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…