He became one of the unforgettable names of British cuisine with an offal restaurant serving British food. His menu included brain, tongue, intestines, tripe, heart, kidney, and all kinds of offal, and he had no artistic obsessions other than flavor.
Fergus Henderson is a self-taught British chef. His main profession is architecture. Near Smithfield Market in east London, St. He bought an old smokehouse on John Street and bought the smokehouse in St. John's in 1994. John opened his restaurant. The restaurant was mostly frequented by the city's artist community. But in later years, and especially after the acclaimed statements of the famous and influential chef-writer of the USA, Anthony Bourdain, it gained almost a cult status among the foodies of the whole world. A must-visit for the chefs of both the UK and the whole world. Henderson had Parkinson's disease, so he couldn't stay in the kitchen all the time.
Fergus Henderson OBE (born 31 July 1963) is an English chef who founded the restaurant St John on St John Street in London. He is often noted for his use of offal and other neglected cuts of meat as a consequence of his philosophy of nose to tail eating. Following in the footsteps of his parents, Brian and Elizabeth Henderson, he trained as an architect at the Architectural Association in London. Most of his dishes are derived from traditional British cuisine and the wines are all French.
The atmosphere in Fergus Henderson's restaurant was as follows: "The ambiance is pure white. It really is white. Even the floorboards were painted white with oil paints, and these paints, which are worn by walking, gave the place a rustic feel. There are wooden hangers all along the walls. The long wooden logs, four fingers wide, covered all the walls. There are wooden coat hangers on these records. Unbelievably plain. The tables and chairs are wooden, and there are white cloth covers on them, but the cover covers are paper. They are also white. They made minimalist talk about this too: "In our restaurant, the food speaks, the rest is the story" and "The restaurant's kitchen is open. You can see what's going on like the day."
NOSE TO TAIL
When it comes to the menus, the menu is like this: "When you look at the food, you experience your second surprise. Everything that is left out of a good restaurant in marrow, intestine, tongue, brain, heart, and animal is the main actor in this restaurant. So there are no expensive and quality cuts such as tenderloin, entrecote or anything like that. Henderson called this cuisine, which he prepared in a completely British style, nose-to-tail eating. He says that we cook everything between the two ends of the animal from the nose to the tail. There is also a cookbook with the same name. Although pork is used extensively, beef, lamb, duck, rabbit, and even fish are on the menu. In the fish, again, not expensive material like turbot or angler fish, but citizen fish such as eel, salted cod, and mackerel are used.
St. JOHN is an English restaurant on St John Street in Smithfield, London. It was opened in October 1994 by Trevor Gulliver, Fergus Henderson, and Jon Spiteri on the premises of a former bacon smoke-house. Under Henderson's guidance as head chef, St. JOHN has specialised in "nose to tail eating", with a devotion to offal and other cuts of meat rarely seen in restaurants, often reclaiming traditional British recipes. Typical dishes include pigs' ears, ducks' hearts, trotters, pigs' tails, bone marrow and, when in season, squirrel. As a result, St. JOHN has developed a following amongst gastronomic circles: "chefs, foodies, food writers and cooks on sabbatical".
Although the menu changes every day, some dishes are always available. For example, roast beef marrow. This is St. John's signature dish. On the side is a salad made of parsley leaves mixed with a vinaigrette with English mustard; It has a very sharp taste. Two huge slices of sourdough bread on another side of the plate. The bread was toasted a little too much on the grill and traces of scorched lines became evident. You take the jelly-like marrows from the bones with a long buttonhole attachment and spread them on this beautiful bread-like butter. You sprinkle them with coarse rock salt and put some parsley salad on them and take them away. Beautiful, really beautiful. Moreover, because it is an amazing dish, it gives people another pleasure.
Another most famous dish on the menu is "fresh bean gut" (chitterlings & broad beans). They first boil the pork intestines, then grill them and serve them with fresh broad beans.
In this restaurant, tripe is made by cooking large pieces of tripe, fresh peas, and bacon pieces in a wine sauce, over a slow fire for a long time. They top it with the same arugula salad, which they also mix with English mustard vinaigrette. God, what is this? How soft and how delicious is something?
The Culinary Couple Who Built a British Empire
https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/chefs/fergus-henderson