Where customers once paid in cheques bakers bake and chefs cook; the former safe is now a dry goods store (the three-inch thick door was too expensive to remove so it is left permanently open); and where documents were housed is now home to buckets of fermenting starter, initiated three months ago, so that they can now yield magnificent, crunchy wholemeal, rye and sourdough loaves.
This is St John Bread and Wine, formerly a bank, opposite the rapidly changing Spitalfields Market with as few design features as its elder sibling, St John restaurant opposite Smithfield Market.
The decor is white and black. The waiting staff wear the same long white jackets and the fittings are identical – brown wooden tables, uncomfortable chairs, harsh lighting, a French only wine list and ridiculous wine glasses. But the food's the thing.
On the far wall the blackboard, which neatly divides the kitchen from the bakery, reveals what is on offer. From 8am the kitchen produces kippers, spicy anchovy buns that will leave you thirsty for an hour or two, and warm chocolate buns and then fires on full cylinders from midday with gutsy versions of langoustines and mayonnaise, brawn with piccallili, foie gras and prunes on toast, pot-roast hogget (meat older than lamb but not quite mutton) and skate wings with fennel. This rolling menu calms down in the afternoon and is relit from 7pm.
To the right Justin Gellatly supervises a bakery team that is already producing 200 loaves a day as well as their trademark Eccles cakes, rich custard tarts made from organic eggs, peach nectarine and, to show their more delicate side, an old-fashioned lemon posset and shortbread.
Once run in, the plan is that this bread, currently baked three times daily, will be sold wholesale. In the interim this new St John outpost ought to become a haven for anyone who works in the City for 'bread' but loves to eat the right stuff.
St John Bread and Wine
94/96 Commercial Street, London E1 6LZ
Open 0800-2300 seven days.
