Hawksmoor Seven Dials

Hands down the best Sunday roast I've had in London. They also serve an amazing bloody mary made with horseradish-infused gin.

it was my daughter – Bronte who keep telling me to visit Hawsmoor at Seven Dial. Hawsmoor is one of her favourite restaurant. So I bought the cookery book first!!! I know, what you think!! She crazy to buy the book before I try the restaurant!!

As a food consultant and recipe developer, when i look at a cook book and recipe, right away i can tell whether i will enjoy the foods or not. (I am not showing off! it's hlep when my mother was a caterer). Especially myself is a pudding queen..!!

So Bronte and I went on her birthday.my first impression was very casual and relax enviroment, particular friendly staff and good service. most importanly I am impess and please to know the staff are extremely Knowledgeable about the menu and even expalning to me how the food beeing prepare and presented on the plate. not many restaurant staff able to do that, well done Hawsmoor!

my first vist I had the lobster sandwich. it was absolutely spot on with the flavour. the sauce, with the lobster bring out the sea flavour of lobster. lobster was juicy and the portion was perfect when you're VERY hungry. I am very fussy with my bread or bun, but the bun at Hawsmoor was one of my favourite, soft, delicate, easy to eat, and good flavour. With surprise, the recipe of the bun was from a Chinese chef! i am delighted to know that.

Oh my word!! the pudding…that is a heaven to me! everytime I visit them, I will have the cornflake milkshake, wonderful milky, cornflaky, sweet flavour. The soft crumply peanut butter cookies serve with thick sweet, sticky caramel sauce just place a big smile on my face…

my mission is try all the puddings at Hawsmoor. So far, Hawsmoor is the only restaurant I know who serve heart warming pudding. Nothing can complate a deliciously warm and sweet pudding to end your meal.

if your mission is on diet or looking for waistline foods, forget about Hawsmoor, but if you looking for hapiness with foods, go tomorrow and I can garantee you, you will said thank you to them.

enjoy. x

Drink –

• cocktails were overpriced for the seemingly lack of flavour and kick to them, although the atmosphere at the bar was pleasant.
• wine at the table was very enjoyable. We had house red and house white and were given samples of both the house whites on selection to try, seeing as we had not heard of either before. they mistook our order of a half bottle of white for just a glass, but quickly resolved this and gave us the glass on the house.
  

Food –

• could not have been faulted in anyway. the meat was gorgeous – smell, taste, texture – it almost melted in the mouth and was well worth the slightly longer wait to have a larger cut cooked, which 3 of us shared. we shared a selection of sides, as was recommended – triple cooked chips, beef dripping chips, chestnuts and sprouts, greens and a salad. the triple cooked and the sprouts were both delicious. the sprouts so much we ordered extra – despite some of the party being reluctant, when first ordering them. we didn't wish to spoil a satisfyingly filling dinner with pudding (although it was equally as recommended). they did however give us their famous, sticky toffee and clotted cream to share between the 4 of us as they noted it was one of the party member's 50th birthday.
  

service –

• the waiter, who had perhaps 4 tables, knew his stuff! it was our first time to a restaurant like that and he explained all the cuts of meat and flavours involved and what would best suit our pallette. he was very informative, but very casual and by no means too intrusive.
  

ambience –

• busy friday night, but we had a table reserved for 7pm, so no issues with that. it was a little dim and dark with the lighting overall, but didn't seem that much of an issue.
  

value – not overly expensive for London i'm sure, but for a family of 4, who don't dine out much – especially in London, it was a little bit more than what we would usually spend – but you paid for the superb quality, which could be smelt, tasted and enjoyed!

overall – probably a first for our family to dine out in a highly recommended and upper market restaurant in london. we had saved specifically and although the birthday girl, was reluctant to have all the money spent on her, by the end we all felt it was money very well saved and spent and will be remembered by the 4 of us for quite some time to come. if you like meat it is a must!! that's the reason we chose it as the birthday girl likes a good steak and chips – but this was something else!

Seriously excellent food! I took someone here for a very pricey birthday meal – we shared a delicious set of meaty pork ribs, one huge porterhouse steak with an array of sides, plus two fantastic puddings (the peanut butter shortcake was to die for, plus my honeycomb cheesecake!)…drool.

