Hawksmoor Air Street

301 Moved Permanently

Exclusive hire for 235 people in the restaurant and 70 in the bar Air Street is the perfect space for a wide range of events including award ceremonies, film premiere parties and cocktail receptions.

For information on private hire and events, please contact our events team:

http://thehawksmoor.com

Review: Hawksmoor Air Street, London | London restaurants

The crowd on my visit wasn’t as male-dominated as I’ve noticed at other branches of Hawksmoor, and half the room seemed to be in T-shirts.

The cocktail menu at the new Hawksmoor details the style of drink according to time of day, from the Toper’s Timetable of the 19th century.

There are none of the distinctive Hawksmoor chalkboards at the new location to tell you what cuts of cow are still available, and – here’s the key USP – half the menu is seafood.

None of your rubbish surf and turf, though; rather thrillingly, Hawksmoor approaches fish in the same rugged, no-nonsense (and inherently expensive) way as it does meat.

At Air Street, I kicked off with a dozen native oysters, continued with potted beef and bacon with Yorkshire puddings (a fiddly but delicious take on a roast dinner) and then got stuck into a Royal bream with a particularly lush Australian Battle of Bosworth Pinot Noir.

Hawksmoor Air Street | Seafood and Steak Restaurant

“If a city gets the restaurants it deserves then London has clearly been a very good girl of late.

[Hawksmoor Air Street] is everything you would want it to be and quite a bit more.”

Jay Rayner, Observer Located in an Art Deco room overlooking Regent Street, the menu at Hawksmoor Air Street is equally-weighted between steak and seafood.

We’ve teamed up with Mitch Tonks, the chef/owner of one of the best seafood restaurants in the country, to mastermind the fish side of things, not least by ensuring that we receive the freshest produce possible straight from Brixham market in Devon.

The entrance to the restaurant is on the short stretch of Air Street between Piccadilly and Regent Street.

Hawksmoor Air Street - London | Restaurant Review | The Arbuturian

Building on the success of their Shoreditch, Seven Dials, and Guildhall restaurants, Hawksmoor on Air Street sets out to do something different, declaring that “man cannot live on steak alone” and introducing seafood to its menu.

Hawksmoor has teamed up with The Seahorse’s Mitch Tonks to produce a simple yet decadent restaurant that is set to become a true benchmark for eating out in London.

There is something very protective about this Hawksmoor: it envelops its diners amid art deco mirrors, directing their attention inwards against the bright bustle of Piccadilly lights, which become colourful shapes through its imposing stained glass windows.

Somewhere inside, I know I should be ordering fish for a main, but such is Hawksmoor’s carnivorous draw that I struggle to pull my eyes away from the golden letters spelling STEAKS on the menu.

On leaving, it strikes me that Hawksmoor has achieved something extraordinary: to build a new restaurant that feels like it has been here forever.

Hawksmoor Air Street, London W1, restaurant review - Telegraph

I had the D-rump steak (£20), with bone-marrow gravy (£3) and deep-fried oysters (£14).

I partly blame myself, I partly blame the descriptions on the menu, but I do very slightly believe the kitchen isn't thinking hard enough about what people want to eat, what they want next to it, and how to make a steak really memorable, rather than a chore.

D's fish was good, but not outstanding, and he couldn't picture the creature sea-leaping – though, for sure, we could both imagine how big it must have been.

Try the 45-day-aged rump, hung for double the standard time to add flavour (£25 for 400g) Serving everything from classic steak frites (£14.50) to an 8oz fillet of highly prized, marbled wagyu (at a whopping £55), this stylish restaurant has a cut for every appetite (and budget).

Starters such as duck salad with a gingery soy dressing (£7.95), and tiger prawns with a spicy ponzu dip (£8.75) offer sprightly, fresh flavours before the main event – expertly cooked steaks including a 10oz rib-eye glazed with red wine (£21.95)

Hawksmoor Air Street | Piccadilly Steak Restaurant | London ...

Hawksmoor Air Street | Picadilly Steak Restaurant Hawksmoor’s reputation for serving London’s best steak –  “dictionary-thick”, Ginger Pig-reared, 35-day hung, Longhorn Cattle grilled over charcoals and served with triple-cooked chips – is pretty well established.

