Pigfest at St John Restaurant, what an adventure.

When I signed up for “Pigfest” at St John Restaurant a few months ago, I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into but I knew a few things were certain: I would be enjoying a delicious meal in one of the best restaurants in London with a very large group of lady food bloggers .

Thanks to MiMi and her fabulous planning, the stage was set for 16 of us to meet for dinner on a Friday evening in January (um, hello, I’m supposed to be detoxing not eating an entire pig – but what’s one night?) to eat a lot of pork – in fact, the whole pig from “nose to tail.”

I arrived to a restaurant in Smithfield Market that can only be described, in the first instance, as white. Everything was white, clean, and perfect, yet the hustle and bustle of the bar downstairs made it seem a bit more down to earth. There were some familiar faces amongst the group and some new ones – and it was a pretty feisty bunch of female foodies.

The dinner began with two starters: roast marrow bone and parsley salad and whole crab with mayo (note, I do NOT eat mayo so I didn’t try it). Being a self-proclaimed seafood snob and having tried the best whole crabs Maryland has to offer, I can say the whole crab at St John was delicious. It was the kind of crab that doesn’t leave you searching for the meat. It was rich, sweet and absolutely divine.

The bone marrow was a first for me. As I was telling everyone it was my first time, I heard a remark “didn’t you always used to eat this as a child?!” No no, I am from America. As a child I ate chicken fingers.

For those of you who have not tried bone marrow, it is almost impossible to describe without freaking you out, but I will try. It’s a salty, meat-flavoured spread (ok, this texture is impossible to describe) – which we ate on wholegrain toast with parsley on top. It was very tasty and I was pleasantly surprised. I don’t think I’ll be craving it anytime soon but would definitely order this again.

As the starters cleared we enjoyed numerous glasses of French red wine and great conversation. I sat next to Camilla from Rude Health who is hysterical and Carly from GreedyDiva who just might be my new Bikram yoga partner.  Everyone tells me the pig took ages to come out, but I think I was having too much fun to notice.

The roast suckling pig was brought out in all its glory, only to be swiftly decapitated by the waiter and served with the most incredible caramelized onion stuffing. The pork was cooked very well – it was soft and full of flavour and the sweet taste of the stuffing was a great accoutrement – and there was enough to go round, and around and around.  I passed on all parts of the pig head, as the bone marrow was enough of the wild side for me in one evening.

In between the pig and dessert was more wine and unfortunately a few of our guests had to leave to catch a train. This was a incredibly irritating as we had booked a private table, pre-ordered and still, three hours later no dessert. Luckily, I live in London so I was able to enjoy round three.

Eccles cake and Lancashire cheese, spotted dick pudding and fresh-baked madeleines were on the menu. If I’m going to eat dessert, I prefer it to be smothered in chocolate but as this was a special evening I tried all three anyway. Eccles cakes with Lancashire Cheese: cheese is always a winner but the cakes were missing something… oh yes, chocolate. Spotted dick pudding : why do English people put dried fruit in so many desserts? I do have to give this dessert some credit though. Although it is not my cup of tea, it made for a few good, distasteful jokes around the dinner table amongst the women. The winning dessert: the madeleines were fluffy, sweet, warm and heavenly. A few more sips of red wine and the evening had come to a close.

The food was delicious and I will definitely be back to St John, the company was fantastic fun and although the service was incredibly slow, I have to give them some credit for also being quite cute… and, one week later we have heard from the general manager that St John has invited us all back for champagne and desserts on the house. How lovely and definitely the right move – I just hope next time there’s chocolate.

To see a great video of Tim Hayward from the Guardian and Fergus Henderson, the ‘master of nose to tail eating’ cooking a pig’s head at St John click here.

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