St. John's
26 St John StreetLondonEC1M 4AY

St. John's is the first legitimately interesting restaurant I've been to in London. Located just outside the city's main meat markets, the restaurant makes no apologies for what it does. There's no artifice. No trendiness, no black clad waiters - just straightforwardly prepared meat from every part of the pig, cow, and the lamb.

If you're interested in hard to find meats particularly, St. John's is the place to come. Despite my relatively wide experience in hunting down exotic foods, I had never seen salted, dried Pig's liver, offered as an appetizer or anything else.  Sadly, I was somewhat suffering the aftereffects of an unfortunate dinner the night before (on which more later), and I felt that it would have been expecting a little much of me to have a go at it, but the dried beef with celeriac I had instead was delicious. Indeed, it was probably the high point of the meal for me - the slight tinge of mustard in the celeriac, combined with the delicious beef, somewhat like an unspiced pasterma in texture and color, was really great. Combined with some surprisingly good, and obviously house made bread (there is a bakery on site), this was just the kind of thing I needed after a steady diet of trendy but bad cooking. Honest, good, plain, food.

The main course of fava beans and rabbit was disappointing only because of its excessive saltiness. I suppose a little bit of inaccuracy is to be expected with a place like this, but the stew was so salty as to be a little unpleasant. Still, the meat was well cooked, and the fava beans, just in season, were entirely delicious. More of the crusty whole wheat bread served to mop up the juices - though I would entirely skip the side dishes. The potatoes particularly are simple boiled red potatoes - not worth bothering with at a restaurant.

St. John's continues its straightforward recipe for dessert. Cherry tart, chocolate cakes, trifles, pudding - these are all stalwarts of the British palate. I ordered the first of those, and it was good - really a sort of very short cake dotted with cherries more than the pie an american might initially think of. All the rest looked good as well - not sophisticated, of course, but decent enough. Given what the rest of my restaurant experiences have been like here (so depressing I haven't even been able to write about them), St. John's is a big step up. Of course, this shouldn't be a surprise. This is Britain's indigenous food, done with skill, and some bite. St. John's quality suggests that this is the best direction for anyone interested in finding good eating in London to go.