Hawksmoor Guildhall — Restaurant in London

Very poor service, food arrived after 2 hours, manager wrote off the bill, won’t come back. We were a group of 7, some having travelled from outside London for a birthday celebration. We’ve been to other branches before, and at that price point we knew what to expect—hence the choice to celebrate the birthday here. However the service was dysfunctional:

From the start it was difficult getting the attention of the waiters. It was 5pm and the restaurant was less than half full. I had to walk up to a waiter to get service after trying and failing to get their attention multiple times.

We finally ordered. At some point we asked for more water and another beer, but it never came. We asked again, the waitress said it’s coming. After a while we asked again, waitress said it’s coming. Finally I get up, walk over to a bunch of waiters and ask for it again. They had a bottle of water right at the POS which the waitress placed at the table promptly. Why did I have to get up?

We arrived at 5pm, but at 6:40 no food had arrived. We ask repeatedly, and various weak excuses such as “it’s taking longer because of allergy requirements/because the steak was ordered well done” were given. We call for the manager and some food does start coming at 6:50.

The steak arrived but our starters (which we asked to come at the same time as the mains) had not. We ask again for them and eventually they come.

When the food came they asked us to pass the plates round to each other. Excuse me, who is paying, and who is getting paid? They also came with one less plate than was required.

The manager says all the food has arrived. We ask him where the burger was, and he says he doesn’t see it in the system. The burger “without cheese, well done and with chips and eggs” that we discussed with the waitress at initial order was not in the system.

Also, we had asked for extra eggs with the steak right at the start. But there was so much going wrong we didn’t bother bringing it up.

The waitress was cleaning another table and dropped a fork onto the birthday girl. She didn’t apologise. Some basic manners please?

To add insult to injury, we saw many other tables who arrived later than us getting their food way before us. Felt a bit like an expensive slap in the face.

If you have read this far, congratulations. If this was a hole-in-the-wall

It’s not very often that we leave a restaurant as impressed as we did on Friday night! From the moment we were met by the colleagues at front of house and descended the stairs to the restaurant, we felt at home. We were met immediately on arrival in the restaurant and taken to lovely table where we knew we would feel very comfortable - a corner table that enabled us to sit next to rather than opposite each other, which for us is a very lovely way to enjoy a romantic dinner.

Daria introduced herself to us as our sever for the evening and immediately made an impression on us by engaging in conversation and complimenting my wife on her appearance. She took time to explain aspects of the menu that we asked about and made recommendations to guide our choice which we were incredibly grateful for - she was spot on with those suggestions!

When the food arrived, our ribs starter almost blew our minds. Following we had the most incredible steaks, with monkfish, Caesar salad and triple cooked fries, with stunning “Hawksmoor Blend” Malbec wine and finally a beautiful elderflower panna cotta.

As first time visitors to Hawksmoor Guildhall, it is without any hesitation that we would recommend an exceptional venue with simply outstanding food and wine, with genuinely the most fabulous team of colleagues all pulling together to make every guest’s experience a memorable and almost unsurpassable experience. Georgie, Barny and Daria personally made our evening truly one of the best evenings of dining that we have ever had and everyone at this restaurant be they front of house or kitchen based should be exceptionally proud of what they offer their discerning customers. Thank you team Hawksmoor, we will...

We were so excited to finally visit to iconic Hawksmoor but honestly, came out really disappointed ☹️ maybe they were having an off day, I’ll try to give them benefit of the doubt, but yeah for a supposedly high quality steakhouse our meat was drastically undercooked. We asked for medium-rare and you can judge for yourself from the photos, but the meat was noticeably undercooked, almost raw in parts. Very chewy, like those steaks where your jaw starts hurting. I never send anything back but considering how much we paid (£75 of meat for two of us) I did mention it to them. They agreed and took it back but only brought it back to us baked or microwaved or something, just heated up. It’s akin to your friend cooking steak for the first time. They buy a really nice cut of meat, but completely mess it up, and you kind of wish you just had a cheaper, but better cooked steak

We ordered bread and butter, which was quite literally just that. Didn’t even toast the bread so we paid for 3 half slices of bread, and tiny bit of packaged butter, it cost more to get more butter😭 Mac n cheese was delicious though they nailed that.

Overall, I really wanted to love this place but couldn’t. You can tell they’re one of those places that want to milk every dollar out of you, and considering the people that generally dine here, they just accept it. For ordinary people trying to have a special occasion, you risk coming out not full, sore jaw, and a lot less money in the bank. Even if you find the steak good, objectively speaking I can’t call it a fantastic steak, and even less so for the price. Perhaps continue your search elsewhere, not worth the risk. Two stars for the Mac n cheese it was really good, only...