St. John Marylebone.

St. John Marylebone

The same diners' survey scores the food four out of five and the atmosphere two, and then tells you where to sit: it's fabulous for a stolen hour sat at the bar (Harden's).

Why go

This was Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gulliver's first new room in seven years, and they built it around a bar rather than a dining room. Gulliver told Time Out it was inspired by the bars of Paris and Florence (Time Out). The service times show the same intent: coffee and a light breakfast from 9am, lunch to 2.45pm, then a bar menu every single day from 3pm to 5.30pm, then dinner. The morning starts with the group's doughnuts, granola and poached fruit, served with champagne.

The menu is written each day and the group is literal about it. Nothing goes online until 11.30am for lunch and 5.30pm for supper, because until then it does not exist (St. JOHN). Lunch runs off a daily blackboard of small plates. Dinner has no fixed formula.

The cooking has climbed. Surveyors scored the food three out of five in the 2024 edition and four out of five now, and the dishes they name are deep-fried rarebit, crispy pig cheek, sea bream, lemon posset and the Eccles cake with Lancashire cheese. What has not climbed is the room, which scores two out of five for atmosphere.

Order this / avoid

• Order: doughnuts and a glass of champagne if you get here at nine. Deep-fried rarebit, which even the survey's harshest reviewer called fantastic. Smoked mackerel at the bar. Crispy pig cheek. An Eccles cake with Lancashire cheese at the end. Otherwise read the blackboard, because it was written this morning.
• Avoid: booking the dining room for the room itself. Turning up for lunch expecting to have read the menu first. And check the corkage before carrying a bottle in, since it runs from GBP 32 for a still bottle to GBP 84 for a magnum of Champagne.

What locals & experts say

• Harden's diner survey, current edition, food 4 of 5 and ambience 2 of 5: A mini-outpost of the mothership. This three-year-old shares Fergus Henderson's visionary spartan aesthetic, friendly-hipster service and idiosyncratic menu with the legendary original. Simple in execution, complex in conception. It's fabulous for a stolen hour sat at the bar eating rarebit and smoked mackerel, cut back and delicious in that St John way.2
• The dissent, from the same survey: For some, though, the stark interior goes too far: if only the place didn't possess the atmosphere of a cramped transport caff! An earlier edition found it cold or dreary, and recorded the view that as yet, it's not as good as in Smithfield or Spitalfields.2
• A diner who was split down the middle: the deep-fried rarebit was fantastic, crisp but not oily, with a good strong cheese and mustard flavour, and then a main course of braised venison and beetroot was however disgusting.2
• No industry vote for this address, and it is worth saying loudly. Our chef-vote file holds eight picks and one pan across this group. Tim Siadatan, Tom Brown, Nancy Silverton, Richard Turner, Lee Tiernan and Fadi Kattan all name the Smithfield original. Connor Gibson and Z He name Bread and Wine. Richard Foster of Ibai pans Smithfield. Nobody has named Marylebone, and a pick of one St. John is not a pick of another.

Good to know

• Where: 98 Marylebone Lane W1U 2QA, on two floors. Bond Street or Baker Street. Harden's prints the postcode as W1U 2JE, which disagrees with the venue and the food-hygiene register.
• Timing: coffee and light breakfast 9am to 12pm, lunch 12pm to 2.45pm, bar menu 3pm to 5.30pm every day, dinner 6pm to 9.45pm.
• The bar menu window between 3pm and 5.30pm is the cheap and unbooked way into this kitchen.
• The menu: rewritten daily, published at 11.30am for lunch and 5.30pm for supper.
• Booking: take one for a table. The bar is where an hour turns up unplanned.
• 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, stated as going in full to the team and removable on request.
• Breakfast, and the sandwich question: the famous bacon sandwich is not here and never was. Since July 2026 it is a bacon bun at St John Neal's Yard in Covent Garden, mornings only. This room does coffee, a light breakfast, and doughnuts.
• Hygiene: FSA rating 5, Westminster, inspected 9 June 2026, FHRSID 1553348, components 5/5/5.4
• Sites: eight in the group, three curated here. Smithfield at 26 St John Street holds one MICHELIN star and is its own entry; Bread and Wine in Spitalfields is another. The rest are 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.

Verdict

should-visit — Worth the detour, and sit at the bar. St. John's Marylebone room runs a bar menu every day from 3pm to 5.30pm, opens at nine with doughnuts and champagne, and Trevor Gulliver told Time Out the whole thing is 'inspired by the bars of Paris and Florence'. That is the format Jeff's exemplar test is actually about, and the diners' survey confirms where the value sits: 'it's fabulous for a stolen hour sat at the bar eating rarebit and smoked mackerel, cut back and delicious in that St John way'. Food scores four out of five in the current survey, up from three two years ago. The dining room is a different question. Atmosphere scores two out of five, one surveyor complains of 'the atmosphere of a cramped transport caff', and the recorded view for two editions running is that it is not as good as Smithfield. Order the deep-fried rarebit, the crispy pig cheek and an Eccles cake with Lancashire, and know that the menu for each service is not written until the morning of it. Held off the top rung because not one of the eight industry picks this group has collected in our vote file is for this address.