Everything you need to know about St Leonards.

With positive reviews rolling in for new London restaurant St Leonards (Ms Marina O’Loughlin described it as “a classic in the making”; Mr Jay Rayner “so cutting edge you could slice your arm off on it”), we thought we would investigate further and speak to Mr Jackson Boxer, who founded St Leonards with chef and partner Mr Andrew Clarke (the pair also launched Brunswick House in Vauxhall). From open-hearth (and drunk) cooking to an anti-Instagram philosophy, read what Mr Boxer had to say, below, and then head to Shoreditch to sample his wares for yourself. If you can get a table, that is.

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Describe the ethos of St Leonards.

St Leonards is a simple restaurant, with a large, comfortable dining room, framed around an open kitchen comprised of a well-stocked raw bar, and a large three-metre hearth. Our focus is on incredibly high-quality produce, carefully and lovingly cooked all day long over blazing logs, or shucked, washed and dressed from the ice, served with no thought to Instagram or any audience beyond the guests actually eating with us.

How did it come about?

Andrew and I have been working together at Brunswick House for three years, but friends and collaborators for far longer. When we were shown the site St Leonards now occupies, it immediately made us think how exciting it would be to use the large space to create an incredibly warm, hospitable room, with an open kitchen, far more along the lines of an old-fashioned farmhouse dining room or refectory. It immediately recalled many drunken and carefree days cooking down on our farm in West Sussex, where we grow a lot of our produce – brill roasted whole over beechwood, dressed with shrimp head butter and caviar; flamed oysters; whole sirloins of well-aged beef hanging above flames for hours. St Leonards is our attempt to create something along those lines.

What are some of your favourite things on the menu?

I love the whole menu. It’s a wonderful way to cook. You light a fire in the morning, pile it with logs, let them cook down to embers, then slowly create the menu – a pot of little borlotti beans simmering away on the back, leeks charring sweetly on the grill, whole loins of beautiful pig hanging above in the smoke, potatoes gently roasting among the coals. Everything tastes incredible, and incredibly loved. It’s a method of cookery which requires constant thought and attention, and as a result everything tastes massively soulful.

How is it different to other restaurants in London?

London has so many incredible restaurants. I would never seek to compare what we’re doing to any of them directly, and nothing is ever really that original anyway. As we like to regularly remind ourselves, we’re just cooking people’s tea. Nevertheless, every kitchen has something unique about it, and the way our hearth makes everything taste is rather magical.

Are there any trends in the London restaurant scene that you dislike?

There’s so much to celebrate right now it would be churlish to bang on about things that annoy me. I wish there were more good fish shops or greengrocers in London, and I am conscious of the proliferation of upscale fast-food counters in Soho, where once there were charming little bars and bistros. I am also wary of how anodyne delivery food is stopping people getting out and being among each other. However, there is nothing about restaurants I majorly dislike. I just ignore what doesn’t feel relevant.