I was expecting a Gaucho style dark place, having been to an array of steakhouses in London. Hawksmoor is a far more well lit, buzzy brasserie style haunt opposite where Pineapple Studios is in Covent Garden. It was completely full for a Saturday lunch, a mixture of blokey types waiting to see the rugby, or families. Our waitress was extremely well informed and what i loved was when i was umming and ahhing about various sauces or desserts, she either brought me a sample or gave me some free to try. Service was some of the best ive had. Foodwise, melt in the mouth meat, a selection of mind blowing puddings – what was not to like. I really realised what id been cooking at home, was not a steak in the least – this was paradise on a plate.

Anyhow – for all these reasons, i cannot fault this place – and look forward to going back. My only downside, all of the above without alcohol cost £120 – and that was with sharing some of the dishes. It will end up a very pricey night out regardless so probably ideal for a treat rather than a catchup with friends – however regardless, it was perfect and im quite happy to name this the best steakhouse in town.

“Simply cooked on a real charcoal grill, steaks come from Longhorn Cattle that have been lovingly reared in North Yorkshire by multi-award winners The Ginger Pig and are hanged for at least 35 days.”

Located on Langley Street just off Long Acre in Covent Garden, you will find Hawksmoor Seven Dials. As you enter you will feel as though you’ve taken a step back in time. With its stripped back decor, brick walls, pipe work on display and a low ceilinged bar, Hawksmoor Seven dials transports you from bustling ‘tourist’ London to a buzzing hidden gem serving an array of excellent steaks, (amongst other equally tantalising treats).

A place for business and leisure, the restaurant is filled with London workers discussing their busy morning whilst sampling some of the simplest yet effective flavours I’ve had in years. Starters included a hand dived king scallop on a bed of champ (spring onion mash), perfectly cooked, the scallop was meaty, full of flavour and was accompanied perfectly by the creamy mash potato. Another excellent choice is the Tamworth pork belly ribs, succulent, tender and big enough to share with a tangy sauce glaze on a bed of crunchy red cabbage.

For main course it would be a big mistake not to try one of the numerous steaks on offer, steaks which are raved about and have given Hawksmoor such a good reputation over the recent months. On arrival, the fillet steak looked juicy, ordered medium rare it arrived medium rare (a mean feat for many London restaurants)! Accompanied by some triple cooked chips and a glass of Rioja from the well-stocked wine cellar, (which is located at the back of the restaurant and is on view for all customers to see), you couldn’t ask for a more satisfying lunchtime meal. Vegetarian options are also available but this really is a place for those who appreciate a good cut of meat.

With attentive and efficient wait-staff and an excellent atmosphere, it’s no wonder that it is full most days for both lunch and dinner. For a more casual dining experience drop by the bar for the Kimchi Burger and a beer, or a few cocktails.

The search for the best steak in London continues: it’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it.

We arrived early, and were ushered into a gentleman’s club of a bar, all mahogany, leather and low lighting. The (heavy) bar seats are, as the friendly barman cheerfully told, extremely comfortable. And the cocktails are extremely good. The list is long, but the barmen happy to make suggestions based on your likes. This is a very fine bar, with very fine barmen, making very fine cocktails.

When our table became available, we were escorted from the cosiness of the bar to the cavern of the dining room, all bare bricks and high ceilings. We were post-theatre so wanted merely a main. Fine, but this, we were told, would be thirty minutes. Fair enough, although how a medium-rare steak takes more than 15-20 minutes I am unsure. By this stage of the evening, all the sensibly sized sharing steaks had gone, and we were left with the smallest: a 1.1kg rib-eye, so maybe 30 minutes at a squeeze.

40 minutes later, our friendly waiter (think Toby from In the Loop) came back to tell us it would be eight more minutes. Nice and precise. 15 minutes later, another missive from the kitchen: one minute until we could tuck in. Ten minutes later, it arrived. Over an hour. For a medium-rare steak?

For this to work, the steak had better be the best piece ever, cooked to perfection. It wasn’t. The steak itself was a lovely piece, nicely marbled, thick and pink on the interior. It was also really greasy. Not juicy; greasy. There is a profound difference. So were the peas and lettuce (although, given that they seemed to have substituted mangetout for petit pois, that was the least of my concerns with the dish).

