Faithful St John saves the day

A thwarted attempt to go to yet another new restaurant in Clerkenwell - driven out by pounding music - ended happily with dinner at St John. Faithful readers will already know of my affection for Fergus Henderson's English cooking and for the functional but merry style in which one sits to eat. But, in these bagged-salad days, it seems worth reiterating the enthusiasm.

St John's menu becomes ever more terse, some dishes reduced to descriptions of one word, eg, a first course of ham, a main course of sea bass, a dessert of rhubarb, but it is a blessed relief from the extended essays, and you can be sure that no exotic surprise ingredient will be thrown in for good measure. One "foreigner" among the ingredients last Thursday was Italian white truffle. The first course of white truffle and potato at £15 must be currently one of the most inexpensive ways of getting a whiff and a taste of the funky tuber. We tried native oysters; fantastically good smoked mackerel with horseradish; a fine autumnal salad of widgeon, beetroot and red cabbage; a small Stonehenge of roasted marrow bones served with parsley salad.

In the main course, a brace of slip sole revealed fish almost large enough to be called sole in their own right, cooked the best way, à la meunière. Poached chicken with leeks and aioli is the sort of dish I often make at home, since so few restaurants understand the flawlessness of chicken in its own stock. Gloucester Old Spot pork chop made rosy in the smokehouse was served with roasted pumpkin. He who chose the roast pheasant ate with it the side order of sprout tops in place of the "done-up" cabbage that was its accompaniment.

We didn't broach dessert or savoury but lemon posset with shortbread, coffee ice-cream, Eccles cakes with Lancashire cheese and Welsh rarebit were the greatest temptations. St. John would seem to be a very distant relation of St James.

St. John
St. John Street, London, EC1M 4AY