It occurred to me as I headed down to the Old Street roundabout and bore left towards Shoreditch, Hoxton and Bethnal Green for what felt like the 14th time in my last 15 restaurant outings, that the East End of London is not what it was. In fairness, I have no idea what it was, because until it became the spot where two out of three restaurant openings in Britain take place, I had never been to it. I just know it was not this.



I know it had Cockney rhyming slang, though, which has always struck me as a good thing: a street idiom with its roots in local oral tradition and its functioning register entirely fluid. But I have been reading recently of its decline, and I am not surprised. As if minor languages were not in enough trouble around the world from the atrophying of indigenous cultures (one thinks of Aleut, Pingelapese, Arapaho, French), Cockney rhyming slang has also to put up with being squeezed out of its natural habitat by restaurants.

It would be a tragedy if all that “apples and pears” and “raspberry ripple” stuff were to disappear for ever, and it occurs to me that only by adapting itself to the needs of its new environment (in the way that French is now little more than English with a funny accent) can rhyming slang hope to survive. Which is why it must accept the foodie takeover of its terrain and draw its new signifiers from the 21st-century world of the celebrity chef.

Off the top of my head, I’m thinking: Marco Pierre White – Shite; Ainsley Harriott – Chariot; Marcus Wareing – Sharing; Malcolm Gluck – Well, you know how it works now. Thus, the food at a new restaurant might be a complete pile of Marco, while they charge Gary Rhodes of money for even the lowliest bottle of Rick Stein. So you complain. You tell them you don’t go for this nouveaux tapas thing with the Marcus menus. You like proper portions in great big steaming Tom Parker Bowles. You tell them this place is so awful you wouldn’t Delia Smith on it if it were on fire.

When they explain that things are a bit creaky because they have only been open a week, you say, “Creaky? You’re Giorgio Locatelling me!” You ask him if he’s having a Sally Clarke. You tell him you bet he thought he was on to a nice little Brian Turner, but that you don’t rate his grub at all and will settle for a nice cup of Rowley Leigh. And when he raises his eyebrows at that, you tell him he can wipe that smirk off his John Burton Race and all.

Fluent and lucid though this argot may be, I shall return now to English to tell you about Hawksmoor, the restaurant I found when I eventually parked up in Commercial Street, hard by Spitalfields market. I had been meaning to visit for some time, selecting it from the avalanche of recent openings in the area on the basis of its meat coming from the Ginger Pig, a butcher which has never failed me at home.

And when I finally did, I was glad, because it is a fine, honest, decent place, and I will be going again. I wouldn’t recommend it to my parents, or to yours, or even to you, yourself, if you are over, ooh, well, it’s hard to pin down a specific age. It’s just that the floors are hard and the walls are bare, and the cocktail bar isn’t sectioned off from the dining room and the music is loud and eclectic, and of the kind that can make it very hard to chew. And there is some scary facial hair.

It’s a cocktail bar and steakhouse, this place, which is apparently a popular combination in America, so we had some refreshing juleps and caipirinhas standing around watching the bar chappies throw tin cups and glasses around and then we sat down and had some steak.

They do a hangar steak here, which they are at such pains to warn you off on account of its chewiness and gaminess (two qualities I rather admire in a piece of meat, if not in a fish or a service station sandwich) that I declined it. We had an assortment of bone-in sirloins and rib-eyes from the good old Ginger Pig longhorn herd, and the meat, well fed and hung long, was of the looked-for loveliness. It was perfectly done as well, grilled very hot and quick and then left to rest, and rest and rest some more (a steak is not ready until, from the telltale flicker of the eyelids, you can see that it has entered the REM phase of sleep).

The only thing: you’ve got to serve such a steak on hot, hot, hot plates. These were not. And while I am not bothered by steak that has cooled so much that it is only barely warm, some people – I’m thinking again of that older generation who won’t be coming anyway – tend to think of a square meal as a hot one. They’re wrong, I know, but they won’t be told.

Better even than the steak was the rump of lamb. At this time of year, with the lambs turning into sheep with a rapidity that would scare the crap out of Adrian Mole, the meat offered a depth of flavour, an ever-changing narrative of grass and peaty soil and autumn squelch in every mouthful, that was almost tear-jerking. Not to mention a grainy boldness of texture that rather put the cattle meat to shame (although never tell the Yanks).

The accompanying “triple-cooked chips” were a little pale and feminine for me, but the sizzling iron pot of macaroni cheese and the pot of melanzane alla parmiginana (not an easy dish to do well) were absolutely on the button, and perfect little understated accompaniments to the meat. And the head guy, Nick Strangeway, nudged me towards a baby wine from Stag’s Leap (Hawk Crest cabernet sauvignon), which was a cracker at £35.

On the downside, now: the starters were a bore. I had ribs of Tamworth pig that had been cooked too dry, with an oversweet dusting of something grey, which I had to salt heavily to taste. Three small squid sans tentacles with fennel were not especially impressive (squid wants to be wildly fresh and crackling from the excitement of its brief visit to a zealous grill or is not worth bothering with).

But there was good cured salmon with a beetroot salad (I think it was), which was very much enjoyed by my friend Mark, who was disappointed to be furnished only with the name of a fishmonger (the ubiquitous Steve Hatt) when inquiring after its provenance, since he is an aquatic conservationist by profession, and a salmon fisherman by way of life. He also lives in Wales, and doesn’t know Steve Hatt from a furry fishing cap with earflaps.

The other thing is that the steaks were too big. I know that that is considered a good thing by many people, but even the smaller, 400g rib-eye was too much for the girls (what with the macaroni and everything), and I didn’t get close to finishing my 600g sirloin. Waste is a terrible thing with such good meat and I’d like to see them facilitating a portion-sharing option or something. We had to send nearly a pound of prime steak back with Mark to Abergavenny for his Jack Russell puppy, which was a tragedy. Although the dog will no doubt be delighted to have a change from all that salmon.

Hawksmoor
157 Commercial Street, London E1 (020-7247 7392)
Meat/fish: 9
Cooking: 7
Night out: 7
Score: 7.67
Price: Not cheap. Four of us having a cocktail each, two courses, lots of sides, and the aforementioned bottle of wine came to £227.93.

Haydn Dickenson e-mails: “In the light of the misspellings you quoted in your review of Luc’s Bistro Deluxe, I feel compelled to share with you a few of my own discoveries. All emanate from the same miserable pub-restaurant in Harpenden, a representative of the risible ‘Chef and Brewer’ chain, to which my wife and I repair when truly desperate, where fish is ‘enthused’ in a sauce and ‘Pavolva’ is available for dessert. The current king of the chalkboard, however, is a dish of ‘Pan-fried Calves Liver and Bacon with Celeriac Mash’ which is described as: ‘Succulent pieces of lamb’s liver with a juniper jus, on a bed of celeriac mash.’ The dish, of which the mash component contains no discernible celeriac, is truly shite. I find myself wondering from which animal the bacon comes.”

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