THE FUTURE

HAWKSMOOR NEW YORK

Hawksmoor New York is on the way, no doubt creating new challenges and things to learn. After that, who knows, but the goal is for Hawksmoor to remain what it has always been – restaurants rooted in a love of food, drink and people.

EVOLUTION OF MAN & RESTAURANT

It wasn’t the worst street in London. That, according to the book The Worst Street in London, was 20 seconds’ walk away.¹

But when we opened in 2006 the ladies of the night for whom the area had long been renowned were still plying their trade on the corner opposite, providing some contemporary colour for the Ripper Tour traipsers. Next to them a public telephone box plastered with calling cards acted as the call centre and logistics hub for an entrepreneurial young man who exchanged small bags of white crystals for £20 notes. Our customers sitting by the window had ringside seats.

It was one of the worst-looking restaurants in London. One early review started with ‘Hawksmoor is no looker,’ and most commented on its bland, office-like appearance. Charity shop finds dotted the walls, including a collection of retrotastic 1970s cow plates, failing to disguise the fact that we’d done little more than whitewash the failed Turkish grill that had occupied the space before us.

We tell the full ‘origins’ story in Hawksmoor at Home (pp. 10–13) so we won’t go into too much detail, but in short: we signed the lease on the back of a verbal agreement from a friendly bank manager days before he was sacked for reckless lending. Miraculously, Huw’s parents offered to remortgage their café and home, which, after the rent deposit, provided enough for us to scour eBay for tables and chairs and pick up a dented fryer from Clearance Dave on Bacon Street, but little else. We kept all the other kitchen and bar equipment, soon discovering that little of it was fit for purpose.

We were naïve, but the flip side of naivety is that you can be an eternal optimist, so we felt pretty good about our chances of success, even when all evidence pointed to the contrary. Looking back, it feels to us now that apart from that sense of optimism we had a small number of things going for us ­­– we were passionate, we didn’t underestimate our own ignorance, we worked hard… and we were lucky.

As chaotic, haphazard and downright amateur as it was, for two boys who loved food, drink and restaurants it was a dream come true. We loved the work, and maybe as a result we never lost heart. We were also fully aware of how little we knew. Our mantra then was, ‘Never make the same mistake twice.’ We didn’t always succeed, but we tried. We’ve been lucky in so many ways we could never list them, but in particular we were lucky to find people to learn from, starting with Nick, who waltzed into our lives and demanded a job (see here).

Hawksmoor Spitalfields, as we now call it, may not have been beautiful, efficient or professional, but when it was on its game the food and the hospitality were amazing, and the people who worked there loved it and loved each other (literally: that opening team spawned two weddings and several babies). Over the years our job has in essence been to get these things right at scale. Of the amazing things that have followed, our favourite is regularly appearing in the Sunday Times Best Companies to Work For list, a real rarity in this industry, and one that suggests that with 600 people now working here we’ve managed to hold on to some of the magic from those early days.

We’re older now, although perhaps not wiser, but we have been trying to learn from people who do things significantly better than us for over a decade now and hopefully some of it has rubbed off. Growing up with Hawksmoor has been one of the great joys of our lives – long may it continue.

NICK STRANGEWAY

THE PURPLE-BEARDED DICTATOR

I was almost dictatorial when I went to Will and Huw about their new site.

It was less job interview and more me spelling out what my conditions were. I wanted us to treat staff better than anyone else in the industry, I wanted the freedom to run it my way and I wanted to enjoy it and not get bogged down in spreadsheets. One of the nice things was that they didn’t have much experience in restaurants and I didn’t have much experience managing one, which meant we all had lots of ideas and I got lots of freedom to try things out.

I love being at the birth of a new venture, and I really was at Hawksmoor – I even came up with the name, after walking past Nicholas Hawksmoor’s Christchurch Spitalfields one morning. The opening was disastrous. The head chef went AWOL a week beforehand. Instead of pushing back the opening we decided to still open, just without food – which in retrospect is a pretty strange decision for a new restaurant.

