I feel like I'm a little late to the party. After all, Hawksmoor has been around for a few years now and most London foodies/bloggers/tweeters have already been many times and already written their glowing reviews. However, being relatively new to this game, Hawksmoor only appeared on my radar in the last few months and only last week did I finally get round to checking it out for myself. I was expecting a great meal - based on the hype. 'Hawksmoor does bloody good steak' is hardly newsworthy, so I wasn't actually intending to write about it (hence the lack of decent photos - sorry!). However, when I got home at the end of the night, I couldn't stop myself: there are others out there, blissfully ignorant to this temple to Beef - these poor souls need, as I was, to be saved!
Deceptively small from the outside and hidden down the end of a Covent Garden side street, it took us a little while to find the restaurant, but once inside and down the stairs the place opens up, tardis-like, into a large bar and dining room. An abundance of wood, brick, iron and racing green leather lent a vintage, masculine feel to the surroundings and indeed by quite a margin the majority of the clientele were male. However, rather than seeming stuffy or macho there was an unaffected ease and warmth that made us feel very much at home.
From a very tempting array of starters (I can't wait to go back and try 'Grilled Clams in Bacon Bone Broth') my friend chose the Hawksmoor Smoked salmon and I had the Dorset Rock Oysters. Being September (the 1st month with an 'R' in it for ages), I hadn't had oysters for a while, let alone native ones. Native oysters (whether from Kent, Essex, Dorset or other parts of the British Isles) tend to be smaller and punchier than their flabby imported cousins and these were the freshest, tastiest oysters I can remember eating. I eschewed the shallot vinegar they were served with and savoured them unadorned; enjoying the clean, rock-pool flavour and remembering the happy day, years ago, when my Dad first bought me one to try. The house-smoked salmon was thick-cut, firm and piquant, served with a simple potato salad.
Hawksmoor specialises in steak but, with the risk of sounding like an M&S commercial, this is not just any steak… it is the result of research, obsession, cooking-trials and taste tests. The meat comes from British, slow-growing Longhorn cattle sourced from The Ginger Pig and is dry aged for at least 35 days. It's all predominantly grass fed and finished on grain. On advice from the ever-reliable Lizzie (see her outstanding blog: 'Hollow Legs'), my friend and I decided to have the prime rib from the blackboard hanging on one side of the room. The rib is quite a large portion of the beast - the smallest they offered was 800g (28oz) and largest was a terrifying 1.2kg (42oz). We decided to split a 1.1kg steak between us. Usually I order steak rare; in so many restaurants it is the only way to be sure that you won't end up with a tough, overcooked, tasteless plimsole masquerading as a steak. This time, however, I trusted the waitress' recommendation that prime rib is best appreciated medium-rare, as it allows more of the fat to melt and perfuse the meat with buttery richness.
The monstrous steak arrived - 2 inches thick and cut into fat slices. We devoured it in awed silence, accompanied by some perfect triple-cooked chips and a very tasty tomato salad. (I was pleased to see that, although the salad involved various unusual tomatoes of various shades of purple, it was not tarred with the now ubiquitous and trendy epithets 'heritage' or 'heirloom'!). The flavour of the meat was incredible - charred and very well seasoned on the outside, deeply beefy and buttery in the middle. We ordered some grilled bone marrow on the side which we hungrily scooped out with our knives and spread on the steaks - as if it wasn't decadent enough!
Having chomped through nearly 20oz of cow each, we were both verging on uncomfortably full (our large preceding lunch of delicious udon at Koya and stunning ice-cream at Gelupo were, on reflection, a really stupid idea)… but the dessert menu appeared and we were both immediately drawn to the peanut butter shortbread with salted caramel ice-cream. Despite being almost completely unable to move afterwards, we didn't regret our choice - the warm, crumbly shortbread, the gooey peanut centre and the almost-too-salty-but-actually-quite-perfect ice-cream were a great combination. The barman recommended a 13y/o american rye whiskey (Vin Winkle Family Reserve) to accompany the pud - a perfect match and, now, my new addiction - smooth vanilla, caramel and dried cherry flavours with an edge of white pepper, charcoal and heck of a kick.
Unsurprisingly, dinner at Hawksmoor is not cheap - food of this quality rarely is. The popular cuts of meat are priced by weight (e.g. £6.50/100g for the rib) meaning that our steak alone was £71 between us. To some this may seem crazy when you can go to the pub down the road and order a steak for less than a tenner. However, when you consider the care that has gone into sourcing such excellent, lovingly-reared meat, hanging it for the proper amount of time and the skill which went into cooking it to absolute perfection, it seems pretty reasonable. To add some perspective, it's worth pointing out that if you were to wander into the Angus Steakhouse on Leicester square and order a 10oz rib eye steak they would charge you £17.50 (i.e. £6.25/100g) - about the same price for inexpertly cooked, poor quality meat served in unpleasant surroundings by staff who don't give a fish's tit whether you enjoy your meal.
The food at Hawksmoor is some of the best I have ever eaten: simple, uncomplicated finesse. The staff were efficient, friendly and very knowledgable and the atmosphere in the restaurant was great. For the 1st time ever, I cannot fault the experience in any way: I'm pleased, therefore, to give Hawksmoor my 1st 10/10. I am looking forward to my next trip - I have my eye on the rather indecent-sounding 55-day aged (!!) rump (as recommended to me by Steven of 'Adventures of a Foodie', another staunch meat-addict). Bring it on!
11 Langley St,
Coven Garden.
WC2H 9JG
020 7856 2154
[Hawksmoor have 2 other restaurants, serving the same menu: one in Spitalfields (E1) and another in Guildhall (EC2)]
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