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Victoria Burrows

When restaurateur and wine lover Trevor Gulliver and chef Fergus Henderson opened St John in 1994, London’s dining scene was a world away from what it is today.
Haute cuisine was still in the throes of foam and frippery, edible gold leaf was the height of glamour and the bill at the end of the meal was gilded to match.
Meanwhile, London’s more affordable restaurants were not known for the quality of their food. The wines that accompanied dinner were also unlikely to inspire raptures.
“In the 1980s and 90s, Chardonnay was either a grape or a Chelsea footballer’s daughter’s name,” says Gulliver with a chuckle, as we meet at St John in London’s Smithfield ahead of the restaurant’s two-day residency at 181 at Fortnum & Mason Hong Kong from March 11 to 12.

“There was a restaurateur here in London, he’s dead now but who I used to be good friends with, let’s call him Mr Corret – I won’t use his real name. He had an Italian restaurant, which he called Corretti; an Italian-Portuguese restaurant called Correto; and a French restaurant called Corette. The wine he served at these restaurants all came from the same tanker.
“He used to bottle it round the back of London Bridge. It was not so much a wild West in those days as wine being a largely unknown thing.”

When Gulliver met Henderson via a common olive oil supplier and they decided to open a restaurant together, Gulliver tasted the wines available at the time and decided he “needed to start knocking on doors”. This he did literally, driving around France and turning up at wineries unannounced.
“I was once bitten by a dog. It wasn’t a big dog – the big one stayed by the door when the farmer opened it – but I had to ask the farmer to take the little one off my ankle,” he says.
If the winery had just four cases, he would put all four in the back of his car to bring back to London.
“Buying direct from France rather than relying on the big industrial importers was seen as a bit weird at the time. It was the same in the kitchen; our approach was outside the norm,” he says.
While Gulliver rewrote the rules of wine sourcing, Henderson turned what it meant to eat well on its head – or perhaps nose. He cooked using all parts of an animal, especially the pig. Unpopular cuts of meat and offal, once a staple of the British diet, were brought back thanks to this nose-to-tail ethos.

The restaurant’s aesthetic, with its blank whitewashed walls, bare floors and simple table settings, was matched by the dishes: unfussy, soulful plates that let the ingredient – always sourced as locally as possible – shine. High-quality cooking no longer came with finery or a fine-dining price tag.
The restaurant, in an old smokehouse in semi-industrial and somewhat decaying Clerkenwell, was quiet at first, but word quickly spread.
Soon, it was attracting the likes of British artists Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin. Singers Madonna and Bryan Ferry visited. Leading chefs, including Ferran Adria of Spain’s El Bulli and Thomas Keller of The French Laundry in the US state of California, became friends.

In 1999, Henderson published his first cookbook, The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating, which was described by the Los Angeles Times as the world’s most influential cookbook.
In 2001, chef Anthony Bourdain immortalised the restaurant in his television show A Cook’s Tour, calling it “just about my favourite restaurant in the universe”.
St John’s dish of roasted veal bone marrow, served simply with parsley and toasted bread, which Bourdain described as “God’s butter”, has become the restaurant’s most well known and is still on the menu today.
Guests can expect to enjoy what I’d call a ‘signature’ St John menu
Daniel Fenner, executive chef at 181 at Fortnum & Mason
Diners in Hong Kong will get to sample the roasted bone marrow as one of seven courses served for dinner on March 11, and lunch or dinner on March 12 (HK$1,288, or US$165, per person) at 181 in Tsim Sha Tsui.
Other dishes on the menu include smoked cod’s roe, duck fat potato and quail egg ; crispy pig cheek, dandelion and radish ; and brown bread and marmalade ice cream .
Today the St John group comprises three restaurants, three bakeries, a wine import business, a winery and a branded retail product arm. Three staff from the group will be in Hong Kong for the residency.

St John Bread and Wine head chef Farokh Talati will lead the kitchen, assisted by head Marylebone chef Emily Chia and senior front of house Rebecca McGauley-Dyke.
“It’s very important to us that people coming to dine with us really feel that they are getting St John in their town, so we travel with the team that can deliver that and also happily engage with new and old friends,” says Gulliver.
Sourcing a list of quintessentially British ingredients in Hong Kong was largely straightforward, including the Lancashire cheese which accompanies the traditional Eccles cake – crisp, flaky pastry encasing a spiced currant filling – that completes the menu.

“Our connections and working relationship with Fortnum’s mean that we’ve been able to source well, but, subject to regulations, there might be the odd element that has to travel with us!” says Gulliver.
“Part of the joy of these collaborations is fresh produce from new places, and we remain true to our rigour in the kitchen while enjoying what we discover locally.”
Daniel Fenner, executive chef at 181 at Fortnum & Mason, worked closely with the St John team to source the ingredients.

“Guests can expect to enjoy what I’d call a ‘signature’ St John menu,” Fenner says. “The two teams worked together to source key ingredients from extraordinary producers around the world. We’re lucky, here in Hong Kong, to be so well connected to the global food market.”
The dishes will be paired with seven of St John’s wines that reflect Gulliver’s decades of friendship with French producers and vignerons since he first began knocking on winery doors.
Service will start with a Crémant de Limoux, followed by a 2018 Grenache Gris from their own vineyard in southern France. They will also serve St John Déclassifié Bordeaux 2019, with the St John Beaune Bastion 1er Cru Rouge to bring the meal to an end.
“We get the best juice, I like to think,” says Gulliver.


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Food and Drinks

‘God’s butter’ and more at UK nose-to-tail cooking pioneer St John’s Hong Kong pop-up

London restaurant St John’s dish of roasted veal bone marrow, which the late Anthony Bourdain dubbed “God’s butter”, is among the dishes it will serve at a two-day pop-up in Hong Kong in March 2025.

St John’s co-founder Trevor Gulliver.

The interior of 181 at Fortnum & Mason. 

A Boulevard Napoleon wine with crispy pig cheek salad.

Diners tuck into Devilled Crab, a dish served at St John. 

Cods roe pass, a dish served at St John. 

A plate of Eccles cake and Lancashire cheese.

Welsh Rarebit 2, a dish served at St John. 

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Fukuoka chef Kazutaka Hagiwara prepares longtooth grouper. Photo: Llewellyn Cheung

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Dishes prepared using the flesh of the longtooth grouper fish, including sashimi (front). Photo: Llewellyn Cheung

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Longtooth grouper stew. Photo: Llewellyn Cheung

Lifestyle

Food & Drink

Anthony Bourdain called St John in London ‘my favourite restaurant in the universe’. Now it’s coming to 181 at Fortnum & Mason Hong Kong


Anthony Bourdain called St John in London ‘my favourite restaurant in the universe’. Now it’s coming to 181 at Fortnum & Mason Hong Kong.


‘God’s butter’ and more at UK nose-to-tail cooking pioneer St John’s Hong Kong pop-up

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Anthony Bourdain called St John in London ‘my favourite restaurant in the universe’. Now it’s coming to 181 at Fortnum & Mason Hong Kong

Anthony Bourdain called St John in London ‘my favourite restaurant in the universe’. Now it’s coming to 181 at Fortnum & Mason Hong Kong