St John celebrates 25 years of nose to tail eating

St John restaurant (London) celebrates 25 years

Fergus and Trevor @ their annual fête des vins at
their Boulevard Napoléon winery in La Livinière, Minervois May 2019 

This week we will be briefly in London as very lucky invitees to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the opening of the St John restaurant in Smithfield in 1994. A party that will surely go on into the early hours of the morning. St John is run by Chef Fergus Henderson and restaurateur Trevor Gulliver.

 Fergus puts it on the plate
and Trevor puts it in the glass

Lunch menu 23rd September 2019
Menus change daily

St John celebrates good food and good living serving both existing classics and ones that Fergus Henderson has made into a classic. It doesn't do fashion – if you want dishes with foam or the latest culinary bling you will have to go elsewhere. The impressive wine list, all French, was initially sourced by Trevor but there is now a wine team headed by Victoria Sharples.

Here is a link to an excellent article about Trevor Gulliver, Fergus Henderson and St John, which appeared in Guardian recently, a brief extract from the article:

'Both men are steeped in what you might call the rigour of gastronomic pleasure. The articles of St John’s faith are all about constancy and conviction, doing good things extremely well. When they first opened the restaurant, with its menu of tripes and bone marrow and welsh rarebit and addictive custard, they were accused of being 200 years out of date, which they took as an enormous compliment.

'One of their key beliefs is that a great restaurant should insist on making a human shape to the day, beginning early with the baking of bread, and ending late with a final glass of something special. In an age of working lunches and clean eating, they have held fast to that principle.'

Over the years I have eaten a number of times at St John – it has always been a pleasure, especially a dinner with around 20 friends and family to celebrate one of Carole's special birthdays when we enjoyed a suckling pig. Just not sure why we haven't gone to St John more often!

Since 2016 we have had the good fortune to be invited to join their annual Fête des Vins at their Boulevard Napoléon winery in La Lavinière and this has become a highlight of our year.

2016 Fête des Vins: Fergus and Trevor  

2017 Fête des Vins: the quail 

The brains of the operation: Fête des Vins 2018

Trevor & the quail: Fête des Vins 2018

Fergus and Trevor have established a menu for their Fête des Vins: after the apéros we start with brains on toast, followed by quail, then cheese and cherries. The menu doesn't change – it works so it doesn't need to be tweaked. All this is accompanied by Boulevard Napoléon wines plus others that guests have brought along with them.

Sadly back around 1998 Fergus was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, which is now happily controlled since 2006 by deep brain stimulation – a procedure that controls the shakes and tremors. Fergus' continued enjoyment of life and work is an inspiration.

Address: 26 St. John Street, London, EC1M 4AY

London – ULEZ (Ultra Low Emission Zone) – is coming

 

 Layer of dark air over London

ULEZ is designed to improve London's air quality
and to cut pollution  

 

 Current congestion zone – Central London

 

ULEZ will be first introduced on 8th April 2019 and will cover the same area as the Congestion Charge Zone. Cars will be charged £12.50 a day on top of the congestion charge, which is currently £11.50 and levied between 7am and 6pm on Monday to Friday. Unlike the Congestion Charge the ULEZ charge will apply 24 hours a day 365 days a year (366 in leap years). This means that cars judged to be polluting will be paying £24 a day to drive in Central London. 

 

Petrol driven cars registered prior to 2005 and diesel cars registered prior to September 2015 are likely to be affected.  

 

ULEZ Zones 

Red from 8th April 2019

Orange/brown from 25th October 2021

 

 

On 25th October 2021 this ULEZ Zone will be extended out to cover the area enclosed by the North and South Circular Roads. 

ULEZ: Where and when

ULEZ: Where and when By Transport for London | Every Journey Matters Where and when the ULEZ will operate

There are exemptions for cars with low emissions. Here are links to both the criteria and how to check if your vehicle is exempt.

Cars

Cars By Transport for London | Every Journey Matters Check to see if your car complies with the ULEZ standards

Check your vehicle

Check your vehicle By Transport for London | Every Journey Matters Guidance to check your vehicle's compliance with ULEZ (excluding taxi and private hire vehicles).

Orange wine for an orange 'president'

 

The Orange president in London's Parliament Square......
(above and below)

 

Simon Woolf  – Amber Revolution

Last Friday (13th July 2018) London saw the largest ever demonstration against a foreign leader when an estimated 250,000 people marched against the visit of Donald Trump to the UK. There were other demonstrations that day and over the weekend elsewhere.

Although amber Trump is apparently teetotal the arrival of our copy of Simon Woolf's Amber Revolution seems timely – orange wines to enjoy during a Trump protest! It also coincides with David's visit to Georgia.

Like a increasing number of other wine books, especially those that break new ground, Simon's book was Crowdfunded. Before Simon considers suing me and Les 5 du Vin Blog for defamation I should make it very clear that the only possible connection between the abominable oaf that is the current president of the USA, albeit hopefully briefly, and amber wine is colour.

