It was an offer not to be missed, and when London’s Michelin-starred restaurant St. John offered diners the chance to enjoy famous dishes like roasted bone marrow and apricots on toast for a fraction of the usual price, they literally bit their arm off.
The celebrated restaurant, founded by Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gulliver, sparked a stampede on Thursday when it took bookings for its 30th anniversary celebrations, promising to recreate the 1994 menus but – crucially – selling popular dishes such as crispy fried pig’s tail and eel, bacon and mash at the original prices.
Tables for next month’s “1994 Menu” sold out within minutes of reservations being posted on OpenTable’s booking site Thursday morning.
The lucky few who managed to get a table can enjoy the famous roasted bone marrow and parsley salad for £4.20, down from £16 as it will be in 2024. Apricots on toast, another favourite, will cost £3.70, down from the current going rate of just over a tenner.
Opened in 1994 on the site of an old smokehouse in Smithfield Market, St John is now considered one of the most influential restaurants in the world. Announcing the special reduced-price menu, the founders said: “A good age deserves a good lunch and a good party.”
In a statement posted on Instagram, the founders said: “We simply do things the way we think they should be done and cook what we want to eat. We’ve been lucky that many of our friends and customers want to eat the same way.”
“Those who were with us in the early weeks will remember delights such as apricots on toast for £4 or grilled lamb tongue, broad beans and carrots for £8.80 and remember when our roasted bone marrow and parsley salad was £4.20.
“You may remember the outraged article in The Sun newspaper which said boiled eggs and carrots were just that and were on sale for £2.50. All that, minus the outrage, will be yours again,” they added.
As usual, the menu will change twice a day during the event, but guests can expect “both beloved classics and delights from the archive, in the form and price in which they first appeared to such amazement and acclaim in 1994.” However, while the food prices are retro-style, the offer does not apply to drinks and wine, which will be sold at current prices.
