Larger, if a touch less hip, than its Covent Garden sibling, the third member of this fashionable chain brings its impressively consistent steakhouse formula to a larger scaled City basement.
Anyone familiar with the Hawksmoor formula is going to have few surprises at the latest incarnation of the steakhouse mini-chain, tucked away near the Guildhall. The large dining room manages to look remarkably like its similarly subterranean Covent Garden sibling, and the menu, prices and the styling generally are all similarly faithful to the n-1 version (although the crowd, obviously, is rather less hip).
With about the same number of seats as the Wolseley, though, it’s the largest member of the group, now three-strong, but the panelled main dining room was already getting a lot of traffic on our early days visit. Not exclusively male, either.
Quite what the ladies find they want to eat on this comprehensively manly menu, though, it’s difficult to see – for our taste, the smallest steak on offer (a sirloin, £20) already verged on overwhelming. No denying the quality of the meat though, or the correctness of the cooking.
Particularly given the scale of the operation, service – plaid-clad, as elsewhere in the group – was both friendly, and impressively efficient. Lunching alone, your reporter was even offered a variety of newspapers – the sort of personal touch that helps you understand why the group continues to do so well.
