfully everything else we ordered was pretty normal.
We ordered a number of different items and I definitely have some favorites. The Girolles & Sea Purslane on Toast was spectacular. We had to Google what girolles were before we ordered them and found out they were mushrooms. The taste was exquisite and went really well on the toast they came with. Bacon and Beans… sounds so simple but it was amazing! More so the beans than the bacon since they were packed full of delicious flavor. I also recommend getting the Brown Shrimp & White Cabbage. The shrimp were actually very tiny but were very well seasoned and the cabbage had an amazing lemony dressing on it as well. For the cheese lovers, I loved the Stichelton & Rye Cracker. It has a bleu cheese taste to it and was creamy and delicious. If you like bleu cheese, you’ll probably like this as well.
The Seabass & Green Salad are not very memorable for me so I don’t think they’re worth ordering. My friends also ordered the Snails, Duck Hearts & Lovage which I didn’t try, but I think they just thought it was alright.
Service was wonderful, surprisingly. I haven’t had the best of luck when it comes to service in London so that was nice. It’s definitely a foodie experience when you come here but I’m not so sure if it’s worth the price… might just be the cheap American in me though. I’m still pretending the £ sign means dollars so I think I’m not spending so much…

I so wanted to love this place but it fell short for me. I’d seen the blood cake with fried egg on Anthony Bourdain’s show but it wasn’t on the menu on a recent visit. The space is clean — austere, really, and service is good, but the three dishes I had were not extraordinary and I found it a bit pricey for what it was. Starter was duck hearts and snails with lovage — best dish of the three. mains was wood pigeon with beetroot and onion and pickled walnut. Fairly mediocre and the pigeon was just one piece of tough old fowl. The blackberry leaf cream donut was imaginative but uninspired in execution. I had one glass of a flabby pinot noir and a coffee and the bill was around $ 80. Sorry, just expected better. The menu was very interesting, wish I could have gone back a couple of more times to explore more.
Other stuff: the English maitre d’ in a three piece suit was a little self-​consciously cool, as well as being a total Leonardo diCaprio look alike, and the Greek waiter was a delight.

We stayed here during their first few months of it opening. I’ve been going to the flagship restaurant for years and have long been a fan of Fergus Henderson.
We arrived midday on a Friday. A friendly guy in a white chefy jacket opened the door and greeted us. An early check-​in wasn’t a problem. The common parts of the hotel felt a little like a design studio. Not ‘cool’ clinical, like the restaurants, but instead a bit dull. The rooms however were wonderful. We had a standard double. It was full of light and bigger than I had anticipated. Bright green flooring, whitewashed panelling on walls with signature pegs. Great bed. Beautiful sink and bathtub/​shower in main room, with a separate toilet. It was spotlessly clean and smelt of the complimentary Penhalegon toiletries. We had a corner room, with Leiscester Square to the left and China Town to the right. So we weren’t expecting a totally quiet night.
I wanted to try all the food on offer. I had read a lot about what Fergus had called ‘a bun moment’. I love that they have devised foods that are only available at the hotel. We went to sample them. We were a bit early, but the waitress was happy to come up with some alternative treats to keep us going. The bar was a surprise though. It felt a bit like an NHS waiting room — ordered rows of red sofas and low, featureless pale wooden tables. Brilliant white lacquered venician blinds added to the sterile feel. The food of course was awesome, and the quirky guests added the texture and colour. We whiled away the afternoon before returning to our room to try out the mini bar and bath tub.
We ate at the restaurant that evening. It was fully books and buzzing. Our evening ended back in the bar, chatting with some of the other guests.
As I suspected, we had a pretty disrupted nights sleep. The hotel is on the corner of Leicester Street and Lisle Street. We had a corner room that overlooked both. The general London noise is fine and to be expected. But any rooms looking onto Lisle Street are right across the road from a Slug And Lettuce. The late night noise was aggressive and rowdy and threatening. The hotel really should have installed proper, airport hotel quality sound proofing.
If you are into people watching, being up and about early in the centre of London is always eye-​opening entertainment. A wonderful cross section of life passes (and staggers) by the hotel.
We were booked in for two nights and had all our meals in the restaurant and bar. The place is wonderful. It feels like it shouldn’t be in the middle of the West End, but that infact just adds to the delight of the place.
For what you get I really think they have priced it right. I look forward to my next stay.