It wasn’t all bad – the chips were lovely. We did a comparative tasting between the triple cooked and the beef dripping. Both were greaseless, both fine examples of the fryer's art, but the triple cooked won hands down: cut thinner, they were crispy and precise. Alas, a fine £4 bag of chips doesn’t a £70 steak make. Yes. It is expensive. And the sauce is extra. You’re charging seventy notes for a steak and then you add insult to injury by charge a bottle for the béarnaise? Come on.

We spotted that our cocktails had been omitted from the bill and, having pointed this out to Toby, he was kind enough not to add them in, because management “loved us”. Nice touch, but I’m afraid the love is only going the one way.

Great bar but, if you want the steak, go early to get a cut and size you want, order ahead and take some Thirst Pockets. Just in case.

I booked Hawksmoor for a speedy weekday lunch with a friend. We are both unreconstructed carnivores and a morning spent perusing the menu only served to whet my appetite. The interior was one part warehouse, one part club dining room, but one could forgive the unapologetically masculine decor once the food arrived.

Time was not our friend so we dove straight into our mains. I had a 400g rib eye steak and my companion the 300g fillet. The meat was a revelation; my steak was beautifully cooked, the flesh gloriously pink, the marbling characteristic of this cut, only serving to conserve the tenderness of the steak and allow it to melt sinfully in my mouth. I opted for a Bearnaise sauce that was an excellent rendering of the classic and to accompany it as my side, a portion of triple fried chips. Never again will I want double fried or whatever else other eateries are offering. These chips were game-over. Perfectly seasoned, crisp on the outside, soft on the inside and with no residual oily aftertaste that mars many. In short they were better than any chip I've had. My companion's fillet did exactly what you would expect of it, it was tender, moist and packed with flavour. And her peppercorn sauce, in a lesser restaurant often resulting in an unctuous mess that you would rather not bother about, was rich and tasty with the right amount of punch. The sweet potato side she said was the Robin to her steak's Batman. If food is being described in superhero terms, you know it is pretty spectacular.

To drink I had a glass of the Chateau de Ricaud, an inexpensive Bordeaux that added rather than detracted to my meal. Again, I was impressed by how many wines were offered by the glass, an important consideration for the business diner, when being the wrong side of sloshed when you have an afternoon ahead of you is neither professional or ideal. Also of note were the helpful and informative waiting staff who were knowledgeable without straying into supercilious-ville, so often an annoying ‘perk’ at eating at a good restaurant in London.

We skipped puddings, but didn't feel deprived as we were surprisingly very full from our mains. The only fly in the ointment was our Spring Salad which tasted of nothing in particular and we finished out of obligation rather than delight. Lunch came in at a not exactly cheap nor wealth of Croesus requiring £90 inclusive of service. We will definitely be back again but this time we will round up the troops and bring husband, boyfriend, children and assorted others in the evening and tackle a kilo or more of Chateaubriand over a bottle or two and of course several rounds of those inspired chips. It is always a good sign if you are planning the next visit so soon after the first, but that's Hawksmoor for you, an unpretentious treat.

I’m not quite sure whether it’s exactly a recommendation to leave a steak restaurant vowing never to touch another lump of red meat again, but that’s exactly how I felt as I staggered out of Hawksmoor’s Seven Dials restaurant having manfully grappled with a 600g sirloin. In a single evening I’d reached a state of satiety that it usually takes a week or so in the US to achieve: for the foreseeable future it was going to be fish and chicken only! That said, the fault – if fault it was – lay partly with me: 600g of steak (even allowing for a fairly large bone) is more meat than anyone should healthily attempt in a single sitting, if not a week (£29). Even the 300g fillet (£30) consumed by my guest was a pretty hefty portion. And if you choose a large cut to share (Châteaubriand, Rib or Porterhouse) go early because by a 9.30pm sitting, the only joints (no other word would do) left were 900g and heavier (and well into three-figures in price)! You need seriously to love meat or go with a large group of hungry carnivores. That said, the meat was excellent, beautifully aged, ideally cooked with a delicious, salty, crust of caramelised outer flesh and a dark red, firm and perfectly rare interior. The sides are nicely varied – we opted for beef-dripping-fried chips (I could only face one given the size of my sirloin) and a minty lettuce salad which was perfect at offsetting the main attraction.

