St. John (restaurant)

St. John is a restaurant on St John Street in Smithfield, London, opened in October 1994 by Trevor Gulliver, Fergus Henderson and Jon Spiteri in a former bacon smokehouse. Under Henderson as head chef it became known for nose-to-tail eating, a style that gives offal and unfashionable cuts of meat a central place on the menu and revives traditional British recipes. Typical dishes include pigs' ears, ducks' hearts, trotters, pigs' tails and bone marrow, with squirrel appearing in season. The restaurant won a following among chefs, food writers and other people in gastronomic circles, and it was awarded a Michelin star in 2012. It is a single London restaurant rather than a chain, and it is covered here as a business built on a distinctive culinary idea.