My background was drinks, and I love looking after people. I made sure that everyone who wandered in tried some great drinks and enjoyed themselves. I told them about the amazing beef we’d found and how good it tastes, and how they’d have to come back to try it for themselves. And they did. Eventually a significantly better chef materialised and we started cooking. What had seemed like a disaster was really a blessing in disguise. Then, a few months in, Jay Rayner came along and wrote it up as the best steak he’d ever had in this country, and it all took off from there.

There was a real mix of customers. It was at the height of the ‘bankers spending all the money and consequently ruining the world’ era. They’d come in for lunch during the week full of adrenalin and bravado (as well as other more recreational substances) and they’d competitively out-order each other. The first would order a steak, the next would want a bigger one, and so on. And then the first guy would change his mind and take the biggest of the lot. Evenings and weekends it was a totally different crowd. East London locals and foodies who’d heard about us coming from further afield. Whoever it was we’d treat them all the same way.

I gave all the tables names. I’d show someone to the Robert de Niro table and they’d say, ‘Wow, has he been here?’ ‘No, but if he did I would definitely give him this table.’ The worst table was ‘Timmy Mallet’, poor old Timmy, that was just for walk-ins, or when Will and Huw came in I’d put them there and save the better tables for real customers.

The opening was disastrous. The head chef went AWOL a week beforehand. Instead of pushing back the opening we decided to still open, just without food – which in retrospect is a pretty strange decision for a new restaurant.

One thing we worked really hard on was looking after people. We used to call it ‘running up escalators’. I’d worked before with this amazing old-school maître d’ called John Davey. Whatever was going on he’d make sure that he was at the door when customers arrived and that he’d greet them by name, he really cared about that. Sometimes there’d be customers in the lift and he’d be running up the escalator to get there before them. That’s what we wanted to make it like at Hawksmoor. We had a tiny kitchen, no room to store anything, we had charcoal in the lift and were carving meat on the dumb waiter, but no matter what happened, the customers never saw us running up the escalators.

I gave all the tables names. The worst was ‘Timmy Mallet’, that was just for walk-ins, or when Will and Huw came in.

I guess my legacy, if you could call it that, was in that culture and in the drinks. I wanted to do something different to everyone else, I wanted to focus on British drinks and I wanted a cocktail list people could understand. I also wanted to push gin at a time when everywhere else was all about vodka. We started to tell stories about our drinks, gave customers a bit of historical information, talked about when you might drink it – the talking was almost as important as the drinking. Almost. They kept the ethos to staff too; staff who work at Hawksmoor are invariably the happiest staff you’ll meet in restaurants.

The whole thing was great, but eventually I got frustrated. I loved it a lot but my passion is the early days, starting things up, and a couple of years in I got bored, and I lost my patience with people. I remember throwing out a table one Christmas. They were being horrible and loud and were upsetting people; the next table was practically cowering. I asked them to quieten down, but that wound them up even more. I’d seen on TV how Marco Pierre White dealt with problem customers and thought I’d try the same. I gathered all the staff together and said, ‘Stop what you’re doing, we’re clearing that table.’ We all went over and, while they were still eating, one-by-one we took away every single item until they were sitting around an empty table. I told them there would be no bill and asked them to leave. Some of them came back about half an hour later, apologised profusely and insisted on paying.

Will and Huw could be frustrating. Huw was passionate and really cared, but he’d come and stand by the pass at 8 o’clock on a Friday night and I’d asked him to come and talk to us on Monday morning. When I say ‘asked’, I may have strayed into telling him to fuck off a few times. I’d try to wind them up – I even dyed my beard purple once just to annoy them, but they’re irritatingly calm and took it in their stride. Tim (here) and I were working so hard in service but what I maybe didn’t realise is how hard Will and Huw were working too, watching and learning as much as they could, thinking about how to make things even better.

I’d seen on TV how Marco Pierre White dealt with problem customers and thought I’d try the same. I gathered all the staff together and said, ‘Stop what you’re doing, we’re clearing that table’.

Left to my own devices we’d probably still be in that small restaurant doing 800 covers a week, but to their credit they didn’t do that, they’ve let it grow into the kind of thing it deserves to be. We’re friends now and we’ve worked together on things since – it all comes round in the end, even if you are as rude as I was.

