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Lee Tiernan and Tim Siadatan: London Food Month at St John will be the night of our lives

Prodigal sons: Lee Tiernan, left, and Tim Siadatan, who are returning to St John, where they trained, for two special food events: Daniel Hambury/Stella Pictures
Prodigal sons: Lee Tiernan, left, and Tim Siadatan, who are returning to St John, where they trained, for two special food events: Daniel Hambury/Stella Pictures

A trip down memory lane isn’t usually a shared experience but chefs Lee Tiernan and Tim Siadatan end up at the same front door, on the same Farringdon street, beneath the roller shutters of restaurant St John, time and time again. This is where they both cut their teeth, before going on take their own distinctive bite of the London food scene.

Siadatan, 33, now runs both Highbury Italian restaurant Trullo (around since 2010, and he lives around the corner) and Borough Market’s rave-reviewed Padella (opened last year and still with a perma-queue for tables) with his business partner Jordan Frieda, while Tiernan, 40, founded the Turkish restaurant Black Axe Mangal with his wife Kate in 2015 (also in Highbury although they live in Leyton) which the Standard’s Fay Maschler called “a phenomenon” with its heavy metal soundtrack and “dishes sent out in precisely the right rhythm — gastronomically erudite and devoted to enthralling whirligigs of flavour and seasoning”.

But, for London Food Month in June, they are making a homecoming, with two “one-night only” collaborations with St John. Siadatan’s, as a working title, is called San Giovanni: Trullo at St John, while Tiernan is playing with the idea of The St John Mangle.

Both have fond memories of the place. “The moment you open the double doors you get hit by the same smell, that mixture of pastry and beef dripping,” says Siadatan, one of the original recruits to Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen project, who graduated from there to both Moro and St John, where he spent a year and a half from 2003. “It’s a similar nostalgia to when I walk back into my mum’s house — it’s like coming home.”

Tiernan, who spent 10-and-a-half years at the restaurant, admits getting “giddy” at the thought of coming here today. “It’s where I made my bones, as some people say. I’m hoping to make it the night of my life.”

Over lunch, where we are joined by the redoubtable, avuncular St John proprietors Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gulliver, the four are still thrashing out the details over lamb’s brain on toast with green sauce, langoustines with mayonnaise and a 1626 Triumbach Pinot Noir. Siadatan, freshly back from skiing, in a gilet and checked shirt, is “still throwing ideas around”, but promises “ a merger of Trullo’s Italian food paired with old-school British”. Expect plenty of “sexy pasta” then, from butter-yellow ribbons of papperdelle to cannellini bean creations.

​Tiernan, in a camo-patterned cap and jacket, tattoo sleeves peeking out beneath his cuffs, is more effusive. Black Axe Mangal features swirly, spray-painted penises on the floors, and bright, heraldic skateboards on the walls. Will he be redecorating at the whitewashed St John? “It depends what I can get away with. I don’t think I can get away with spray painting penises on the walls, although I’d like to...”

He checks himself as if carried away. “I play music really effing loud in my restaurant. Here, they never play music. But most nights when this place is in full swing you don’t want to hear music because the murmur of people’s conversation is the best noise in the world.”

“It’s where I made my bones, as some people say. I’m hoping to make it the night of my life”

Lee Tiernan on his London Food Month night at St John

The memories swing back and forth, from the night Banksy spray-painted a rat with a stereo on its head on a St John wall at a party (Gulliver painted over it, Tiernan’s still upset), to the morning Henderson cooked white truffle pasta for the staff. “That’s true,” says Henderson. “I eat a lot of truffle, and there was enough left for the staff to eat. So I gave it to them for breakfast.”

Siadatan has his first cookbook out in July, to which Henderson has written the foreword. “It’s a beautiful bit of literature, the best bit of the book”, says Siadatan. The 120 recipes represent the “humdingers that the customers have told us they’ve enjoyed over the years,” says Siadatan, including lamb’s brain ravioli. Will the everyman be able to cope with cooking offal at home? “It’s not a difficult ingredient if you know how to use it,” says Siadatan. “Historically, It was a regal feast.”

Bond forged in fire: from left to right, Tim Siadatan, Fergus Henderson and Lee Tiernan (Daniel Hambury/Stella Pictures)
Bond forged in fire: from left to right, Tim Siadatan, Fergus Henderson and Lee Tiernan (Daniel Hambury/Stella Pictures)

Tiernan says we have the St John legacy (it’s been around for 24 years) to thank for our reacquired tastes. “It woke people up. I’ve quoted Fergus a million times: if you’re going to eat the animal it’s only polite to eat the whole thing. That resonated with thousands of chefs across the world.”

Siadatan reveals that he “dined out” on his St John association in New York — although back in the UK he prefers to eat at Tiernan’s, which is around the corner from his, and does “the most under-rated brunch in London”, featuring pig’s cheek, hash browns and fried eggs, served as a stack on a plate.

“We taught them to stick to their guns and enjoy what they do,” says Gulliver. “We don’t do fish and chips or chicken in a basket.”

Tiernan, in particular, took this to heart, the first menu he did was traditional Turkish, but he ripped it up after a night and rejigged it, with home-made sauerkraut, sliced brisket and tongue and squid ink bread now part of an ever-changing menu. “I was trying too hard to please everyone because I had too little confidence in what I wanted to do,” he says. “I’m petrified of being mediocre. I’d rather piss 50 per cent of people off and please the other 50 per cent. They always say you’re only swimming in one direction, so don’t leave anything in the tank.” It’s full steam ahead, then, for London Food Month.

The events are on June 4 and 25 with tickets on sale from May 1, standard.co.uk/topic/london-food-month