So I’m stupid. I was completely confused and baffled that there was now a hotel which has a restaurant in it versus the original St. John near Smithfield Market. I was «concerned» that the quality of food was going to be lacking in the hotel, but I was totally wrong, WRONG. We passed by the hotel and I «popped» in to see if I could score a reservation and they had plenty of spots for the next night — bad sign you might think? The devilled pig skin and smoked cod roe (you had me at pig skin) was ridiculously tasty. I could’ve eaten a bag of skins and used the roe as toothpaste. For the entrée, my wife and I and our son shared the rabbit and leek pie. Now as a damn American, when I think of a savory pie, my mind usually recalls a Stouffer pot pie with unsavory thick creamy filling and cubes of purported animal origin. At St. John, we got a pie with flaky crust filled with tender strips of rabbit and delicious yet not too thick sauce. The wait staff were very young, but friendly, knowledgeable and patient. All around, 5 stars!

Having stayed in Leicester Square a number of times, this is by far my favorite hotel. The St John makes simplicity hip and cool by doing what they say and saying something that is all about ease and quality and minimalistic fun with just the right touch of the unexpected thrown in for good measure. Thank you St John for being you. I will be back and promise to bring friends (as long as you promise to not let your coming popularity go to your head.) Deal?

When we first moved to London a couple years back now, our newbie selves just had to hit up the famous St John that all of our ‘in-​the-​know friends’ raved about whenever we happened to mentioned that we were, in fact, ‘upping sticks’ and moving to London on three weeks notice. I think it was the second or third major meal we ate when we got here…
…gah… So disappointing was the experience, that I promptly wrote a bitchy review on Unilocal and vowed never to set foot in the place again. Well, that was until I learned of the whole pig feast, but that’s a story for another day. Anyhow, let’s just say I wasn’t falling over myself to try Chef Henderson’s new spot when it popped up in Chinatown early last year. Well, colour me bare-​assed for sure. This one is brilliant!
Upon arriving well into the evening on a Tuesday night, we found the place nearly deserted. This I did not expect, and I will not stand for. Anyone reading this: make a booking for a random weeknight around 9pm, stat! It should be full at all times! The dining room is certainly spartan. Wood floors; white walls; simple tables and chairs; a sideboard for the staff to work from, and a big, shiny, stainless steel kitchen. Have a seat, enjoy an apertif, and your austere surroundings no longer matter.
Because we had been at Dean Street Townhouse fashionista-​spotting (yay for London Fashion Week) and downing cocktails as though the survival of the universe depended upon it, we opted for a few rounds of beer rather than a bottle of wine. It was a good call. The Meantime was just the right accompaniment for the hearty English fare to come. I tried the pumpkin and bacon soup, which I expected to pureed. Rather, it came in a beautiful broth with chunks of pumpkin and pork belly. I have a mission in life to recreate this soup. Dining companions also had soup and the ox heart, also deemed satisfactory.
Mains included lamb kidneys, which my husbands scored as some of the best offal he’s ever eaten – and he’s eaten a lot of offal. I had the feather steak served with parsnip purée and pickled walnuts. Wow, pickled walnuts, who knew?! The meat was cooked so well. Of course, at this point we were all completely stuffed, but couldn’t resist the jam-​filled doughnuts and the madeleines, that are BAKED TO ORDER by the half-​dozen and dozen… that’s right: you order them; they bake them, and you risk second degree mouth burns to eat them when they’re delivered steamingly hot to the table. Totally worth the burns, btw.
Dinner is amazing, and I can’t wait to try breakfast. And because it’s part of the hotel, the restaurant is open all day long. From 3pm to 5pm, they have a ‘bun moment’ menu served with tea or coffee. If it’s as cool as it sounds on the menu, then I may have a new afternoon ritual/​addiction/​problem. Why pay for Dorchester High Tea when you can have tea with buns here?
Go. Immediately. Report back.

Like the other st John’s the food was pretty good, though the menu options are less conventional. I had a middle white chop was really good and the terrine was fantastic. I also liked the industrial atmosphere of the place. We went for a no corkage fee lunch special that made it extra fun.