CLARIDGES ON SMACK &
STEAK IN SHORTS

Back in 2006 the person taking your order for the reassuringly expensive chateaubriand and 1998 Sassicaia might have looked like a 16-year-old ‘Sk8ter Boi’ in a pair of oversized shorts and flip-flops.

Or it could have been a feisty blonde waitress wearing hot pants and a bright yellow basketball vest¹. Or a purple-bearded Gandalph².

We were very different to the hushed multi-starred temples of gastronomy some of our more affluent customers frequented. But we might have taken things a bit too far the other way. We took pride in our weird juxtaposition of extreme casualness and high quality – we were, as one early regular put it, ‘like Claridges on smack’. But that’s not why we did it…

When we were encouraged by our fathers to ‘get real jobs’ we noticed that we had to change personality when we stepped into work. Deeply uncomfortable in our cheap suits and proper shoes, we adopted the look, mannerisms, priorities and values that our employers expected, before needing a detour to the pub or a 20-minute shower to recover and feel ourselves once more. We hated it, and when we started our own company we vowed not to inflict the same torture on the people who worked for us.

If that sounds like a problem confined to places like the Wernham Hogg Paper Company in Slough, it isn’t. It’s nothing to do with offices per se – there are plenty of restaurants that require employees to dress, speak and act the same, in fact we’ve heard restaurateurs we respect eloquently explain why they think it an advantage for customers – ‘consistency of experience’ is the rough answer.

The thing is we don’t feel that way. We want people to be themselves, and if your experience on table 14 is a bit different to those on table 53 then no problem, as long as the standard of the experience is the same. That’s why people wear their own clothes and part of the reason why so many people are happy to work here (which also impacts how they treat you, the customer).

When we moved beyond scruffy East London we thought long and hard about dropping the ‘wear what you want’. Would it work in the West End? Would it work in the City? Would it work just off Piccadilly, a stone’s throw from Mayfair? Each time we wondered whether customers would really go for it, whether we were pushing them too far, but each time we decided that it was a part of who we are and we’d like to succeed or fail on our own terms. Thankfully it seems to have worked.

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET
& A SPURNED LOVER

‘Excuse me, but one of your customers is urinating through our letterbox.’

We were mortified and ashamed. And out of our depth. It was our first December and we’d been surprised both by the pre-Christmas rush and by an influx of pre-financial-crash Wolf of Wall Street types. Word of our large cuts had got around and tables of traders vied to out-order each other. Steaks we thought were for two or three were being eaten by one, washed down with big reds (a bottle each) and amaretto (a bottle for the table to share – a strange ritual that seemed to be a thing that year). Most ate too much and drank too much but by and large behaved themselves; this particular gentleman did not.

Through the power of hospitality, a bottle of good red and a new doormat (thankfully the only item sullied in the incident) the neighbour was placated, and subsequently became a regular and a friend. Other dramas from those early days included an epic street brawl that broke out on our doorstep after a Russian night in the dodgy nightclub below (now Spitalfields Bar – here) descended into chaos. And, on the night our first reviewer came in, a waiter’s spurned lover taking it out on our collection of antique punchbowls and vintage glassware, the fruits of many cross-eyed hours scrolling through eBay.

Thankfully the reviewer saw past the glass-shattering theatrics. His conclusion might sound to some like damning with faint praise, but Hawksmoor definitely isn’t a shrine to haute cuisine – the quality of the food is massively important, but so too is that everyone who comes really enjoys themselves while they’re with us. Over the years a fear has been that we might succumb to the blandification that often overcomes restaurant groups as they grow. We like to think that we’ve fought off that one. The thinking person’s TGI Fridays? We’ll take it.

WHAT WE THINK ABOUT
WHEN WE THINK ABOUT STEAK

Having conversed at considerable length in our first book about beef,¹ there’s a real risk that we could disappear down the rabbit hole and ramble on again for 20 more pages in this one.

Instead, we thought we’d neatly summarise our attitude to steak in as few words as possible, then let two of our grill chefs tell it how it is on the front line during a busy service.

