Hawksmoor is a stone's throw up Commercial St from my last breakfast outing at The Luxe. Long a retreat for City workers with expenses budgets and beef lovers in the know, Hawksmoor has been serving Ginger Pig sourced beef of many breeds since 2006. Having opened another site in Covent Garden to much critical acclaim last year, I thought this was a good opportunity to go back to the original and sample it's breakfast credentials.
Having noted the exceptional brunch menu, which features everything from Tamworth bacon and eggs to a sausage and egg muffin, I was left with one choice; the signature Hawksmoor Breakfast. Coming for two to share, this beast of a morning meal includes no less that 12 items, all quite exceptional in their own right: Smoked Bacon Chop, Sausages (Pork, Beef & Mutton), Bury Black Pudding, Short Rib Bubble & Squeak, Grilled Bone Marrow, Trotter Baked Beans, Fried Eggs, Grilled Mushrooms, Roast Tomatoes, Unlimited Dripping Toast & HP, Onion and Bone Marrow Gravy
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| Breakfast for two.. or three |
Clearly not for the faint-hearted, the breakfast arrived in a piping hot cast iron pan direct from the oven, with gravy and beans on the side. Quite taken aback by the sheer volume of the dish's contents, we started on the three sausages which were meaty and satisfyingly complex in flavour. The chop was expertly cooked and probably the most refreshingly novel aspect of the meal given the limp and watery bacon often slapped on your plate as part of a typical full English. Sat their carving the bacon off the bone mid-morning and scarping bone marrow onto toast made me a feel a little cheeky, but then again there is nothing wrong with a hearty breakfast to set you up for the day! The Bury Black Pudding added to this heartiness and would have been a dream sandwich filler if others ever found it acceptable to put HP and pudding between bread at lunch.
Aside from the meaty elements, I was particularly impressed with the beans which made the usual canned effort seem lacklustre, one-dimensional and watery. Rich, slightly spicy and full of pork flavour, they were probably the best beans I have ever had, though not dissimilar from some recent home cooked efforts. That said, something about the richness of the breakfast as a whole made me yearn for a less filling flavour, with only the tomatoes to refresh the taste buds and no clear sign of a bloody mary anywhere to be seen on the menu; surely with such an hearty and original approach to the meal itself, drinks would be more than an after thought?
It is difficult to really do this breakfast justice without resorting to the cliche that I haven't ever had anything quite like it. From the provenance of the meat to the attention paid to the otherwise secondary elements (the bubble and squeak was excellent too), this is both a breakfast of champions and a champion breakfast. At £35 per head a Hawksmoor breakfast won't be a weekly event, but if you are looking for a hearty and truly delicious morning meal, look no further... just have a long walk planned after to work it off!
Scoring: 9/10
Visit it: Hawksmoor
Find it: Map
Pay for it: £35-£40/head
