OUR EXPERIENCES
'Tastes we have yet to acquire are only strangers we’ve yet to befriend.'
There’s an ingenuity to new flavours. They shake loose the familiar, the secure, the predictable and leave you raw, curious and pining for more. Our experiences aren’t just dinners. They are chapters in a tale written with passion, spice and the kind of nostalgia you’ll savour long after the plates are cleared.
Chapter I: Volume II - Je Ne Sais Quoi
‘There he goes. One of God's own prototypes, a high-powered mutant of some kind never considered for mass production.’ — Hunter S. Thompson
Before Britain had a culinary ladder, before the notion was anything other than a precipitous mischief, there were foundations, pioneers, dreamers. And dreamers need only a cradle.
Above a bawdy Soho boozer, the dining room of the French House rocks assuredly. Charles De Gaulle may have written his best speech here, but its kitchen was established by the revolutionary Fergus Henderson—Supper Club’s first crush.
Some of the meat was obscure and faintly illicit, but that was the crowd. Gourmands and creatives alike. They shared a purpose. They would define something. They didn’t yet know what.
Generations later, there’s another maverick chef at the helm—polyglot, raconteur and Smart grandee Neil Borthwick is adding his own verse to the French canon with such fluent obscenity that one wonders how the neighbourhood got by without him.
Indeed, there’s a certain . . . panache to these characters. Or it could be the cradle. Hard to say. But the cats will be heading home when we occupy it for our inaugural supper on the 10th of March.
Chapter 7: The Feast of Freetown
“I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living.” — Anais Nin.
There are the things we do, and the things we cannot do without.
Chapter 6: The Professor’s Table Manners
“I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone.” – Rainer Maria Rilke
A gourmand’s nature is at once both greedy and generous.
Born sensualists, they are hell-bent on painting with every colour from the start. They want what they want, the very best, and if that means shlepping halfway across the world in search of the decisive curry of their lives, then so be it—the prize is theirs alone.
Chapter 5: Of Mackerels and Miscreants
'In wildness is the preservation of the world' - Henry David Thoreau
Only the curious notice themselves in the water. Enchanted by its secret rhythm, those souls with whom mystery chimes loudest peer in closer, further, deeper. It is no wonder they have always been drawn to the sea.
Chapter 4: The Lovers of Old Blondes'
“Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time.” — Voltaire
The truth is, we are unoriginal.
Chapter 3: Off One’s Own Bat
“And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.” — T.S. Elliot
Desire is a funny thing—stray too deeply, and it’s possible to forget one’s very self.
Chapter 2: Through Saffron Dusted Glasses
“There is a world elsewhere.” — William Shakespeare
Serendipity is, it turns out, derived from Serendib—the name the ancient Persians gave to Sri Lanka. October, 2024
Chapter 1: The Baptist and the Beast
“Trends are a tragedy in food – they condemn the sublime to the realm of the temporary, or they elevate the flimsy beyond its merit. Good things should be a constant, and cooked with conviction. When we first opened St. JOHN we were accused of being 200 years out of date. I took it as a great compliment.” - Fergus Henderson
Offal is perhaps in want of a fetching innuendo —a fig leaf for the sweetbreads, if you will . . .