Flunking out of college may have been the best career move I ever made. I would have had a hard time selling that theory to my mother at the time, and I certainly didn’t offer it as an option to my children. But it got me into the restaurant business.
I needed a job. I found something I loved, became obsessed, and have spent the past 46 years doing it. For 39 of those years, I have been an owner. In December, we’ll begin our 40th year in business, which is a fairly respectable track record for a guy whose original plan was to figure out a plan.
My travel business happened much the same way. In 2011, Jill and I took the kids to Europe for six months. They were the perfect ages for that trip, and we wanted to go while we could still have them to ourselves for that long.
When we returned, people began asking me to take them to Europe. For a while, I did it as a side gig. Today, Yonderlust Travel has team members in America and overseas, and I spend about four months a year hosting guests in places I once visited with my wife and children.
Typically, I host five trips in the spring and five in the fall. Three each season are in Tuscany, where this whole thing started. The other trips take us elsewhere in Europe, including Scandinavia and Puglia next spring.
I just finished hosting trips in Greece and to Rome and the Amalfi Coast. My usual schedule gives me one day between groups to catch up and restock the villa. By the next day, I am ready for the next arrivals.
Occasionally, an event at the Tuscan villa I rent leaves a week open in my schedule. That happened this past week. For the third time, I filled the gap by going to London.
Granted, I don’t expect much sympathy for having to spend a week in London.
London is my favorite city in Europe and my favorite world capital of any I have visited. People have asked why a food guy would choose London, usually mentioning the old reputation for terrible English food.
That hasn’t been my experience at all.
Some of the best Chinese food I have ever eaten has been in London. The same goes for Indian food. I haven’t visited China or India yet, so those opinions come with that qualification. But I’ve eaten in a lot of Chinese and Indian restaurants over the last 40 years, and I could spend a great deal more time in London and never run out of restaurants I wanted to try.
Modern British cooking is excellent, too. My favorite restaurant in London, Fallow, is also my favorite in Europe and probably my favorite in the world.
I have often said that if someone decided to build a restaurant specifically for Robert St. John, they would come up with Fallow. It is casual enough to suit me, the service is flawless, and the food is perfect to my taste.
After 46 years in the restaurant business, I still look around that dining room and wonder how they make the labor numbers work. There seem to be almost as many team members as guests, and they take great care of everyone.
They are masters at hospitality. Even on vacation, I’m paying attention to how other restaurants operate. It’s a gift and a curse (my wife would say the latter).
The mushroom parfait is amazing. It has the richness of a high-dollar pâté, and I find myself trying to account for that much flavor coming from mushroom ends and pieces. My favorite dish is the smoked cod’s head with sriracha butter sauce and leek oil.
I have watched Chef Jack and Chef Will’s videos trying to figure out that sauce. The base includes water and butter, which sounds straightforward enough until I eat it and start wondering what I am missing.
I love walking through London between meals. Soho is busy with people headed to restaurants and shows. Mayfair and St. James’s have a more traditional London feel, and I enjoy those neighborhoods just as much.
Rome has a different energy, especially in the Monti neighborhood at night. It can be a random Tuesday and feel as though the whole neighborhood has decided to go out. London, even when it’s busy, seems a little more composed. When I have a week to myself, London usually wins.
Though I enjoy these weeks, I would rather keep the trips close together and get home sooner. We have more than 400 people working in our restaurants, and I love being there with them.
I am grateful to our leadership team for making that six-month family trip possible and for allowing me to spend part of each year overseas running this travel business. That original trip remains one of the best decisions of my life.
The theater is another reason I keep returning to London, and my mother deserves the credit for that.
She dragged me to plays when I was a kid. I hated going and did very little to conceal that opinion. She kept taking me, hoping something would stick, and one of those outings was to see Yul Brynner in “The King and I.”
That one stuck.
I didn’t tell her then. But all these years later, I try to see a couple of West End shows whenever I’m in London. A great dinner and a night at the theater will keep me perfectly happy on a day off.
As a kid, I couldn’t have imagined any of this. I certainly couldn’t have explained to my mother that I would someday make a living taking people to places I thought they ought to experience.
My mother died two years ago this month. I was working over here when she passed away. Maybe that is why I have been thinking about her so much as I write this.
I hope she knew I was paying more attention than it appeared. All these years later, I remember seeing Yul Brynner in “The King and I,” and I remember being there with her.
These days I buy my own theater tickets.
I wish I could buy hers, too. She wouldn’t have to talk me into going.
Onward.
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Gingerbread
I have loved gingerbread since I was a child. For some reason, it’s not offered as much as it used to be. I am on a mission to change that trend. Hard cider is fermented apple cider with alcohol content.
1 stick unsalted butter
1 cup brown sugar
3 large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp ground ginger
1 1 /2 teaspoons baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 /2 teaspoon salt
1 /2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 /4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 cup molasses
1 cup hard cider
Apple Icing for Topping
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Grease a 13 by 9-inch cake pan and line with parchment paper that has been greased.
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Beat in eggs one at a time. In a second bowl, sift together the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, cloves, and nutmeg. In a third bowl, combine the molasses and hard cider and stir to dissolve. Add the dry ingredients and cider mixture alternately to the egg mixture, beating after the addition of each.
Pour into the prepared pan and bake until puffed and set, approximately 35 minutes.
Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan on a wire rack.
Cut into squares and top with Apple Icing.
Yield: 24 squares
Apple Icing
2 Tbl butter
1 cup apple, peeled, cut into small dice
1 /4 tsp cinnamon
1 /2 cup hard cider
1 1 /2 cup confectioner’s sugar
Melt the butter over medium heat and cook apples for five minutes, stir in cinnamon and cider and cook five more minutes until most of the liquid is cooked out. Remove from heat and stir in sugar. Cool completely before topping gingerbread.
(Robert St. John is a chef, restauranteur and published cookbook author who lives in Hattiesburg, Miss.)