On Friday we had the pleasure of taking David Walsh and Lucy Englefield to Hawksmoor on Deansgate for their promotion lunches. David has had a phenomenal first 18 months and has been promoted three times, now Senior Consultant. Lucy has done equally well after her first full 6 months getting her first promotion. We’re sure there’ll be many more – well done guys. So to celebrate we gave them a free run on any restaurant they wanted, and, having heard the reputation of Hawksmoor London they were eager to try the restaurant that had only opened in Manchester a week before.

So, for our brief review. The reception staff were excellent offering to take coats and bags and then inviting us up to the bar. Again, bar staff were very polite, chatty and just a cut above a lot of what goes on in the Manchester bar and restaurant scene. After a couple of Meantime London lagers (should they have something more ‘local’?), we were taken in to the restaurant which is lovely and light having the pitched glass roof, orangery style. The menu is pretty easy to understand, there’s a few options that aren’t steak but really if you are here, it’s the steak you’ll normally be looking for. Forget the menu and look at the chalk board. 1.1kg Porterhouse, 900g Chateaubriand, the list went on. All really big cuts of beef and soon had our mouths watering. The wine list was equally to die for and we went for a solid Chianti Monte Bernadi. So, rib-eyes, fillets, triple cooked chips, dripping fries, creamed spinach and sweet potato polished off, we perused the desert menu. The classics were there like sticky toffee pudding (which was amazingly light) but more interestingly they had home-made Ferrero Rocher (they can’t call it that though for copyright reasons) or Rolos – just like the Nestle original - all just fantastic.

In our view Manchester is really catching up with London in terms of culinary experiences and with the recent opening of such brilliant places like Hawksmoor and Hotel Gotham on King Street the future is looking bright. Image Credits: MEN