Hawksmoor Spitalfields

My first visit to Hawksmoor and it was really very good. Simple orders on our part-Porterhouse Steaks and they were perfect! Great chips and a tomato salad. Simple but such high quality made for a great meal.

Service was great. Good wine list and proper old puds-trifle and sticky toffee pudding, both hit the spot.

With the Guildhall branch opening soon, Goodmans now has a run for their money!

After struggling to get a reservation in the restaurant for quite some time I plumped for an early 6pm sitting to see whether The Hawksmoor is all its cracked up to be. At 5.50pm the restaurant bar was already busy and had a good mix of people both city and hoxtonites together.

The char grilled squid starter which was served with fennel and orange was both original and extremely tasty with all ingredients complimenting one another perfectly. The lobster starter served with garlic butter was also a delight in itself. For the steaks we ordered from the blackboard the 800g Bone-in Prime Rib which was cooked medium, bursting with marbled fatty goodness. Sides of triple cooked chips, creamed spinach and asparagus were the perfect accompliments. Deserts of sticky toffee pudding and a chocolate brownie with ice cream topped of a thoroughly delightful meal.

Service was excellent at all times and i felt the attention one received from all staff was of an extremely high level. Something to note is that there is a definite benefit to arriving early in that the prime cuts of meat from the blackboard (which are allocated on a ‘first come, first served’ basis) sell out extremely quickly. By the time we left at 8.30pm all the select sharing cuts had been sold out to a happy and fulfilled dining room.

Get there early to avoid disappointment…its a real gem is The Hawksmoor.

On the night we went it was exceptionally busy. Our food was excellent and the staff friendly and efficient. Whilst I liked the decor unfortunately I found the restaurant to be very noisy and having a normal conversation was impossible. If you're there on a busy night you'll be shouting to your companions to be heard. Best to avoid if your priority is the people you're with rather than the food.

I took my girlfriend to this gem last week and if you like steak and haven't gone yet, there's not much that I can say except: go. Now. One of the best steak restaurants in London, easy.

After hearing many reviews of Hawksmoor I finally went last night – thankfully with friends not clients. With accolades of ‘best steak in London’ ringing in my head I was really looking forward to a good meal. Palm and Goodmans have disappointed to the point where I was beginning to think Gaucho as the only viable steak house in town so to be let down so badly by Hawksmoor rankled somewhat.
To be fair it was a busy service with every table full but this should be no excuse to a professional organisation. The service was average at best. We had ordered some oysters to keep us going whilst our starters were being prepared – they arrived shortly after my scallop ( 1 scallop on a blob of champ for £13+) but before the further 5 minute delay for one of my friends lobster. The staff were apologetic and promised not ot charge for the oysters – fair enough.
The steaks eventually arrived – the plates were cold, the steaks were at best warm, the mushrooms were tepid, the spinach the same. The chips were hot however so that was ok… My fillet (£30) for some reason was stringy and cooked medium rare as I had requested – well the top was medium and the bottom rare. The rest of the party suffered no less. The 55 day aged rump – obviously aged in the supermarket fidge – was hard work according to my friends and although tasty, not worth the effort. The chips were nice…
We had a quiet word with the manager after eating and he was most apologetic and again removed some item from our bill. But this is not the point, the problems we experienced were really basic stuff – hot plates ain't hard.
Its a real shame as I was looking forward to this all week. Will I go again? Not sure. I would generally give anywhere a second chance and put it down to bad luck the first time. However £50 for steak, chips and veg stings a bit in the shabby end of Commercial Street. Guess its back to Gauco then…

