St John Neal’s Yard has launched a new morning menu in Covent Garden for high-class breakfast

St John has this week started serving breakfast at its Neal’s Yard wine bar in Covent Garden, adding a morning menu of filled buns and bakery treats. The new service will run daily, with the venue’s wine bar menu available afterwards from midday until late.

For breakfast, the wine bar will serve a Bacon and Smoked Cod’s Roe Bun, an Anchovy Bun and the group’s much loved Bacon Sandwich – reborn at the Neal’s Yard location in the form of a bun. The selection is offered alongside suggested drinks pairings: the Bacon Bun with Breakfast Perry, the Bacon and Smoked Cod’s Roe Bun with a glass of St John Blanc de Blancs 1er Cru NV, and the Anchovy Bun with a Bloody Mary. The bakery counter will also continue to stock Eccles cakes, doughnuts, pastries and sourdough from St John’s bakery in Bermondsey.

From midday, the venue operates as a wine bar. According to the restaurant, the concept draws on Gilbert’s Bar near St John’s vineyard in La Livinière, France, a venue frequented by founders Trevor Gulliver and Fergus Henderson. Wines are poured by the glass from silver ice baths, with a list that includes St John’s own Boulevard Napoléon bottles alongside many others sourced through the group’s relationships with vignerons. The list changes regularly, and some cuvées are reserved just for Neal’s Yard.

A range of small savoury dishes is available for lunch, dinner and the hours between. These include Asparagus and Ticklemore, Bowls of Mussels, Pig Skin Sausages with Mustard, Devilled Chicken Hearts and Prune Skewers, Devilled Sweetbreads with Little Gem and Mint and Lamb Rissole with Chutney. There’s also a Pig Bun, a Welsh Rarebit and Rock Oysters. For pudding, Eccles cakes are presented with Lancashire cheese, and speciality Madeleines are baked to order.

Henderson and Gulliver opened the original Smithfield restaurant in 1994, coining the phrase the phrase “Nose-to-Tail”, when Henderson published his 1999 cookbook. The chef later received an MBE for services to gastronomy in 2005 and an OBE in 2021. Co-founder Gulliver oversees the group’s wine programme and its French wine list.

The Neal’s Yard venue is open Monday to Saturday from 9am to 10pm, and Sunday from 10am to 9pm, with breakfast served from 9 till 11.45am.

Food Desk

The breakfast menu is now available at St John, 6 Neal’s Yard, London WC2H 9DP. For further information or to book a table, visit the group’s website here.