Which is why Hawksmoor Air Street – located in a sprawling, first-floor Art Deco-inspired space complete with a bar akin to Claridges’ “Fumoir”; a solid brass wall (formed by a run of reclaimed 1930’s lift doors) dividing it from the restaurant; huge stained glass windows overlooking Regent Street; a floor from an old RAF base and table tops sourced from the chemistry labs of British public schools – does seafood.

While “doing seafood” for most restaurants would simply mean “cooking fish”, for Hawksmoor it meant uncovering the best seafood restaurant in Britain (they chose The Seahorse in Devon); kidnapping its chef, Mitch Tonks; bringing him up to London in a Transit van and stealing contacts from his iPhone in order to guarantee a direct supply of fresh fish to the restaurant.

NOTE: BOOK NOW Hawksmoor Air Street | 5A Air Street, Picadilly, London W1J 0AD   Enjoy quality dining experiences?

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Hawksmoor Air Street restaurant review 2013 January London ...

The original Spitalfields branch built the reputation, based on using a high quality meat supplier and pitching a fairly priced wine list.

The wine list showed a level of seriousness that one would not expect in such a large restaurant.

Example wines included Domaine du Haut Bourg, Sauvignon Blanc 2011 at £22 for a wine that you can find in the high street for a tenner, Isabel Estate Sauvignon Blanc 2011 at £45 for a wine that retails at £14, and Langoureau ‘La Garenne’ Puligny-Montrachet 2009 at £85 for a wine that will set you back around £37 in a shop.

Vegetables were good too: triple cooked chips were reasonably crisp, winter greens were delicately cooked, and Jansson’s temptation (an onion gratin) was nicely executed (14/20 for the extras).

This to me is the big question mark over Hawksmoor: the ingredients are good, the cooking is fine, but how many people will be willing to pay this price for what is basically some nicely grilled food?

Hawksmoor Air Street | Mayfair, Belgravia | Restaurant Reviews ...

Hawksmoor Air Street, London W1, restaurant review - Telegraph

I had the D-rump steak (£20), with bone-marrow gravy (£3) and deep-fried oysters (£14).

I partly blame myself, I partly blame the descriptions on the menu, but I do very slightly believe the kitchen isn't thinking hard enough about what people want to eat, what they want next to it, and how to make a steak really memorable, rather than a chore.

D's fish was good, but not outstanding, and he couldn't picture the creature sea-leaping – though, for sure, we could both imagine how big it must have been.

Try the 45-day-aged rump, hung for double the standard time to add flavour (£25 for 400g) Serving everything from classic steak frites (£14.50) to an 8oz fillet of highly prized, marbled wagyu (at a whopping £55), this stylish restaurant has a cut for every appetite (and budget).

Starters such as duck salad with a gingery soy dressing (£7.95), and tiger prawns with a spicy ponzu dip (£8.75) offer sprightly, fresh flavours before the main event – expertly cooked steaks including a 10oz rib-eye glazed with red wine (£21.95)

Restaurant review: Hawksmoor Air Street, London W1 | Life and ...

Meal for two, including wine and service: £150 If a city gets the restaurants it deserves then London has clearly been a very good girl of late.

At Hawksmoor Air Street even something as simple as the anchovy hollandaise gets me excitable.

The restaurants that have preceded this – in Shoreditch, Seven Dials and Guildhall – have proved that it's possible to dedicate a kitchen to seared bits of aged cow without assuming a faux American accent; that there really is such a thing as a British steak house.

It's a stonkingly good tranche of fish, roasted on the bone then finished over the grill to give a light char, and clearly comes from a large animal, which is as it should be.

Alongside this we order a side of Jansson's temptation, a Swedish dish, interleaving scalloped potatoes with salted fish, onions and cream, and then long cooked.

Hawksmoor Air Street | Restaurants in Piccadilly Circus, London

London's best steakhouse chain branches out to surf 'n' turf with this Mayfair outpost that mixes luxury seafood with top-quality meat.

The original Hawksmoor restaurants – Spitalfields, City, Covent Garden – are among London’s best steakhouses.

This fourth location, with its entrance on Air Street at the Piccadilly Circus tip of Mayfair, is the company’s first attempt at an upscale seafood restaurant – and it’s got it right first time.

Good quality meat’s not cheap, and neither is good seafood.

A signature dish of ‘Hawksmoor cut’ turbot is, like its finer cuts of beef, priced by weight – in this case £12 per 100g.