John: "So, where are you guys from?"
Us: "Australia, but we're living in London at the moment."
"Oh yeah? Whereabouts?"
"North London, Highbury."
"Ever been to a pub in Archway called St Johns?"
"No, we've been to St Johns in Clerkenwell? Archway is on our number 4 bus route though."
"My brother is the owner (chef? Little hazy on the details), its really good."
"Cool, we'll have to go one day."
[Everyone returns to staring out the windows at the endless sand dunes broken up by a few rocks and camels]
Fast forward six months and we're standing out the front of The Olive Tree, a Greek restaurant just around the corner from us. They've apparently just won Best Family Restaurant in the Islington Gazette Restaurant Awards and the window is covered in promotional blurb about the awards. So later at home, we try to find more information about it on the Gazette's web site, but no luck. We did, however, come across a review for the Lord Palmerston Pub in Archway (still not there, but soon, I promise), which sounded good, but looked a bit dodgy in the photos. Further googling of this pub brought up a reference to another pub also in Archway. Yes, we've made it - St John's. Distant alarm bells rang back to that conversation in the desert and we decided to give it a go. I did say it was convoluted.
We reserved a table for a Saturday night and were told we had a two-hour time limit. I can understand for the restaurant why they do it, but I do find time limits annoying. Eating out is supposed to be a relaxing and enjoyable experience, not a clock-watching one. That's work.
Anyway, we arrived a bit early to have a drink in the bar. The pub was absolutely nothing special from the outside, but on the inside was strongly reminiscent of other London gastropubs we've been to, such as The Eagle in Farringdon and The Westbourne near Notting Hill. There seems to be some gastropub rule where the furniture has to be as plain, rustic and as mis-matched as possible.
We started with a pint of Pride for Kyle and a glass of Cava for me and then decided to sample one of those strange British culinary creations - the Scotch Egg. I've been interested in trying one since reading the Dos Hermanos blog. This being my first Scotch Egg, I can't really say whether it was a good example or not, but it is certainly bizarre. A hard-boiled egg, wrapped in sausage meat, coated in breadcrumbs and deep-fried. The strangest part is that it is served cold, so it is really quite stodgy and heavy. None of the ingredients screamed flavour so the accompanying salt and pepper and mustard took over. Not the greatest thing I've ever eaten, but it certainly looked interesting!
After this not so light appetizer, we moved into the restaurant proper, which was a much fancier, high-ceilinged room decorated with a clutter of drawings and paintings (unfortunately it was also a lot darker, so the photos are pretty bad from here on in). We were immediately presented with some delicious chewy bread, unfortunately let down by another one of my restaurant pet hates, unsalted butter. I mean, what's the point? It tastes like nothing. Luckily that lovely salt came in handy again.The wine list was quite extensive with a strong leaning towards French and Spanish wines. About 8 whites and reds were available by the small glass (125ml), 1/2L carafe or full bottle as well as another 15 or so just by the bottle. We ordered a bottle of Guelbenzo, a Spanish wine comprised of about seven grape varieties, including syrah, tempranillo, cabernet sauvignon and a few others I hadn't heard of. It was surprisingly light in taste considering the dark colour, but had a wonderful dry finish from lots of tannins.
We had seen the menu already in the bar, which was quite good, as in the restaurant they only had it on a blackboard, that was quite hard to read. It was a daily menu, which always seems a good sign to me, that you will have fresh seasonal ingredients. This was supported by another blackboard listing the provenence of a number of ingredients. There was a surprisingly heavy weighting towards fish (4 out of 9 mains) and as we had been eating more fish pie than we care to mention all weekend, neither of us were that keen to go fishy again.
I decided to try the Cheddar, pea and wild garlic tart to start. I have been reading a lot about wild garlic at the moment - apparently you can find it growing anywhere all over England, but perhaps not in North London. My little fruit and vegie store also doesn't stock it, so I was keen to give it a go. The pastry of the tart was excellent - buttery and crumbly. The filling was also good with only a very mild taste of garlic and lovely texture from the burst of baby peas (frozen, I assume?).
Kyle's starter was scallops with black pudding and asparagus veloute. The scallops were quite small, but did come with the roe on, which Kyle enjoyed. The scallop/black pudding thing seems to be quite a fashionable Masterchef combination but did work well.
As an Australian eating in London, one of the things I don't have very often here is steak. It is generally very expensive and without a barbecue as home, I rarely cook it either. So when I saw a good old Rib Eye and chips on the menu, it seemed like a good option. I asked for the steak medium-rare and it was beautifully cooked with a lovely charred flavour (Oh, I do miss barbecue). Unfortunately, there was quite a lot of fat that hadn't quite rendered out, so it was a little stringy in places, but otherwise tender and delicious. The chips were big and fat, perfectly crunchy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. The steak was served with a traditional bearnase sauce, which was quite mild (the charred steak flavour overpowered the sauce) and a woefully inadequate amount.
Kyle's main was a pork chop served with chorizo, beans and kale. The beans and kale in the slightly sweet sauce were delicious, but the chorizo was quite tough and the pork chop, while well-cooked and tender, was somewhat drowned out by the other strong flavours in the dish.
The dessert menu included quite traditional British desserts, such as Bakewell tart, cheesecake and chocolate fondant. There was also a selection of six British and French cheeses at 2.50 pounds each, which I thought was a great idea for serving cheeses. From this list, Kyle chose a Reblochon Fermier, a soft mould ripened cow's milk cheese, and a Saint Maure de Touraine, a medium soft goat's cheese. The cheeses were served with crackers, chutney (which completely didn't go with these two cheeses) and oddly, half an apple and half a pear, just like that. The goat's cheese was the star - rich and creamy with a distinctive but not over-powering goat's cheese flavour.
I opted for the Chocolate Pot with Coffee Cream, which arrived looking like a cafe latte. It was the perfect end to the meal - intense, smooth chocolate, just the right side of rich that it didn't overwhelm.We had such a lovely night at St John's. The food was proper gastropub, very traditional but with lovely seasonal fresh ingredients. The service was excellent all night and the atmosphere was great. They didn't end up kicking us out after two hours, which was good, but the restaurant was really busy the whole time - every table was full and a number did turn over twice. Good to see in these credit crunch times. Overall, top place, would definitely come back.
Food: 9/10
Wine: 8/10
Service: 9/10
Ambiance: 9/10
Overall: 9/10
St John's
91 Junction Road
London N19 5QU
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