HONOUR THE LIFE OF THE ANIMAL

This may strike you as an odd thing for a steak restaurant to say, but in fact it’s only relatively recently that people stopped thinking in this way about their food. Before meat grew in shrink-wrapped packages on supermarket shelves it came from real animals that were hunted or lived on a scrap of land nearby. There was a more direct connection to the source and post-kill rituals honouring the life lived and giving respect and gratitude for the animal’s death were commonplace (and still are where this link remains). Here’s how we think about doing the same:

1 ____ Make sure the animal leads a life worth living – plenty of space, well cared for and living to a decent age eating the food they were born to eat: grass. An added benefit is that your steak will taste better; the key to good steak is happy cattle. And it will be better for you; as the erudite omnivore Michael Pollen says, ‘You are what what you eat eats’, and grass with its complex mix of nutrients far outscores the industrial alternative: grain.

2 ____ Make sure the animal has a humane death – minimal stress and every conceivable effort to remove all risk of pain. No meat eater could disagree with Temple Grandin, a professor of Animal Science whose autism led to an empathy with animals that helped her revolutionise abattoir practices around the world: ‘I think using animals for food is an ethical thing to do, but we’ve got to do it right. We’ve got to give those animals a decent life and we’ve got to give them a painless death. We owe the animal respect.’

3 ____ Don’t eat too much meat, but when you do, make sure it’s the good stuff. ‘Eating is an agricultural act’, said the farmer-poet-activist Wendell Berry. Every time we eat we send out a message about how we want food to be produced.

4 ____ Don’t eat too much meat, but when you do, cook it properly and eat the lot. There’s nothing worse than throwing away meat, which implies the animal died for nothing. This is one of the reasons we always offer doggy bags for take-home leftovers.

Of course there are nuances about age, breed, cooking methods and other things, but you’ll find that all the right kind of omnivores could agree on the above. If you’d like to read a little more about the kind of person we buy from, see our interview with Howard Blackwell.

FEEL THE FORCE

Although Yoda was training Luke to become a Jedi and engage in an epic battle with his own father for his soul and the future of the universe, his words wouldn’t be too out of place in a grill chef’s training manual. Here’s Phillip Branch, Head Chef at Hawksmoor Guildhall, talking about those who manage to find the Force:

And Richard Turner (here), our very own Obi Wan:

PREPARE OR FAIL

Mindful grilling is just one of the three skills needed to master the job. For the next we need to turn to another green-hued sage: Roy Keane. Perturbed by the Republic of Ireland’s preparations for the 2002 World Cup (a frustration that eventually saw him thrown out of the team for telling his manager to stick the World Cup up his bollocks), he famously misquoted Benjamin Franklin by telling his team: ‘Fail to prepare, prepare to fail!’

The same is true of being a grill chef. You must know your meat, of course: looking, touching and smelling it when it comes in. You must have done your butchery expertly: fat always facedown on the board, gliding not sawing the knife, always cleaning as you go, both your board and your knife. You must have stored appropriately: steak keeps best in whole pieces but for service lay individual steaks between ‘butchers’ or ‘peach’ paper in a fridge that’s not set too cold. And you must have a large pot of salt ready, we use Maldon. Unless you’re absolutely ready then calm mind never happen will.

KEEP ON MOVIN’

Our final piece of advice comes from another group of men that suffered from the occasional disagreement – pop legends 5ive. As the hit track from their album Invincible had it – Keep on Movin’. A great grill chef has a calm mind but a quick body, they are constantly moving the steaks. When you’ve got 50 steaks on that means you move all the time too – making sure the char is perfect on each one (no Harvester griddle criss-cross for us) and that there are no flare ups (when the fat from the steaks catches fire on the charcoal, which burns the steaks).

Wendell Berry, Yoda, Roy Keane and ‘Abs’. In your mind quite different people; in ours they each hold one of the secrets to a perfect Hawksmoor steak.

ROBERT WOZNICA

SENIOR SOUS CHEF, GUILDHALL

I like the grill. I like the pressure. I know it sounds odd, but I find it quite easy.