For starters we had half a dozen plump Cumbrae oysters which looked excellent and I opted for a fabulous salad of (cold) roasted Jerusalem artichokes and shallots with mustardy, olive-oily lentils and watercress: a stunning combination and a dish that really justified that rather incongruous title ‘winter salad’! Puddings weren't even an option… The wine-list is substantial rising to some eye-wateringly priced bottles, but with plenty in the £30-50 region, and the cocktail list is splendid too with loads of wonderfully retro mixes. I had a gorgeous Marmalade Cocktail and my guest had a gingery brew that contained gin, lemon and London Pride and had a bracing kick. (The table service in the bar was rather casual, and we sat for about ten minutes before anyone bothered to take an order.)

The setting is very striking – an old brewery – all below street level under arched, old-brick ceilings set off by a lightly industrial feel, but also with plenty of old wood and brass fittings: it feels quite American, but it is pretty noisy. The staff is attentive, friendly and professional though as they wear what they like it’s often quite difficult to tell who works there and who’s a diner – also expect to be served by at least half a dozen different people during the course of the evening. The bill for two (two cocktails, two starters, two mains, two sides and a £35 bottle of Tuscan red) set us back £166 (with service). I’d go again, but will think very carefully about the size of my steak – 300g is large, 600g is gargantuan…over 1kg is obscene.

Overall i thoroughly enjoyed our visit for dinner last thursday night. The food is fantastic and the original formula seems to have transported very well to this new location.

The ribs were an excellent starter, although a bold choice if having a large steak to follow, and i had a rare case of “menu envy” when a fresh and succulent prawn cocktail arrived for one of my fellow diners… The steaks were all cooked to perfection – as you would expect from a place that prides itself on its selection of beef cuts – and a wide range of perfectly suited sides are available. Our table of six could still not agree which of the two types of chips were the best. Having gorged on this amount of meat no-one expected to find room for dessert… untill the menu arrived. All of the options are too appealing. The ice-cream was delicious in a range of well-picked flavours – salted caramel being a highlight. The sticky toffee sundae was the perfect balance to help out when undecided between ice cream or sticky toffee pudding – it was a triumph.

It was not all good sadly… The service was appalling. The staff were trying to be very helpful and very friendly (when you could catch their attention) but it took an age for anyone to take a drink order and then even longer for them to arrive. When the food was bought out of the kitchen, the wait staff would wander around the floor havingly seemingly no clue as to the table numbers. The best option was waving frantically in the direction of the wait staff when they were carrying anything that resembled something you ordered. They did not however try to turn the table so at least we did not have the stress of worrying they would ask for the table back before we could even order our main course.

As fellow diners have mentioned ,the noice levels in the restaurant borders on the ridiculous. Atmospehere is one thing but i struggled to hear what the person sitting next to me was saying, let alone the one across the table from me.

All of this being said, i would definately go back but probably with a smaller group so that the noise is less of an issue. If you have nowhere you need to be in a hurry and can't go wrong with a well-cooked steak and great bottle of red wine then this is the place for you – and so much more convenient (and less male dominated) than the city branch.

Lunch January 2011. 12 30 table

Fantastic cocktails, albeit they took an age to arrive .. But the redeeming factor was that the serving staff were the friendliest and most outgoing in any restaurant for ages

Good Starters, Outstanding well cooked Steaks/Chips (but Puddings a bit school dinners and certainly sub M&S microwave..)

I love buzzy restaurants, but be aware when full, the volume here tends towards the ear-bleeding end of the scale.. Unfortunately the price you pay for a great looking brick barrel vaulted low ceiling

ONE BIG WARNING .. The evening dinner menu is 50P-£1 per item more than lunch (with a few sides, it soon mounts up) .. Our lunch bill was ‘accidentally’ billed at the dinner rates, with no apology .. When you're paying almost £100 a head, this seems both very sharp practice and blatant profiteering.

It's only been open 5 weeks but it's as good as if not better than the Hawksmoor in E1.

Service was excellent, even though they were pretty busy on a Friday night.

Although unimaginative, I had the fillet which was cooked to perfection. The others had their favourite cuts which all went down extremely well. The side dishes were also great but the herb salad was somewhat pathetic in size (2 maybe 3 leaves).

The food is quite expensive but it's great for a treat. I think service and food combined, it's a great place to eat top notch steak.

I had the fillet – it was good but not particularlry memorable

The Lemon Curd with Shortbread was too die for … am tempted to go back just for the desert selection … the stick toffee apparently is another hit

Affordable wine menu
As for the cocktails … they are a must