The Divine Marrow of St. John
God, offal, & England
By Jess Daly1
St. John is not a man, but a restaurant. And as a restaurant, it is something of a cult. Beloved by me, all of culinary Britain, and Anthony Bourdain (a good group, yes?) St. John was founded by chef Fergus Henderson and his business partner slash go-to-wine-guy, Trevor Gulliver. And ever since, it has inspired something akin to ecstatic devotion. Foodie Brits feel a certain filiality to Fergus, whom they credit with single-handedly delivering England, a land of beige battered fish, and drab beans on toast—from a cliff of culinary irrelevance, into its own vibrant, and innovative gastronomical era. And this is kind of a big deal! Viewed for so long as the country-shaped punch line of a joke about poor dining, you can imagine the Rachael Leigh Cook makeover effect this transformation, and redemption has had on the British psyche.
St. John was first canonized in 1994, when Fergus and Trevor took over a derelict bacon smokehouse near Smithfield Meat Market and began building what would become a quietly radical empire: two additional restaurants, three bakeries, a winery, and a legacy. The restaurant is famous for what the founders dub ‘Nose to Tail Dining’ —meaning you use the entire animal. And they mean the entire thing. If you’re willing to take the plunge and immerse yourself in expertly cooked animal dishes, e.g. ox heart, pig trotters (feet), and when seasonally available —squirrel—this is the very best place. That said, while it may be mint condition phrasing, obviously ‘Nose To Tail Dining’ is not a new idea—and that’s the point.
St. John’s offal (which means organ meat) cooking is a reinvigoration of the historical traditions of England’s peasant past—where the ‘best’ cuts of an animal would get shipped off to the manor house, and everyone else was left to consume, prepare, and endeavor to enjoy what remained. Unsurprisingly, for centuries, people found skillful ways to do just that. However, seen as low-class, this deeply rooted culinary heritage was all but expunged from the British table in the latter part of the 20th century, until Fergus brought it back into focus not only in England, but also influencing trends and menus worldwide. Restaurants like Noma reference St. John as a significant culinary inspiration. And if you’ve ever seen marrow on a menu in your lifetime, you have Fergus to thank.2
While St. John attracts a good amount of attention for championing weird animal stuff, Nose To Tail Dining is actually just a subsection of their broader gospel, and nestles cozily underneath ‘Very British Food.’ As a restaurant, they stand for traditional English cuisine, illuminated in its most simplistic integrity, prepared well, and served (often literally, but also metaphorically) ungarnished. As for the menu, St. John is perhaps the best known for their bone marrow—an offering that elegantly embodies this ethos—and which Anthony Bourdain famously declared as his preferred death row meal.3 I had to work a bit to get my hands on this coveted dish, but it was worth it.
On my first visit to St. John in the spring of 2024, I was being ushered to my table when someone struck the words bone marrow from the restaurant’s famous chalkboard menu—right before my eyes. And while I was able to joyfully check several Brit food curiosities off my to-try list that day, I left feeling irked by my timing, now newly aware of the finite nature of St. John’s marrow supply.
Almost a year later, and fresh off a five-hour train ride from Scotland to England, I found myself once again ambling toward the doors of St. John, hoping I might be anointed. I ordered gamey mauve colored liver on toast, with bourbon-soaked prunes, and acidic little gherkin pickles—a dish, strange, and simple, and absolutely transcendent (plus ginger loaf for pudding) but once again my marrow card was completely declined.4 The waitress suggested I try the St. John Smithfield location instead, which, by the way she described it, made it sound like they possessed Infinity bones and would never run out.
On this third visit, at Smithfield, I successfully said to my server, “I’ll have the bone marrow, please,” feeling like I was invoking some sort of occult door code or volunteering to operate a vaguely illegal vehicle I didn’t have a license for. Fifteen minutes later, bone marrow arrived at my table.