A hard week at work means that Friday night is either “too tired to think straight” or “right, let's GO for it…”. Trekking across town to Hawksmoor on Commercial St this week we got a masterclass in how to have one's mindset transformed from the former to the latter: an unhesitating 10 out of 10 all round. What a find.
Atmosphere: an oasis of dark wood and animated buzz, a rather upmarket haven from the surrounding pubs and bars. Cocktail waiters who clearly know what they are doing (and are having a ball) make up sublime concoctions on the spot – the cocktail menu is worth a read for some of the unusual and interesting offerings, and at around £8 each the pricing is spot on. Excellent service at the bar and from the staff who took the trouble to come over and let us know that our table was ready but to take as long as we liked.
Food: it is worth reading the information on their website before going, it is highly informative and gives you an indication of just how seriously they take their meat. It's all British (hooray!) and they have given a lot of thought to the cuts, the cooking, and the accompaniments. There is a very useful article about matching wines to the different cuts and the recommendations are not necessarily what you would expect.
It is also worth reading the menu, especially the drinks menu, which has some hilarious and truly unusual and interesting finds.
A number of larger cuts are available and are indicated by weight on boards, crossed off once they have been ordered. Staff were helpful in giving advice and recommendations.
We ordered salad starters which were outstandingly good: broad bean, peas and ticklemore cheese, and a divine tomato salad with tomatoes which tasted home grown. Steaks were absolutely divine. Beautifully cooked and seasoned, exactly as requested, and utterly delicious. Chips were fabulous, as were the sides and sauces. Puddings were all interesting, the brownie with salted caramel ice cream was divine.
We absolutely loved it. We will tell all our friends. By the end of the evening we were mentally making a note of all the other people we could go there with…they got everything right. We were thinking “Let's GO for it!!! Again!!!”

Went last Friday with some clients. The food, as with all of my visits, was top-notch, producing one of the best steaks in London, and served with mac'n'cheese and triple cooked chips – wonderful! 300g fillet is c£30 and a 600g bone in Sirloin is £28 – so Gaucho esque prices. Sides are £3-4. They also offer a large line of mint julep cocktails which are awesome too. Service was okay (well, good looking!) though with every table full, it was sometimes a little hard to get any attention, such as when ordering the second bottle of red or extra chips! If you like steak and chips, go is the message.

Chutzpah 5, Customer 2.

Why not charge serious money for goood food on Commercial Road? Well, only if you can deliver: dot, dot dot…

The high points were the starters and the grappa. In between was dire : staff whose knowledge was limited to a very short script and devoid of charm, steak* ordered blue turning up medium, two bottles of red both of which needed to be put in an ice bucket to bring the temperature down to drinkable.Then the thice cooked chips – they turn up inside a paper cone inside a tin mug and there might have been 10 very pale, limp pieces of potato. Brilliant : the waiting staff emphasises the quality of the meat, hence steaks are cut and priced individually by the kg, but i am certain that those awful chips are the most expensive (£ per kg) and worst cooked item on the menu.

i do not expect to wrestle with indifferent and ignorant staff to eat good steak with a good glass of red at room temparature, enhanced by the occasional chip.

*The second steak arrived blue and it was very good:

Best steak in town.

Hunting for meat is a fine pastime of many men and women … so to find the Hawksmoor was a delight.

Strongly recommended by a friend I can only describe as “The Bear” we entered the restaurant to be seated at a round table. (Always a bonus)

The Tamworth ribs quite perfect – sublime fall off the bone piggery.

The steak minimally seasoned a most satisfying mixture of blood, meat and salt. They do provide sauces to suit most other tastes.

The signature pudding – a strangely pleasing palate cleansing blood orange jelly on the blancmange base sending us home happy to dream of returning soon.

Expensive but pleasing.

LM

I recently took my team here – a group of 16 – and we had one of the best long lunches in memory! Despite the size of the group, there was no attempt to make us pre-order, although we did pass on some requests for specific joints which were handled with real enthusiasm. On the day those requests were met with no fuss, and the food was delivered promptly, hot and all together – no mean feat for a group of that size.
This place is quite obviously a carnivore's dream – glorious cuts (and large), beautifully cooked – but the starters, vegetables and the desserts (for those that could manage one) were also very good.
It was a relatively quiet lunch, but the service was welcoming and efficient and although the decor is nothing special we will undoubtedly be going back.