Had dinner here on our recent London trip… and it was really amazing. I wanted to stay in the hotel, as I had read all about it. Glad we didn’t, as it appears to be a bit minimal, even for my tastes, and in a pretty bustling area.
I had Haddock pie, and it was superb.
The restaurant is minimal, but surprisingly cosy… straightforward English food, good service.
Will have to go back to try some other items on the menu that looked tempting.

This review is for the hotel, not the restaurant. The restaurant is *great* — we had a phenomenal meal there.
300 euro a night for a crap, non-​descript room with tons of street noise is just insanity. Never again.

The chef’s at St. John can make roadkill into a feast. They are that good.
With excitement and trepidation I went to check out the new, and I would find out no lesser then the original St. John’s restaurant in Spitalfields, now opened near Leicester Square. I was nervous that something would be lacking in the Soho restaurant, but the new, ‘mini’ sized version is equally as good on every level. Same laid back feel to it, same professional service, and same exceptional food.
The décor has the same basic elegance as the original restaurant, with an exposed kitchen, wooden tables, white tablecloths, just in a smaller space as it is located in the new St. John’s boutique hotel a stone’s throw away from Leicester Square. Soho is THE place for new restaurants in London so one must grin and bare the the crazy crowds to get there, but it is well worth the effort.
As any foodie knows, St. Johns is at the top of the list in the restaurant world. While the ‘nose to tail’ menu is not for everyone, it is so well done, so tasty, that every meal is a feast. It is excitingly new, yet somehow reliable comfort food. I had the snails with pork cheek (think pancetta) in a lovage sauce which is a warm, earthy, almost curry like herb. Exceptional. Followed by the grilled rabbit with white beans which had a very Tuscan feel to it. The menu changes and is seasonal so everything is fresh and at its peak. If you have room for dessert, even if just a couple of spoonfuls, those do not disappoint. Hearty wine list, with affordable wines by the glass round off the dining experience.
A must eat. Then repeat.

Not many things that can tempt me into Soho on a Saturday night, much less Leicester Square, its bratty sibling, where dead eyes scan the tourist hordes for their money. It’s a logical spot for a restaurant, high priced cash generators abound, fleecing the unwary with no care for reputation among the passing trade. Why in the hell chef’s chef Fergus Henderson picked here for his latest venture I’ll never understand. But pick it he did, so visiting I must come.
It’s a sparse white space, below and ajoined to a new boutique hotel. One wall is taken up with a large long kitchen, another features windows ideal for people watching the slightly odd mix of humanity that throng the square at night. The kitchen is open from early, serving breakfasts to the hotel guests. This I’ve got to try. Their robust, gutsy take on previously unachieved bits of animal has to translate into a fine fry.
The supper menu is concise, with seven or eight starters, mains and desserts. A spectacularly hungover Dr Vole came seeking veggies, possibly not the best option in an offalhound’s paradise like this. On another day, with my trencherman’s hat on, I’ll go for the suckling pig. Previously only available pre-​ordered at parent restaurant St John, here it’s available on spec. A hearty sounding dish of bacon and beans is available to share, as is an intriguing sounding pike pie. Dr Vole went for the sole vegetarian option, an excellent celeriac dauphinois with a side of rough chard mash and a peppery watercress salad hit further with a mustard and caper dressing. Creamy and soft, with a rounded edge of aniseed, I couldn’t help think how well it’d have gone with the aforementioned suckling pork…
I went for two starters, crumbed skate cheeks with tartare, a frugal and filling take on scampi, comprising crisp nuggets of golden crumb that broke to reveal soft yielding fish. The second was another St John favourite, thin slices of slow cooked veal tongue were mixed in with waxy potato to more of the mustardy watercress.
There was method in my madness, compensating for the lack of a main with one of the several excellent puddings available. If the main menu can challenge at times (the eagerly anticipated focus on offal isn’t to everyone’s taste) the puddings won’t. I’d be happy coming here for them alone. Despite being tempted by a chocolate terrine and a burnt prune custard we plumped, literally and metaphorically, for a dark ginger loaf with sweet cider caramel and an enormous apple shortbread pie with bay ice-​cream. not as weird as it sounds and a perfect end to dinner.
It’s such a relief to know that there’s now a quality dining option in amongst the clip joints and tourist spots of Leicester Square. I’m not there that often, though will be back just for that suckling pig, I’m just glad that there’s a chance some of the tourists might be tempted away from the dubious delights of the Angus Steakhouse.