Dinner and a show

Dinner and a show. Dinner and a show.

Key points

• John reflects on his recent trips in Greece, Rome, the Amalfi Coast and London.
• In 2011, Jill and I took the kids to Europe for six months.
• I just finished hosting trips in Greece and to Rome and the Amalfi Coast.
• I have watched Chef Jack and Chef Will's videos trying to figure out that sauce.
• But all these years afterwards, I try to see a couple of West End indicates whenever I'm in London.

Dinner and a show. Dinner and a show. By: Robert St. John – October 19, 2026.

Robert St. John reflects on his recent trips in Greece, Rome, the Amalfi Coast and London.

Flunking out of college may have been the best career move I ever created. 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 obtained me into the restaurant business.

I needed a job. I discovered 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 commence our 40th year in business. It 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, individuals 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 regarding 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 began. 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. Individuals 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 accord 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 additionally my favorite in Europe and probably my favorite in the world.

According to I have often, 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 create the labor numbers work. There seem to be almost as plenty of 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).

Notably, 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. It 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 individuals headed to restaurants and indicates. 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 obtain home sooner. We have more than 400 individuals 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 feasible 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.

In practice, 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 particularly 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."

I didn't tell her then. But all these years afterwards, I try to see a couple of West End indicates 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 create a living taking residents 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 regarding her so much as I write this.

I hope she knew I was paying more attention than it appeared. All these years afterwards, I remember seeing Yul Brynner in "The King and I, " and I remember being there with her. These days I purchase my own theater tickets.

I wish I could purchase hers, too. She wouldn't have to talk me into going. This Week's Recipe: Gingerbread.

I have loved gingerbread since I was a child. For some reason, it's not offered as much as it applied 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. 2 cups all-purpose flour. 2 tsp ground ginger. 1 1 /2 teaspoons baking soda. 1 /2 teaspoon salt. 1 cup apple, peeled, cut into small dice. 1 /4 tsp cinnamon. 1 /2 cup hard cider. 1 1 /2 cup confectioner's sugar. 1 /2 teaspoon ground cloves.

1 /4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg. 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 sizeable 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.

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. Regarding the Author(s).

Robert St. John is a chef, restaurateur, author, enthusiastic traveler, and world-class eater. He has spent four decades in the restaurant business, thirty-three of those as the owner of Crescent City Grill, Mahogany Bar, Tabella, Ed's Burger Joint, The Midtowner, and Loblolly Bakery in Hattiesburg and The Downtowner in Gulfport. He has written fifteen books, including An Italian Palate, written in Europe while traveling through 72 cities in 17 countries in six months with his wife and two children. Robert has written his syndicated newspaper column for over twenty-six years. Regarding Robert at robertstjohn.com.

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In short, dinner and a show is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.