Not just for locals: Hawthorn’s dining room bears a striking resemblance to its predessesor, the Glasshouse
(Picture: Adrian Lourie )Not that I ended up in Kew by mistake — it’s been an age since I accidentally fell asleep on a tube, literally weeks — but as we walked into Hawthorn, my evidently spoilt friend interrupted a frankly dazzling story, waved an insistent finger for silence and said: “Do you realise we’re in zone four?”
And sure, you might think it’s pretty shoddy for him to accept a night out on my expenses and kick up a fuss, but I heard him out. Can a central type know they’re in Surrey and enjoy supper at the same time? Is it possible? Have you tried?
For those unlike my pal — anyone who breaks the Circle line lasso, or understands Ruislip isn’t something that requires antibiotics — there’s long been firm evidence in favour of getting out of town for a decent bite to eat. Hawthorn sits where the Glasshouse used to, which held a Michelin star for two decades and attracted a steady trade until it didn’t. The new restaurant has close ties to its predecessor; one of the new owners is Patra Panas, who worked there for almost a decade-and-a-half, while head chef (and other owner) Josh Hunter’s run includes a stint at the terrific La Trompette, a Glasshouse sibling. Locals — regulars — will be sated. Even the tables and chairs remain the same. Other inheritances are less welcome: the entirety of one wall, for instance, still appears to be covered in gold crêpe paper, which is a bit Dubai-It-Yourself.
The unseen bit that’s carried over is a faithfulness to the Glasshouse ideal of the fantasy neighbourhood restaurant. The sort your parents might have picked to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, ex-communicating half the family (just me? Surely not), larks of that sort. The method is simple enough: fine ingredients; a top tier wine list of the old sort; staff with enough formality to keep happy those who consider overfamiliarity a matter for the police. The waiters wear waistcoats and sometimes smiles, basically, and never call anyone “guys”. Deploying this trivariate correctly is exactly the sort of thing that gives a place 20 years of business.
Though in incredibly early days — wrong-footed by a booking platform, I accidentally turn up on opening night — Hawthorn seems to have the measure of things already. And the measure of price: it is not uncommon now to see starters for around £20 in fine-dining spots, or mains tickling £60. Contrarily, Hawthorn does a three-course lunch for £45, supper for £65. Wine is expertly chosen and incredibly fairly marked up, even if it mostly gets going with a sting at about £50. But even when money’s tight, there will still be birthdays and anniversaries and cutting people out of wills to be toasted, and places are needed for that; a pair could escape Hawthorn well fed — if only literally watered — for £150. An increasingly rare proposition at this level.
There are no claims of being revolutionary but “this level” here means “extremely good”. It means oxtail raviolo under a bone marrow crumb that warms like a pub fire. Or it means a fat tiger prawn with its shell crackled from the grill, which looks as though it was hauled from the sea by the very ropes of pickled cucumber wrapped around it, as nduja butter spills into a buttermilk puddle. It means a veal rump that brings on delighted smiles and silences the zone four chat, with a mash collapsing under a fresh drift of truffle. And while the prospect of hogget does not, on the whole, excite me — I think it’s the name; you wouldn’t date a “Hogget”, would you? — here the lamb meat is brazenly pink but the fat crisp, the animal’s shoulder smoked over pine and rounded into a puck of flavour that I insist on sharing, which in turn pushes the table next to us into wondering what we’re enjoying so much. Later I realise what an astonishingly well-mannered way this was to tell us to shut up.
What Hawthorn does is masterfully conducted comfort; not the sort that can be summoned at home. Am I convinced those who live in any further east than, say, Spitalfields, will travel for this? No, though they probably should. “I’d come back,” my friend says. I think you understand.
