Beckett Will - Hawksmoor: restaurants & recipes

CONTENTS

History of the Martini,
Drinks for all times of the day

ABOUT THE BOOK

From inauspicious beginnings, Hawksmoor has become a restaurant institution. Both the company and the restaurants have won numerous awards, and the distinctly British food, revolving around charcoal-grilled steaks and seafood, has made Hawksmoor amongst the busiest restaurants in the country. Now with seven restaurants, including a dedicated cocktail bar, Hawksmoor brings you Restaurants & Recipes, an essential read for anyone interested in the realities of restaurants, revealing the trials and tribulations faced along the way, as well as the people, places and plates that have made it so successful. From refined, tweaked and perfected Hawksmoor favourites like Mac n Cheese to the Steak Slice that caused a social media storm, and from a light and elegant Lobster Slaw to big carnivorous sharing feasts, this book will make you look at the classics anew and fall in love with a whole new collection of dishes for the first time. Bringing together recipes from all the Hawksmoor restaurants, and with insights like how to cook the titans of steaks like the Tomahawk, and the intricate cocktail spec sheets used by the bar staff, Hawksmoor: Restaurants & Recipes is the ultimate bible for booze and beefy perfection an immaculately researched, sometimes irreverent look into Hawksmoors obsessions and inspirations.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Huw Gott and Will Beckett have been best friends since they were eleven, and are the owners and co-founders of Hawksmoor.

This book is dedicated to three people who we wish were still with us: Trevor, Wills stepdad a source of knowledge, opinions, grounded support and wine; Gwen, an exceptional cook who inspired Huw from an early age and loved bringing the Welsh side of the family along to Hawksmoor; and Marios, a kind-hearted artist and a bright light at Seven Dials.

INTRODUCTION

Small is beautiful.
Everything gets worse as it gets bigger.
Chains are evil.

Wed seen it happen: a favourite little neighbourhood joint opens a second, then a third and a fourth, and then at some point grey-suited investors get involved and before you know it, that lovely little Gizmo has multiplied into an army of Gremlins. The foods not the same, the interiors are copy-and-paste identikit, everyone talks in staff-manual speak. Management-by-spreadsheet has ripped the soul out of it all.

So when we opened a scruffy little restaurant in 2006, we told ourselves that there would never be a second.

But, as with everything weve done, things didnt quite go to plan. Ten (and a half) years on and weve just opened the seventh, and weve signed on the dotted line for the eighth in New York.

All the way through weve had the fear, Walter Whites words of warning ringing in our ears: Maybe he flew too close to the sun, got his throat cut. For us that would mean compromising on the things we care most about: that everyone who comes to the restaurants has a really good time when theyre with us, enjoys great food and drink and gets well looked after; the quality and richness of the lives of the people we work with; and, without wanting to sound too happy-clappy, the feeling that the company we run contributes positively to the world around us. Looking back, what were most proud of is that instead of diluting and compromising as weve grown, we believe that were now doing these things better than we ever have before.

Weve learnt that growth can be good. Its meant that weve been able to get significantly more talented people than us involved at every step of the way, and, once theyve joined us, its enabled them to take on more and more responsibility and develop a meaningful career.

Its also meant that weve been able to have a more positive impact generally: working really hard to become the best place to work in the industry; doing more and raising more for the charities we support; and, through our work around sustainability, hopefully showing that an ethical steak restaurant isnt necessarily an oxymoron. And while weve always dreaded anyone tarnishing us with the chain label, weve never really thought that they are evil. In truth, some of the biggest chain names out there have been kind of lifelong companions, sporadic sources of comfort and joy ever since we were kids together. A worthy goal for any restaurant to aspire to.

Hawksmoors roots lie in multiple failures, an inordinate amount of luck and the kind of naivety that usually leads to bankruptcy. Our ten-year anniversary has led to lots of reminiscing about those early days and, to use a tired X Factor clich, the journey. The horror moments fires, fights, flirting with financial ruin as well as the good: the pinch-yourself moments, the lifelong friendships, the meals. In this book well explore some of these and highlight the people whove helped to make it all possible. Hawksmoor really is a story about people, and over the years our relationships with those people have become some of the most important in our lives. Wed like to introduce you to some of them, and to share the food and drink recipes that weve refined and enjoyed with them over more than a decade.

We hope you enjoy the book and the restaurants as much as weve enjoyed being part of creating them.

Will and Huw

HAWKSMOOR TIMELINE

SUMMER

Two babies, one fat, one thin, are born into food families. Within 11 years wed become brothers-from-other-mothers.

JANUARY

We find a failed kebab shop on a dodgy East London street ().

MARCH

Nick Strangeway waltzes into our lives and demands a job ().

JUNE

HAWKSMOOR SPITALFIELDS OPENS

The kebab shop becomes a steakhouse. Hawksmoor is born ().

JULY

Tim Gould arrives, bringing silver-service skills, baggy shorts and flip-flops ().

SUMMER

We burn Richard Turners steak. Twice ().