Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
cabbage gazpacho, or Blumenthal's famous
snail porridge, a witty updating of classic
French escargots. A roast scallop dish
runs the full scale of textures from silky
scallop tartare to caviar to white chocolate
velouté. Salmon might come poached in
licorice gel; a pork loin pot roast with a
gratin of truffled macaroni; a filet of beef
with pan-fried foie gras, wild mushroom
flan, and beet balsamic
jus
. Reserve 2
months in advance. The restaurant is
closed Sunday evenings and Mondays.
1 High St., Bray (near Maidenhead;
&
44/1628/580-333;
www.fatduck.co.uk).
(
Heathrow (26km/16 miles).
L
$
Langton House,
46 Alma Rd.,
Windsor (
&
44/1753/858299;
www.
langtonhouse.uk). $$$
Oakley Court
Hotel,
Windsor Rd., Water Oakley (
&
44/
1753/609988;
www.moathousehotels.
com).
Cutting-Edge Kitchens
121
St. John
The Offal Truth
London, England
or of cold Middlewhite ham (a Yorkshire
breed of swine) with celeriac rémoulade.
(For the faint of heart, there are also plain
oysters or a smoked mackerel and potato
salad.) Then it's on to hearty main courses
like roast beef with sea beet and mustard;
ox hearts with beets and picked walnut;
chitterlings and dandelions; a pheasant and
trotter pie (dig the bone sticking out of the
crust); or smoked eel, bacon, and clam
stew. (Again, there are less daring choices
like lemon sole or girolle mushrooms on
toast.) With advance order, a private party
can even have a roast suckling pig. With
delicious simple bread baked in its own
bakery, and desserts like Eccles cake, bread
pudding, spotted dick, and plum jelly, it's
one of the most deeply British menus in
town—and at the same time almost dan-
gerously radical. Tasting menu? That's way
too effete for St. John, although they do
offer a “feasting menu” for larger groups.
There's also an excellent wine list,
though it mostly features French wines—
you'd expect the bar here to have a sub-
stantial selection of real ales, but it's
surprisingly limited. The bar is, however, a
great place to get a quicker, cheaper sam-
pling of Henderson's cooking, with a black-
Fergus Henderson is the opposite of a
molecular gastronomist—he doesn't make
food delicate and tiny, he makes it big and
sloppy. Market-fresh produce? He'd rather
serve you a slab of freshly slaughtered meat.
Reducing foods to their essence? Well, cer-
tainly—that is, if you consider internal
organs the most essential part of an animal.
And yet cutting-edge food it is, or rather
cleaver's-edge food. St. John's chef-owner
Henderson is known for what he calls
“nose-to-tail” cookery, which finds a way
to use all of an animal—neck, feet, tail,
liver, heart, the works. His location is spot-
on appropriate, in a long-abandoned
smokehouse just north of the old meat
market at Smithfield. Henderson and his
partner Trevor Gulliver didn't do much to
tart it up—slap a coat of white paint onto
the brick walls, punch a few skylights into
the ceiling, install a bar and kitchen appli-
ances, and cart in some square brown
wood tables. But somehow, that bare-
bones decor is just right for the earthy
simplicity of Henderson's cooking.
This nose-to-tail notion would never
have caught on, of course, if Henderson
wasn't so skilled. For starters, you might
have a salad of brawn (boar's flesh) and