From Simon Woolf's Preface:
'Conundrums aside, orange wine's time has well and truly come – bottles are proudly displayed on the shelves of countless independent wine merchants, in fashionable wine bars and top-flight restaurants as never before. The technique resists mass-production, requiring considerable patience and skill to execute properly, so these wines will never dominate supermarket shelves – but producers across the globe are now almost as likely to have an experimental 'orange' in their line-up as they are a traditional method sparkler or a late harvest dessert wine. (Jim - not sure why Simon insists on using term 'dessert wine' when the sensible term is sweet wine.)
Yet for all of the exponential growth of interest, a great deal of myth, superstition and plain old ignorance still surrounds the style. Its origins and rich heritage, in particular, have received very little love from the great and the good of the wine world.

Amber Revolution is an attempt to right that wrong and to distil a significant body of knowledge about this wonderful and unique beverage into one just about digestible volume. The greater part of the book delves into the histories of people, places and culture from orange wine's heartlands: Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Slovenia and Georgia. The persona stories of the winemakers in these regions are as rich and colourful as the wines they produce, and provide the all-important context for their output.

Just two decades ago it would have been impossible to write a major book about orange wine – it didn't even have a name. The explosion of availability, popularity and acceptance of the style unquestionably represents a revolution, whatever shade or hue it might be dubbed.'

 

Huge crowd @start of the march by the BBC in Langham Place

 

People's March Saturday 23rd June – photos

Mrs EU @Parliament Square 

People jam on Pall Mall

Parliament Square

We were proud to have been on the huge People's Vote March on Saturday 23rd June. There was a great friendly, carnival atmosphere. Crowd estimates vary but there were certainly more than 100,000 people marching demanding a vote on the final deal and there may have been up to 500,000 according to some estimates. There were people from all over the UK and of all age groups on the march. 

The march was so big that it took us more than two and half hours to move very slowly from the western end of Pall Mall to Parliament Square.

Here are some photos from the event. The demand is that people get a chance to accept or reject the final deal, whatever it may be with an option to keep the deal we already have with the EU. It is not a second referendum but a chance to look at what is on offer. 

Marchers meeting up outside the Ritz

People making their way down Saint James's 

to the start in Pall Mall

Banners: 

Putin – the real Mr Brexit

 

West Berks Brexitometer

Passing Downing Street

Reaching Parliament Square

The end of the March heading down 
Whitehall around 3pm 

A PS from B. Johnson, who is apparently our 'Foreign Secretary', setting out Government policy towards business and industry:

 

People's March – see you in central London today

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ueqe54ak3GI

 

I'll be on the People's March today demanding a chance to vote on the Final Deal. Brexit will be catastrophic for the UK – two years on from the referendum there are no tangible examples of why we would be better out than in the EU with the favourable deal that we had. 

Parliament could have stopped this lunacy but jobsworth politicians have failed us, so we need a chance to vote on the Final Deal.

Details here: 

May be those were the days ... rail travel in style

 Menu card for The Flying Scotsman 8th November 1957

 The Talisman 

It is always fascinating to come across old menus and, in particular, old wine lists. Here are a couple of examples from a time when rail travel could be glamorous. Here are two examples from November 1957 from two of the named express trains running from London Kings Cross station to Edinburgh.

The Flying Scotsman still runs but now only one way leaving Edinburgh at 5.40 am and arriving in London four hours later. The Talisman, however, has long gone.

Back in 1957 you could settle down to a proper meal, although relatively expensive, with an intriguing selection of wines:

Four course lunch for 9/6 (240 pennies to the £ or 20 shillings to £)

Menu (below)

 The wine list

Once again an old wine list demonstrates how prices 50 years ago were much closer together now than they were. This is most starkly demonstrated by the decidedly tempting 1949 Château Pichon-Longueville-Lalande for 17/6 (82.5p in today's money) – the same price as an anonymous Beaune and 2/6 more than an anonymous Sauternes – 15/-.

Interesting to see that Champagne is markedly more expensive than any other wine type – a 1945 Louis Roederer for 47/6 (£2.35 in current decimal money) and even the NV Champagne – St Marceaux for 37/6. Curiously there are no German wines listed, although there is an Alsatian Sylvaner at 16/-.

Also interesting to see the two Spanish wines: Graves Type and Burgundy Type. Once the UK joined the EU we had to respect appellation contrôlée rules etc. Equally South African Pearl Amber Hock and Australian Emu Burgundy would now be a no-no!

All aboard!

London: amazing early Sunday morning light

 Towards the North Downs 

Remarkable light over London early this morning, especially looking southwards – a few photos.

 

 Towards Forest Hill School and onto Bromley

Dawson Heights and a shrouded Shard

 Horniman Museum and Canary Wharf 

just visible thru gloom