St John Bread and Wine
The bacon sandwich this room was famous for is not served here any more: since July 2026 it is a bacon bun at St John Neal's Yard in Covent Garden, from 9am to 11.45am (Time Out).
Why go
The menu is written each morning, and the group is unusually literal about it. Menus do not appear online until 11am for lunch and 5pm for supper, because until then they do not exist (St. JOHN). What lands on it is Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gulliver's cooking at canteen prices, in a stark white room across Commercial Street from Spitalfields Market, with a zinc counter by the till for standing and picking.
Harden's surveyors have been calling it a perennial favourite
and a more accessible entry point to the great St John cuisine
for years, and the dishes they keep naming are the ones to order: brown shrimp with capers and smoked eel, devilled kidneys, ox tongue and pigeon pie (Harden's). The group has a winery of its own at Blvd. Napoleon in the Languedoc.
Its own regulars disagree about it, which is worth knowing. One camp says "I now prefer B&W to the mothership, it's more lively and wears the nose-to-tail cloak a little more lightly." Another says it has "gone off the boil a little recently, still good, but it does seem to have slipped a little." Both lines are from the same survey.
Order this / avoid
- Order: devilled kidneys. Brown shrimp with capers and smoked eel. Ox tongue and pigeon pie if the day's menu has it. An Eccles cake with Lancashire cheese, which surveyors say two people should split, and madeleines after that if anything is left. Then read the wine list rather than skipping it.
- Avoid: turning up in the morning for the bacon sandwich, which is now a Covent Garden dish. Booking supper for 9.30pm, since that is the last seating rather than the last order. And check the corkage before carrying in a bottle: it runs from GBP 32 for a still bottle up to GBP 84 for a magnum of Champagne.
What locals & experts say
- Harden's survey, current edition:
A perennial favourite, this engagingly stark Spitalfields canteen provides a more accessible entry point to the great St John cuisine of Fergus Henderson, and always has something original to tempt you on its classic menu of simple punchy British dishes twinned with interesting wines.
Its Top Menu Tips:tasty brown shrimp with capers and smoked eel; devilled kidneys (always superb)
andox tongue and pigeon pie
, withEccles cakes are probably best shared although they are the best you'll ever eat
.2 - The dissent, from the same survey:
one or two long-term regulars do feel it's gone off the boil a little recently, still good, but it does seem to have slipped a little; perhaps just a blip?
2 - And the opposite view, also from the survey:
I now prefer B&W to the mothership, it's more lively and wears the nose-to-tail cloak a little more lightly.
On the room:the room may be clinical
butits basic style is attractive
.2 - Leonie Cooper, Time Out, 7 July 2026, on where the sandwich went:
Until the pandemic, St John Bread + Wine was known for its heroic buttie, which briefly returned in take-away form in 2021. However, you can now sit down and enjoy the bacon bap from 9am until 11.45am daily at the cosy Covent Garden location.
3 - For the record, St. John's own description of that sandwich when it came back here in 2021:
The excessively generous buttering. The hint of singe from a hot grill, both on rare-breed rashers and soft white bread. The bounce and pull from the house-made loaf, the sharpness and sweetness of our beloved ketchup.
4
Good to know
- Where: 94-96 Commercial Street E1 6LZ, opposite Spitalfields Market. Liverpool Street or Shoreditch High Street.
- Timing: lunch noon to 3pm daily, last seating. A bar menu runs 3pm to 5pm. Supper 5.30pm to 9.30pm Monday to Friday and 6pm to 9.30pm at weekends, again last seating. No breakfast.
- The menu: rewritten daily and not published online until 11am for lunch, 5pm for supper.
- Booking: take one. The zinc counter by the till is the walk-in route for snacks and a glass.
- Bringing wine: corkage is GBP 32 a bottle, GBP 42 for sparkling or dessert wine, GBP 64 for a magnum of wine and GBP 84 for a magnum of Champagne. Cakeage is GBP 5 a head.
- Service: 12.5 percent discretionary, which the group states goes in full to the team and will be removed on request.
- Hygiene: FSA rating 5, Tower Hamlets, inspected 13 February 2025, FHRSID 79317, with five points lost on each of the three components, which is the ordinary shape of a clean five.5
- Sites: eight, and only two are curated here. Smithfield at 26 St John Street holds one MICHELIN star and is a separate entry. The others are Marylebone, the Neal's Yard wine bar, the Bakery Arch on Druid Street, Borough Corner, a counter in the London Review Bookshop, and a winery in La Liviniere, France. Anything written about Smithfield is about Smithfield.
- Web address: the group's live page for this room is /a/restaurants/bread-and-wine. The obvious /pages/bread-and-wine is a 404.
Verdict
should-visit — Worth the detour, and go for lunch rather than breakfast. The menu here is rewritten every morning, and the venue gives away how literally it means that: menus do not go online until 11am for lunch and 5pm for supper, because they are not written before then. Harden's surveyors call it 'a more accessible entry point to the great St John cuisine of Fergus Henderson' and point at devilled kidneys, brown shrimp with capers and smoked eel, ox tongue and pigeon pie, and Eccles cakes that are 'probably best shared although they are the best you'll ever eat'. The wine list runs to bottles you will not recognise, which is the group that owns a winery in the Languedoc doing what you would expect. Some of its own regulars now prefer it to the Smithfield original for being 'more lively' and wearing the nose-to-tail cloak more lightly; a minority think it has 'gone off the boil'. Both are in the survey and both belong here. One correction before you go: the bacon sandwich this room was famous for is not served here any more. Since July 2026 it is a bacon bun at St John Neal's Yard in Covent Garden, mornings only.