Hawksmoor: London St Pancras opening is deliciously opulent
There’s more testosterone in Hawksmoor in the Square Mile than there is in the Virgin Active around the corner. Men obsess over meat, didn’t you know, and over the last two decades, childhood friends Will Beckett and Huw Gott, the pair behind Hawksmoor, have obsessed more than most. Their enthusiasm has paid off, winning the clout of the capital’s carnivores. As for that male coding, Hawkmoors are typically gloomy places, full of black leather banquettes and dim lighting. Even the straightforward style of plating – lumps of meat on white china – feels blokeish.
It works, but only if you have good eyesight and you’re in the mood to cosplay as a 1920s gangster. If you aren’t, go to the new Hawksmoor St Pancras, which marks an opulent new direction for the luxury steakhouse, which is now so confident in its formula that it has openings in Chicago and New York. That a London-born steakhouse has gone to the home of steakhouses tells you everything you need to know about the quality at Hawksmoor, which is now and has always been superb.
Anyway, at the new St Pancras branch, the main difference is that instead of feeling like you’re having a steak in a dimly lit whisky bar of disrepute at 2am, now you feel like you’re having a steak in Buckingham Palace. The restaurant and conjoining Martini Bar occupy part of a Grade I listed Gothic Revival building that was designed by lauded architect Sir George Gilbert Scott and was once a part of the Midland Grand Hotel, a grand railway station stopover that is now the recently refurbished St Pancras Hotel. These handsome rooms became municipal offices in 1935, when the building’s Victorian fixtures and fittings became costly and outdated, and in more recent years a handful of other restaurants have lodged there, before it fell into the hands of Beckett and Gott. St Pancras is the 13th restaurant from the pair, who set up their first Hawksmoor on Commercial Street in Spitalfields in 2006. Since then the group has enjoyed sustained growth, despite falling into the red last year despite record sales.
Reviewing the new Hawksmoor London St Pancras
They haven’t had to do much: great shimmering chandeliers haven’t moved since the 1880s, there are columns of maroon marble, and the triple height ceilings feature ornate latticework. There’s been some set dressing: fresh gold trim, deep ocean blue paint on the walls. This is a Hawksmoor you can take your mum to, one with bright lights, an airy atmosphere and the sort of decor that, if we must rely on these gender norms, is defiantly feminine.
There is another surprise: a favourite dish on the menu when I go in is the handmade pie with Winslade cheese and mushroom. It arrives alone on the plate and it holds court as well as any sirloin. I had a 450kg rump because I wanted something lean, and our waiter was passionate about breaking the stigma around that cut. In what felt like meat therapy, we moaned about the overcooked rumps we’d battled through at crappy regional pubs. But this was wonderfully flavourful – being educated at a restaurant is usually a painful and submissive experience but this time I gladly learned the lesson.
Reinventing meat is harder than veg. Potted beef and bacon with Yorkshire puddings and gravy isn’t as fun in practice as it must have seemed on paper. It’s best if you’re swerving meat for mains, otherwise it’s too similar in beige tone and meatiness to the mains. Ash-baked beetroot with pickled fennel and horseradish crème fraîche is certainly an interesting combination of flavours but the bed of wasabi out-heated my dinner guest of Indian heritage, who would put chilli sauce on a banana if he were allowed. Other gentle innovations work: richly sweet maple bacon, like dense Tangfastics, “elevate” my steak. As far as sides go, Hawksmoor’s mac and cheese and chips are some of the most reliable dishes in the capital.
Round it off with a pitch-perfect sticky toffee pudding, then share the tart Meyer lemon pavlova on a bed of lemon granita, which looks gorgeous with its lemon candy segments, lemon cream, and curd in decorative lashings. It’s a cheery little thing – just like me when I rolled out of Hawksmoor St Pancras.
Go to thehawksmoor.com and to read more about the Hawksmoor on City AM go here