ST. JOHN CELEBRATES 30 YEARS

St. JOHN Restaurant is delighted to announce a roster of celebrations for its 30th year of service this autumn, starting firstly from 9th to 27th September, when St. JOHN Smithfield will recreate the restaurant’s 1994 food menus at original prices. The team look forward to sharing this moment with those who matter most: their customers, producers and their folk.

All weekday reservations during this period will be served variations of the very first St. JOHN menus from three decades ago, offering long-standing patrons and new customers an array of both St. JOHN classics and archival favourites. As Fergus says: “a good age deserves a good lunch and a good party”, so sharing their birthday moment with the original prices, the team will be serving the beloved Roast bone marrow and parsley salad, of course, along with Crispy fried pig tail and Eel, bacon and mash, whilst returning dishes such as Apricots on toast will grace the table again. As always, the St. JOHN menus will change twice daily, with Smithfield Head Chef Jonathan Whittle and the team working to their daily rigour and rhythms.

Bookings for the 1994 menus will open at 10am on Thursday 22nd August via OpenTable. Alongside the 1994 menus, the team will produce a limited edition collection of anniversary merchandise to launch during the same period, with a simple selection of t-shirts and t-towels made available via the St. JOHN website. True to form, the St. JOHN ‘pivotal pig’ will be stationed as the crest on the t-shirt front; on the reverse, the 1994 menu printed in full, to commemorate the menu rerun in perpetuity. The pig motif also appears on the teatowel, denoting in Fergus’ words how it acts as the ‘quintessential nose-to-tail animal’.

Trevor Gulliver, Co-Founder says: “We are going to enjoy this little moment with those close by that really matter and those that we need to say a big thank you to. They are the same, our St. JOHN folk and our St. JOHN customers across the years. I hope that we’ve found a good solution - both are our future and may the good ship St. JOHN sail on, always the same but never the same.... Fergus and I are the lucky ones, and we might just have a little lunch somewhere along with a glass of a very good burgundy, raising that toast to our many friends across the years.”

This year, St. JOHN looks back on three decades of development and gentle change. First opened within the site of an old smokehouse by Smithfield Market in 1994, St. JOHN is now widely considered one of the most influential restaurants in the world, Fergus Henderson’s cooking and Trevor Gulliver’s restaurant and wine endeavours single-handedly changing the course of British restaurants. The 30th anniversary is a chance to pause and reflect, to celebrate and commemorate, whilst looking to the future with a nod to Trevor’s well-coined phrase ‘always the same, but never the same’. The occasion will be marked with an alumni party, held in September, looking at the ever-growing number of alumni chefs, bakers, front of house and wine folk who passed through the St. JOHN kitchens across restaurant floors and cellars, many of whom are populating a vast family tree with restaurants of their own.

The St. JOHN 30th anniversary menus will run from 9th - 27th September (weekdays only), with food served at 1994 pricings. Drinks will remain at usual pricings. Reservations open at 10am on Thursday 22nd August via OpenTable, with merchandise released mid-September via the St. JOHN website.

For more information contact pink@gemmabellandcompany.com