Telephone: 020-7247 8724
Address: 94-96 Commercial Street, London E1
Rating: 16/20

Commercial Street in east London is not the first place you'd think of finding an eatery that draws a gaggle of trend eaters, discerning gourmets and sundry others. It does not have the immediate attractions of a leafy back lane in Kentish Town, say, or a river view in Vauxhall. It says much for the brand power of the great original St John, offal Mecca, foodie favourite and mini-gastrodome (and the only place, incidentally, you are likely to find squirrel on the menu - I can heartily recommend squirrel, even though it is a member of the rat family; it has a tender, delicate quality) that St John Bread & Wine can draw the gastro-pilgrims to this fume-filled, noise-clogged, russian-roulette-road-crossing racetrack.

The name St John Bread & Wine has a biblical ring to it, although, if memory serves me correctly, the saint's own menu of choice was made up of locusts and wild honey. There is nothing remotely biblical about the restaurant. It conforms to the white-walled chic canteen minimalism of the parent restaurant, complete with open kitchen, high-ceilinged dining area and waiters and waitresses in long, white aprons. That said, locusts and wild honey seemed to be just about the only two delicacies not on the menu, which offered gulls' eggs; fresh peas in their pods; cockles and lovage; snails, trotter and broad beans; grilled ox heart and horseradish; and Bath chap and pickled cabbage, to name but a few of the dishes chalked up on a board at the back.

The menu makes for an interesting concept, a kind of British tapas. It's an extension of the set-up that you can find at the bar of the parent restaurant. There are lots of little-ish dishes, and one or two large ones, such as the Bath chap, and plaice and green beans. Tina and I, and Boris, who joined us later, pretty much ran through the menu from top to bottom. We had the ox heart (well, you would, wouldn't you? Or, at least, I would) and the gulls' eggs; the snails, the cockles and the Bath chap. We also had grilled quail, roast tomato with goats' curd; chicory and anchovy salad; potted shrimps; a strawberry fool; and a chocolate brownie. And, while we're at it, we drank a couple of bottles of summery rosé, a glass of sherry and a brandy - although how the brandy made it on to the table, I can't for the life of me remember: I never drink spirits in the evening.

The cooking at St John has never gone in for frills. I won't say that the food is banged down on the plate and the plate is banged down in front of the customer, but artifice is at a minimum. What counts in a St John dish - and, by the same token, one at StJB&W - is taste, or taste and flavour. You are beaten around the tastebuds by them, although they need not be of a hefty, hectoring nature. Indeed, some of the dishes had a surprising delicacy. I know that ox heart in any form won't make it on to many people's plates, but let me make a plea: it is as mild-mannered as a dray horse, with a delectable firmness. It needed the horseradish to make it stop being bashful. The snails, trotter and broad bean dish may also come low down on the nation's popularity poll, but it was cheerful, chewy and amiable as you please. And give me sweet, fat cockles over bouncy clams any day; and what a pleasure to come across that idiosyncratic herb, lovage.

Then there was a summery tomato and creamy goats' curd, ever so slightly sour and grassy, a kind of British ricotta; and potted shrimps - very generous with the shrimps, the essential mace handled firmly; and the Bath chap - let's not forget the Bath chap. I won't. It's made from the cheek of a pig, and cured like a ham. At StJB&W, it is then sliced and fried. I'll be honest, here: a Bath chap is mostly fat, with nuggets of meat tucked away in corners. But the fat is the very best fat imaginable, rendered to a juicy crispness by the frying, and the meat is the very finest to be found on the pig, and all the richness was cut by the pickled cabbage, and so, all in all, it was very profoundly edible.

Profoundly edible: that seems to be the secret of food such as this. Its plainness is deceptive and appealing. You don't get tired of it. I would like to have gone on eating it for ever, but I was near bursting point. It was time to pay £118.05 and go - that's for 11 courses, two bottles of wine, plus sundry other drinks, or £40 or so a head. We could have eaten and drunk perfectly happily for half that. But we didn't. That was the trouble with StJB&W - we always wanted more.

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