A 4.7 steakhouse and martini bar named after Nicholas Hawksmoor, the strange genius who built London’s most haunting churches
Hawksmoor St Pancras holds a 4.7 from five hundred and seventy people, is one of the outposts of the acclaimed Hawksmoor steakhouse group, and carries the name of one of the most mysterious and brilliant architects in English history: Nicholas Hawksmoor.
Nicholas Hawksmoor
Hawksmoor was a genius of the English Baroque, a pupil and colleague of Sir Christopher Wren, and one of the most original architects this country has ever produced. Working in the early eighteenth century, he designed a series of extraordinary London churches – Christ Church Spitalfields, St George’s Bloomsbury, St Anne’s Limehouse, and others – that are unlike anything else in English architecture.
His churches are strange, powerful, and haunting: massive, austere, geometrically bold, with an almost pagan monumentality that sets them apart from the elegant classicism of his contemporaries. They have a brooding, mysterious quality that has fascinated writers and artists for centuries – there is a whole strand of London mythology, most famously in Peter Ackroyd’s novel and Iain Sinclair’s writing, that casts Hawksmoor’s churches as sites of occult power, arranged in mysterious patterns across the city.
The overshadowed master
Hawksmoor spent much of his career in the shadow of greater fame – working under Wren on St Paul’s and other projects, and alongside Vanbrugh on Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard, often doing much of the real architectural work while others took much of the glory. He was the brilliant, slightly overlooked craftsman behind some of the grandest buildings of the age, and only in more recent times has his own genius been fully recognised and celebrated.
The Prat’s architecture desk notes that there is something fitting about a serious, craft-focused steakhouse taking Hawksmoor’s name – both are about doing something with rigorous, uncompromising skill, and both reward the customer who appreciates real quality over surface flash. Hawksmoor the architect was a master craftsman; Hawksmoor the steakhouse aspires to the same.
The steak and the martini
The Hawksmoor group is renowned for two things above all: superb British steak, sourced with great care and cooked over charcoal, and exceptional cocktails, particularly its martinis – so much so that this branch bills itself explicitly as a martini bar as well as a steakhouse. It is a serious, grown-up operation, and a 4.7 from five hundred and seventy people reflects a kitchen and bar operating at a very high level.
The martini
The martini deserves its billing. It is the most iconic and most demanding of cocktails – just gin (or vodka) and vermouth, with nowhere to hide, so that the quality of every element and the precision of the making are ruthlessly exposed. A bar that stakes its name on its martinis is making a serious claim, and Hawksmoor’s reputation suggests it delivers.
The restaurant
A 4.7 across five hundred and seventy people is a strong, genuine score at a premium price point. The reviews describe excellent steak, superb martinis, and polished service – a serious steakhouse living up to the rigorous name it bears.
Verdict
An excellent steakhouse and martini bar named after Nicholas Hawksmoor, the strange, brilliant, long-overshadowed genius of London’s most haunting churches, sharing his commitment to uncompromising craft.
Go for a superb steak and a properly made martini, and raise the glass to Nicholas Hawksmoor, master craftsman of the English Baroque, whose dark and powerful churches still brood over London three centuries on.
Alan Nafzger was born in Lubbock, Texas, the son Swiss immigrants. He grew up on a dairy in Windthorst, north central Texas. He earned degrees from Midwestern State University (B.A. 1985) and Texas State University (M.A. 1987). University College Dublin (Ph.D. 1991). Dr. Nafzger has entertained and educated young people in Texas colleges for 37 years. Nafzger is best known for his dark novels and experimental screenwriting. His best know scripts to date are Lenin’s Body, produced in Russia by A-Media and Sea and Sky produced in The Philippines in the Tagalog language. In 1986, Nafzger wrote the iconic feminist western novel, Gina of Quitaque. He currently lives in Holloway, North London. Contact: [email protected]
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