Best cocktails in London: the freezing martini at Hawksmoor
Next in our recommendations for the best cocktails in London, the freezing martini at Hawksmoor
While we wait for the announcement about the new James Bond, pass the time at the Hawksmoor, with its new ultrasonic homogeniser martini.
Like drinking a super-refined slush puppy, it has a thicker consistency, adding texture to the drink’s formidable kick. Bartenders send sound waves through the liquid to give it a silky texture, and then chill it to minus 12 degrees Celcius, which head bartender Liam Davy says is optimal.
Try it at the reopened subterranean cocktail bar beneath the Spitalfields outpost, twice named world’s best restaurant cocktail bar, now open on Fridays and Saturdays evenings. Hawksmoor.com, 157a Commercial Street, London E1 6BJ
Read more: Hawksmoor’s Will Beckett is ready to take on the American steakhouses
Ali Lyon sits down with Hawksmoor boss Will Beckett to discuss the restaurant’s plans to win over the land of steakhouses
Will Beckett is a self-professed ‘beef bore’.
Granted, as the co-founder of Hawksmoor, one of the most successful and – if the panoply of awards it has picked up are anything to go by – best steak restaurant chains in the world, it would be concerning if he wasn’t.
But during an hour-long interview with City PM he apologises no fewer than four times for slipping passionately into the more arcane elements of his job, be that grading of beef, sourcing happy, tasty cows, and serving the meat of those cows at such a volume to generate £100m in annual sales.
That he remains so passionate about the granular elements of his restaurants is probably just as well, given the new chapter on which his firm is embarking.
And with the process of finding a suitor under way but”not at fruition yet”, the restaurateur has his sights set on a market that knows a thing or two about what separates an average steak from a great one.
“Our focus is America,” he tells City PM while forking onto his plate a slice of award-winning fillet steak. “That’s not to say it’s exclusively where we’ll open. We’ve always thought that if something brilliant comes up in the UK, then of course we’ll do it… but the US is where the majority of our attention is.”
Read the full interview with the Hawksmoor founder here.