In 2025, bone marrow at St. John is served in precisely the same way it has been since 1994. After sitting meditatively and watching people mull about while creating a pleasant sound-bath of fork clinking noises for about fifteen minutes, eventually a server arrives and presents you with three vertical bones, arranged like palladian columns on a very simple looking white plate. The bones are flattened on the top and bottom. And on the remaining dish real estate sits the following: a yeasty slice of house-made sourdough, a knoll of parsley salad (Fergus describes the preparation method for this salad as: "Chop the parsley just enough to discipline it") and finally, a generous mound of large-grain salt. You are also kitted out with a lobster pick, which you’re instructed to wield like a pipe cleaner to loosen and extract the marrow from inside the bone, and once achieved, construct an open-faced sandwich—toast, marrow, parsley, salt—exactly in that order.
Bone marrow looks a bit primal— in that apex predator killing a hyena on the flatlands kind of way. But additionally, in a way that feels somewhat more abstract to pin down, it also looks illicit. How does a human get to the marrow of a bone? Well, I guess contemporary [saw] technology, and the culmination of a lot of turbo-dominant evolutionary effort. While a small set of animals (including vultures) have been known to crack bones with their teeth and extract the marrow, we humans were probably never intended to. And so there lingers a subtle feeling that in doing this, in witnessing it, in having it placed before us, we have crossed some invisible threshold. We are beyond the pale of nature. We were never meant to be here.
It feels somewhat earned then that bone marrow is a taste that makes you think “God.” It is a bit like butter perhaps—greasy, ochre-hued. But it is like butter only in the way that watching a YouTube video of skydiving is like doing an actual freefall—the thing about it that is the most charged is all but muted in the translation. And if it is like butter, it is blessed, holy butter. Its texture is velvety and unctuous, and it melts over your palate with a feeling like your taste buds are haloed in warm, golden hour backlight. It tastes like pressing yourself down into the center of a memory foam bed. Like a long, low cello note. Silky, slightly umami, sweetly nutty, lustrous, opulent.
Beyond the joy inherent for me in experiencing IRL versions of foods that sound almost satirically British—Eton Mess, Sticky Toffee Pudding, Welsh Rarebit (no one would ever be corrected for calling me an Anglophile)—what I love most about St. John is the possibility of the trust-fall offered within. There is a safe, and also completely bonkers feeling at the heart of the restaurant’s exquisitely executed dining experience that makes me believe that if, or more affirmingly put, when, I work up the courage to jump—to explore, to push the bounds of my culinary comfort zone—I’ll land on soft ground. And this is because everything about St. John evokes such precision, intention, and care. Additionally, just walking into the St. John dining room is a summons to adventure. When nearly every item on a menu is a wild-sounding piece of offal, there are few ways to ignore the gentle nudge towards experiential bravery.
After three visits—plus a marrow rite of passage that I think, honestly, qualifies as spiritual—I trust this place. I trust the leap. And next time, whether it’s trotters (feet), sweetbreads (thymus gland!), or something stranger, I’ll be ready.
As Shakespeare perhaps put it best (and okay, I’ve taken some small liberties in the paraphrase): To marrow, and to marrow, and to marrow!
Name drops: St. John
A special thank you to this week’s illustrator, ICSD5. You can see more of his work here.
Read Jess’s first Gullet story, Blood, Oats & Irish Rome
Jess Daly is an art director & creative multi-hyphenate. Her Roman Empire is imagining what time travelers would think of the NYC subway.
Most writing and reporting published about St. John and Fergus Henderson refer to Fergus by his first name—a detail I’ve tenderly echoed throughout most of this piece, and feel speaks to a cozy sort of “We’ll claim him, he’s ours” attitude, as well as to a fascinating work-a-day, loosened-tie-humility space St. John seems to occupy while simultaneously existing as a pretty fancy fine dining establishment.
Pudding is a word that in Brit technically means boiled dessert, but in reality, it refers to any sweet you consume that follows your meal. Inversely, I have no idea what they call our version of pudding, i.e., Jello brand chocolate lunchbox cups—probably ‘disgusting’.
ICSD (Mihai Tigleanu) is an illustrator from Romania. His background revolves around advertising and product design, but his passion lies deep in editorial art.
He has a knack for storytelling and chases 'Whoa!' moments as he sketches—even if he’s the only one who gets them. More often than not, he comes up with ideas for a new series of works, so there's a special drawer for those, right above “Clichés I'm not gonna use.” He usually works with brands, NGOs, and publications while listening to history podcasts.