Margot and Fergus Henderson revolutionised the British culinary landscape with their respective restaurants, Rochelle Canteen, founded in 2006, and St John, founded in 1994. Creative friends and family share recollections of how it happened
Blotter, we had Fergus come to Liverpool to do the dinner. He cooked up a really local menu of scouse [a chunky meat stew] with red cabbage and Lancashire cheese with Eccles cakes. He made lovely aprons, too – white, with ‘John Moores Prize’ in red.I had a studio around the corner from St John, on Clerkenwell Road, with my then partner Angus Fairhurst. In those days, the city was very much a business place, dead as a doornail at weekends and full of suits all week.
Lee Tiernan, founder of Black Axe Mangal. Various roles at St John, then head chef at St John Bread and Wine, 2003-2013: When I started working at St John, I was green. I was very keen, but I was a clean sheet. I grew up on a housing estate in Mitcham, in south London. For a special occasion, we’d go to the Samrat curry house in Tooting. I even had an aversion to food as a kid. I’d been at catering college and had to do a stage [unpaid internship] when I finished. I’d heard about Fergus from reading Anthony Bourdain’s book [Medium Raw]. I didn’t want to work for anyone who was going to shout at me or belittle me.