St. JOHN Bar and Restaurant
Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gulliver opened St. JOHN in October 1994.
The former smokehouse, situated around the corner from London's Smithfield Market had fallen in to serious disrepair since ham and bacon smoking ceased in 1967.
The Georgian building had been part townhouse, part smokehouse (this part having been built later over the townhouse gardens) and following it's abandonment had been used variously and in no particular order as squats, a greenhouse for harvesting bean sprouts, a Chinese beer store and the occasional rave.
The upper floors of the building, now our administration, managerial and directors offices had been the headquarters of Marxism Today during the late 1960's.
If you visit St. John you'll find the building pretty much as it was found.
We've painted the walls white, installed a bar and a bakery in two of the chimneys and a kitchen, dining room and private room in the former packing rooms and topped the bar with 20 foot high skylights.
Our baking operations moved from Smithfield to Spitalfieds in 2003 when we opened St. John Bread and Wine though we still sell our breads and other baked goods at St. John and at the occasional farmer's market and food festival, details of which can be found on our news page as they occur.
For more on our bakery, wine shop and restaurant in E1 click on the Spitalfields link in the menu bar.
FERGUS HENDERSON
The son of two architects - father a keen diner, mother a keen cook, Fergus originally studied architecture before his thoughts turned to cooking.
Occasional stints at The Globe in Notting Hill under his belt, Fergus along with his wife Margot (see event catering) took over the dining room at The French House pub in Soho where they quickly earned a loyal following and critical praise.
Fergus was introduced to Trevor Gulliver over supper and, having found the abandoned smoke house on the edge of the city district, and along with the French House Dining Room's manager - Jon Spiteri, the trio opened St. John.
Critical acclaim for Fergus's brand of simple, pared down cooking set in an architecturally though simple setting followed and St. John has won more that it's fair share of awards and high rankings in national and international listings.
Fergus is now a published chef: Nose to Tail Eating - A Kind of British Cooking, first published in 1999 and re-published both in the UK and the U.S. (as The Whole Beast) garnered much acclaim and won the Andre Simon award for food writing.
A follow up book, Beyond Nose to Tail Eating was published in 2007, co written with our head baker Justin Piers Gellatly.
Fergus continues to develop projects all in the name of Nose to Tail Eating, the basic principle which best sums up Fergus's approach to food and the spirit with which one should approach not only cooking but the dining experience as a whole.
TREVOR GULLIVER
Beyond St. John, St. John Bread and Wine and HGWines, Trevor is also actively involved in Cantina, Bar Blue and Wine Wharf at the Vinopolis complex and most recently opened Brew Wharf in Borough whose beers are served at both St. John sites.
Like Fergus, Trevor is based at St. John in Smithfield and involved at every level in the operations of both restaurants as well as our wine company, sourcing French wines directly - around 90% of the list at St. John is sourced by ourselves (further information and lists can be found on the HGWines website from the homepage).
Trevor has become something of a public speaker on wine and food, appearing at various festivals and food and wine conferences globally and can occasionally be read in the weekend press and the odd copy of Restaurant Magazine.
OUR BRIGADE
The kitchens at St. John are led by Chris Gillard and sous chef Suzanne Jackson. The restaurant floor is managed by Farouk Gohil and our bar by Peter Dawson.
Our General Manager, Thomas Blythe works across both St. John and St. John Bread and Wine, undertaking day to day responsibilities for both sites.
We are delighted to recieve details from chefs, front of house staff and others who may be interested in careers with us and vacancies for both restaurants appear on the news pages.
If there is a particular member of our team, either managerial or administrative, you would like to contact directly, email addresses and direct phone numbers can be found on the contacts page.
Alternatively, use the form below to sign up to our mailing list or to send us your comments, thoughts or suggestions. Regular updates about all things St. John can be found on the news page (or via RSS should you have it) but subscribers to the mailing list do receive news of special events and appearances ahead of time.
