Hawksmoor 20th Anniversary - Classics Menu

A menu to celebrate our 20th birthday

the dishes, drinks & stories that got us here. The ones that stayed, the ones we had to bring back & the cocktails that shaped who we are.

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An overhed shot of a table laden with steaks, a sharing steak in the midlle, starters and sides all around
An overhead shot featuring 3 classic starters - ribs, scallops and Caesar salad
Rib-eye steak with a steakhouse salad on a white plate
Hawksmoor birthday cake on a white plate, with a scoop on ice cream on the side

When we opened in Spitalfields in 2006, there were no iPhones, no Instagram and nobody was photographing their dinner. Is that not already a dizzying thought? 

Then, if you squint, you might remember that the economy came very close to collapse, we had a global pandemic and, perhaps most surprisingly of all, England got to the European Championship final. Oh, and somewhere along the way we made the headlines of just about every news outlet in the land for accidentally serving someone a £4,500 bottle of wine. 

Before all of it, we were just two best mates with little experience and lots of enthusiasm, opening a restaurant on a dodgy street in East London. In what was formerly a kebab house. The charcoal grill they left behind ended up being quite useful. 

20 years on, we wanted to mark the occasion properly. So, we’ve put together a menu of the drinks and dishes that got us here: the ones that never left, the ones we had to bring back, and the cocktails that made us who we are. Here goes. 

 

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THE CLASSICS MENU

Our Hall of fame menu

Every restaurant accumulates a back catalogue. Dishes that defined a room. Cocktails that outlasted the trends that spawned them. Sides that were never really sides at all. Over two decades, ours have built up into something worth revisiting properly. 

So for our 20th, we’ve pulled together the greatest hits: the Old Spot Belly Ribs that have been on the menu since day one, the Shaky Pete’s Ginger Brew that was a Hawksmoor classic long before anyone called the current cocktail renaissance a renaissance, and a few others that came close to never making it out of the kitchen at all. Each one is here with the date and the restaurant where it started, because the story is part of the point. 

Available for a limited time. 

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A sharing Longhorn steak sliced up in a cast iron skiller

From chaos to Chicago.

And as we’re turning 20, we’re feeling all nostalgic. Our opening gambit was simple: the kind of restaurant we wanted to hang out in. Great steak, proper cocktails, brilliant people allowed to be themselves. Equal parts fun and chaotic. Our first ever review, in The London Paper, called it “the thinking person’s TGI Fridays.” We were delighted. We still are. 

We told ourselves there’d never be a second restaurant. There are now 14, spanning England, Scotland, Ireland and the US. As the eight prime ministers since 2006 can attest, things change. But the principles haven’t. 

Hawksmoor St Pancras Exterior

People, not puddings.

We’ve been thinking about what we’re most proud of. It’s not the sticky toffee pud (although we are proud of that). It’s not the award wins and recognitions. It’s the team members who stayed and grew with us. The ones who came in for a martini and ended up building a career. Couples who met across a pass or over a table. The children who can trace their existence back to a Hawksmoor romance. 

And it’s the suppliers who rear, fish and grow what ends up on our tables. Ever since our first fortuitous partnership with farmer Tim Wilson and his Longhorn herd in North Yorkshire, we’ve looked for people who believe that if you look after the animals, the land and the people around you, good food tends to follow. 

Then there’s you. Twenty years of birthdays, promotions, break-ups and make-ups. Bad days that turned into better ones. You’ve given our restaurants life, and we’re eternally grateful. 

Two chefs sat at a resturant table laughing