An open letter to St. John Bread and Wine
There aren’t many subjects in the world I feel confident enough to speak on, but breakfast is certainly one of them. I have had many breakfasts; I’d guess at least one a day for about the last 28 years, so I think I can be considered a credible source when I say that it should not take 45 minutes to make a bacon sandwich.
I was actually fortunate, in that I only had to wait 30 minutes for mine, but that was only because you gave me somebody else’s by mistake. Five minutes afterwards, a waitress came along to give my breakfasting companion an empty plate, and we were instructed to share sandwich number one as there would be a further delay for sandwich number two, which arrived 15 minutes later.
I just struggle to imagine under what circumstances a restaurant with about as many staff as there were customers can result in a simple bacon sarnie taking three quarters of an hour to arrive. If you’d run out of bread, or run out of bacon, then fair enough, but seeing as you’re directly opposite London’s Famous Spitalfields Market I can’t imagine it would have been much of an effort to just go and buy some more. It’s not like you have to hand-rear a fresh pig, is it?
Nor can I imagine that it was because the customers were ordering a dizzying array of confusing food, seeing as your breakfast menu is so charmingly limited to, well, bacon sandwiches. Yes, I see other options on the menu such as toast, and porridge, but they don’t count. Nobody goes out for toast.
Furthermore, what’s with the whole ‘breakfast is only served from 10am to 11am on weekends’, followed by a special, one-hour ‘elevenses’ window where customers can come in to buy an Eccles cake? For most people, breakfast on the weekend is elevenses. How many people do you turn away each weekend between 11am and 12noon because all you’re willing to serve is an Eccles cake? Don’t get me wrong — I like a nice Eccles cake as much as the next man, but not enough to give it its own dedicated happy hour.
In fairness, though, the bacon sandwich was fantastic, so I’ll probably be seeing you all again soon. Perhaps next time I should phone ahead though, just to be sure.
They really have an hour when all you can buy is an eccles cake? Do they get much business in that hour, or is that their hour for recovering from the previous hour’s bacon sandwich rush?
Eccle’s cakes aren’t even from London, so why did they decide that would be a big seller? No doubt we’ll be seeing their failing business on Gordon Ramsay’s “Your restaurant is total crap, but I’m here now” TV show.
from their website:
“…with a menu structured toward sharing plates amongst guests, dishes being served at puncuated moments through the day…”
Clearly if you’d arrived 40 minutes later you’d only have had to wait 5 minutes (I’m guessing they mean punctuated rather than puncuated).
Also, if you are eating alone, do you have to share your food with people you don’t know?
It was less of an Eccles cake hour and more of an hour of turning away people who were lusting after our bacon sandwiches. They were literally staring at them!
I’ll be going back too.
I like St John a lot, but an instruction to stagger eating of the two sandwiches is absolutely ludicrous. I guess the delay was due to baking the bread (they do this on-site, I think) but even then it’s a bit, well, inept.