St. John

St. JOHN is the most influential British restaurant of the last thirty years, and it does not look like it. Fergus Henderson, Trevor Gulliver and Jon Spiteri opened it in October 1994 in a former bacon smokehouse by Smithfield market, painted the whole thing white, and left it at that. No decoration, no soft furnishings, no music.

What came out of that room changed British cooking. Henderson’s nose to tail approach, serving the cuts that had quietly disappeared from restaurant menus, was not nostalgia so much as an argument: that if you are going to kill an animal you should use it properly, and that the unfashionable parts are frequently the best eating. His book, Nose to Tail Eating, did the rest, and you can trace its influence through kitchens on several continents.

The roast bone marrow with parsley salad is the dish. It has been on the menu since the beginning, it costs very little, and it is one of the few plates in London that genuinely deserves the word iconic. Order it, and order the Eccles cake with Lancashire cheese at the end.

The founders stepped back from the business after thirty-one years. The kitchen has not changed course.

Our verdict: the most important restaurant in modern British cooking, and still one of the best-value serious lunches in the city. Start with the bone marrow.

Go if: you care where British food came from. Skip if: offal is genuinely not for you, though the menu is broader than its reputation.

Lunch is easier to book than dinner. St John Street, Smithfield.