My day usually starts around 7 a.m. if it’s a big delivery. We receive about half a ton of meat every day and we have to make sure it’s all perfect. We have to check the quality, the weight, make sure the ratio of muscle to fat is right (about 10–15% fat). We check to make sure it’s been aged perfectly and then we start butchering. Before I slice a piece of meat I hold it in my hands – I need to feel it to gauge how dense it is: we have to cut perfect steaks to a perfect weight with only a 5g margin of error and we have to make sure the meat is always a minimum of 4cm thick – perfect for charcoal grilling. Every grill chef has a slightly different way of working – our own style within the parameters Hawksmoor sets. For me, getting the fridge drawers set up in a certain way is really important; that way I don’t have to look or really even think when I need a steak, I just reach for it.

About 11 a.m. I get the grill going. The coal has to be burnt down enough so it’s perfect to cook on and so you don’t get the flavour of the coal, and we have to constantly top it up throughout service. We’re constantly moving around, pushing and pouring charcoal, balancing the heat on the grill and the Josper¹ all day.

We’re constantly moving around, pushing and pouring charcoal, balancing the heat on the grill… on a busy night you can drink six litres of water during service.

I throw the seasoning at the steak and whatever clings on to the meat is the right amount – if it falls off you don’t need it. Raw steaks go on the back of the grill where it’s hottest, and once the first steak hits the grill then it’s constant movement. You’re moving the steak 5 degrees every 5 seconds to make sure you get a good even crust, constantly touching them with your fingers to check the level of cooking and moving them towards the front of grill as they cook. For bigger cuts we move them from the grill to the Josper. We cook around 70 steaks every half an hour here. It sounds like a lot, but if you get on top of it it’s OK.

We do that for hours and it can be pretty hot in front of the grill, so it is a lot of work for your body. On a busy night in December you can drink six litres of water during service. Maybe I got stressed at the beginning – but now I don’t, I can’t afford to. When you get stressed you can’t think properly. I always say to chefs starting on the grill, everything you need is in your head, start from there. I think you can tell from the way someone moves whether they’ll be a good grill chef or not. Some people move very fast and you can see they’re thinking a lot, that’s good. If you keep moving and you concentrate on quality, then at the end of the day you see happy customers and it’s all worth it.

PAWEL WIDOMSKI

SENIOR SOUS CHEF, SEVEN DIALS

People come to Hawksmoor for the steak, so it has to be perfect.

If you’re on the grill, it’s your job to make it perfect, so you’re under pressure. I’d been here a couple of months when I got my start on the grill. I was a CDP at Guildhall, and the Head Chef taught me the Hawksmoor way. I’d cooked steaks but on gas, which is really responsive – it’s like painting by numbers. With charcoal you have to have a feel for it.

Sometimes the first check is on the dot of 12, sometimes we get a breather until 10 past. We season the meat first, then seal it on the back of the grill where it’s hottest, moving it all the time and bringing it closer to you as it cooks. Making sure you get a good colour, a proper Maillard reaction. Most of our steaks are medium rare – when I’m looking at the checks the cuisson stands out to me if it’s anything else – my brain only engages if it says rare or well done.

We have people come and eat at all times of the day at Seven Dials, so we might start cooking on the grill at 12 and it only stops at midnight. That means we have to keep the charcoal perfect all day, and we have to manage our time as well as possible. You can’t do a double shift on the grill – you just can’t keep the concentration levels. I say it to the grill chefs all the time: take your time, concentrate, make the steak perfect.

The grill isn’t like any other part of the kitchen; to learn takes time… I’ve been doing the grill for four years and I’m still learning.

The customer is always right – if someone says it’s not medium and they want another steak, even if we think it is medium, we give them another steak. On a Saturday night one or two tables like that can ruin your night, so we have to get the cuisson right first time. When you’ve been cooking steaks for a long time you know it by touch, but every piece of meat can be slightly different so you have to use the probe, particularly on the big cuts. We often serve the large steaks sliced, and if you slice into it and it’s not perfect you can’t go back, you can’t finish that on the salamander as it makes it tough. Some places might do but not Hawksmoor.