The Hawke Pub — Restaurant in London

We had what can only be described as a very unfortunate experience today at the Hawke. After a last minute decision to branch out and try a different pub with their raved about roast dinners, I booked The Hawke this morning for 1pm for 5 people and a dog. It so happened that today was also my 30th birthday, and instead of going to our local we wanted to try something a bit more special, whilst I appreciated it was last minute, they had bookings so we happily took one. We received a confirmation email and nothing further.

On arrival we were met by a member of the staff who informed me they were fully booked and they couldn’t fit us in so he didn’t know what to do. He then went to get (I believe) his manager who also reiterated that their booking system wasn’t working and that they were fully booked. He apologised and said we were welcome to sit in the garden but other than this he had no other options. Fairly disappointed, whilst trying to be understanding, we accepted outside and were taken out by the original staff member into the garden. The garden was completely full of smoke, from a BBQ which was on, and looking somewhat worse for wear. The staff member then proceeded to say “I’ll be right back to take your drinks order, oh, no wait actually we don’t do table service in the garden so you’ll just have to come in when you want to order.” This was then followed by looking at the menu to discover they did not appear to even be serving roast dinners, and upon enquiring inside, we were told that they were in fact not serving them that weekend. At that point, we left.

I appreciated the apology of the gentleman I assume was the manager, however am very disappointed and surprised that I wasn’t contacted in advance to be informed about the booking error, which would have saved us a 50 minute journey and no where to eat lunch. There was also no information about the roast dinners on social media which was yet another surprise and disappointment. Whilst I understand it being my birthday is not their problem, given the booking error was due to their system and not at any fault of ours, the very least I feel that could have been done was offering a round of drinks as good will, or way of an apology. There was however nothing of the sort and I would highly recommend in future calling ahead to check your booking...

We have been waiting to try the roast here for a while but unfortunately left so disappointed. Cooking so many roast on a Sunday can be difficult but when you’re charging £30 for a beef roast I think you expect great things! I say £30 because it’s £26 + service charge!

Firstly we had extremely deep fried potatoes I’m guessing they were cooked the night before and refried or heated, almost everything had the same taste of old oil. It was such a shame!

The meat was one piece of beef but not the size of a Steak or a thick cut at all! If beef is so thinly sliced you would expect a few pieces of not atleast 2! Also they put mustard on the plate which is something I suspect lots of people don’t like!

The Bloody Mary was AMAZING really really good and the young guy who serviced us was lovely. But I think considering how much the roast costs it’s abit greedy.

We had 2 beef roasts and Bloody Mary & coke and it was almost £80!

Also, if you are eating outside the tables are fairly close together and smoke from the other table was constantly being blown our way, it wouldn’t stop it completely but maybe have half the garden designated to...

Diabolical experience.

Reserved a Sunday roast booking for 4 people 1 week in advance.

Turned up only to be told that they’re not actually doing Sunday roast that day, but hadn’t bothered to call or email ahead of time.

We sat down, nevertheless, only to experience

1. a waiter/barman who didn’t actually know what was on tap in the bar. “why don’t you get up and have a look for yourselves”.

Mind you about 3/4 of the taps were not working so essentially you had a choice of 4 beers.

2. a waiter/barman who didn’t actually understand the menu. We asked about the size of the steak and were told it was large. What arrived was essentially 100 g, starter size, for £21.

3. insane price to portion size ratio. A bowl of 7 small new potatoes was £7 quid!

The food was passable, but the whole experience was marred with terrible service, Mayfair prices, and laughable portion sizes.

The only saving grace was that the waiter/barman was so incompetent that he forgot to charge us for a couple of...