Hawksmoor’s weekend brunch

Sometimes you really need a serious, meat-charged breakfast. After a heavy Friday or Saturday night on the lash you may find yourself with such requirements; you will be well served by Hawksmoor’s weekend brunch.

First thing to say when you stagger in there is that you need their £14 bottomless bloody mary offering and that you need them as heroic as they can manage. This is as many BMs as you can drink made with horseradish-infused gin and Meantime stout; top stuff to thrash your mind into working order. Stick with this recipe as when I tried one of their cucumber flavoured options I found the flavour insipid and lacking the interest of the bottomless mix.

[image image_id=2317 title=”Bottomless Bloody Marys at Hawksmoor” align=”left ]

When you feel sufficiently rejuvenated you can look at the breakfast options, which are these:

[image image_id=2413 title=”Brunch menu at Hawksmoor” align=”right” ]

I cut off the vegetarian description because if that is what you are interested in then you are reading the wrong blog. If you order it at Hawksmoor you deserve to have everyone in the restaurant point at you and laugh; its London’s best meat restaurant so you eat meat there. We shared a couple of the Hawksmoor breakfasts and they were an undoubted success with only one small niggle.

[image image_id=2318 title=”IMG_3927″ align=”left”]

Let’s get that one problem over and done with: the black pudding was deeply under-cooked. They should have been sliced in half and fried/grilled until they had a decent crust; it only takes a few minutes per side. Only a minor problem, though, because when you are served what is pictured below how can you be unhappy?

[image image_id=2319 title=”A plate of cooked protein” align=”left ]

To be brief, everything (apart from the black pudding) was the very best you could ask for in a cooked breakfast.

The sausages were first-rate, the best I have had made by the Ginger Pig. Indeed, once Hawksmoor gave the Ginger Pig the recipe for them they asked if they could make more than Hawksmoor required so they could sell them in their shops. I admit I probably could not tell they were made from pork, beef and mutton, but they certainly had a really pleasingly rich meaty character and a dense consistency which showed them to be proper sausages not made with vast quantities of vile filler.

[image image_id=2321 title=”Bone marrow and eggs at Hawksmoor” align=”right” ]

I am always very happy to see bone marrow on a menu and it strikes me as a thoroughly marvellous thing to be eating for breakfast. It is important to dig out and eat up every last morsel of the bone marrow (see right) as it is not only screamingly delicious but also manifestly good for you. It is good for me, I know, I’ve tried it.

[image image_id=2322 title=”Bubble and squeak with braised beef at Hawksmoor” align=”left” ]

Bubble and squeak has never been a dish that has enflamed my culinary sensibilities but Hawksmoor have enhanced this normally tedious dish with the addition of a very high density of lumps of braised beef. The picture left may not quite capture their scrumptious character but they were super-tasty and made bubble and squeak worth eating for a change.

The only problem with the smoked bacon chop was that there were not five of them each. They had a brilliant pork-tastic meatiness enhanced by a subtle smoke character. Seriously tasty bits of meat that you just want to show off to the whole world (see right).

The trotter-fortified beans were full of flavour and the dripping toast tweaked my happy bits in terms of being bread enhanced by soaking in animal fat. Even the eggs were very tasty; clearly sourced from happier chickens than those responsible for Mr Tesco’s value range.

This may not be the cheapest breakfast in London, but it is certainly the best I’ve had. Even the under-cooked black pudding and vapid cucumber BM did not result in this experience being anything less than highly enjoyable. You can tell we enjoyed it as this was all that remained of our large piles of breakfast.

[image image_id=2323 title=”The remains of our Hawksmoor breakfasts” size=”full”]

Contact details: Hawksmoor, 157 Commerical Street, E1 6BJ Telephone: 020 7247 7392