Hawksmoor can become a "great Scouse restaurant" as the company chimes with Liverpool's ethos, according to its CEO.
The renowned chain opened i n India Buildings in November. It followed fellow steakhouse Gaucho as another high-profile recent addition to Liverpool's business district.
Established by friends Will Beckett and Huw Gott in London in 2006, Hawksmoor now has seven venues in the capital, as well as restaurants in New York City, Manchester, Dublin and Edinburgh. Will Beckett spoke to the ECHO about the decision to open in Liverpool and what he hopes to achieve with the restaurant.
READ MORE: Hooters, Hawksmoor and the changing face of Liverpool's 'destination area'
Asked why Hawksmoor chose the city as the destination to open their latest restaurant, Will told the ECHO he thought Liverpool has changed a lot in the past decade. He said: "If you’d asked me five, six or seven years ago, ‘what do you think about a Hawksmoor in Liverpool?’, I probably would have said ‘I’m not sure’.
"But I really feel like it’s a city that’s going places - generally and from a food and drink perspective. There’s been loads of interesting things happening in the restaurant scene in Liverpool, whether that’s fine dining stuff like Roski or the Arts School, or national chains like Mowgli which started there, or cool independent places like Manifest or Deli Fonseca, there is great stuff there."
For Will, the setting of the restaurant also played a significant part in the attraction of Liverpool and particularly that part of the city. Hawksmoor is found on the corner of Brunswick Street and Fenwick Street in the Grade II listed India Buildings, which was refurbished in recent years and also houses HMRC.
He explained: "I really hope we do justice to the building. Liverpool is full of unbelievably beautiful buildings, but you might not have seen interiors that have really matched the building.
Citing Wetherspoons as an example, Will believes there are many hospitality venues across the country which have a grand exterior but are let down by their interior design. He hopes Hawksmoor will do justice to the "really lovely" India Buildings.
Regarding Hawksmoor's location, Will added: " There are lots of interesting bits (of the city), when you go across to Water Street or up on Bold Street and I do really like the docks. What the Barrie Brothers have done at Lerpwl and what Sam has done at Madre is great.
"I like that area and it feels good for me to be close to it, but not be in it. So, I think there is plenty that I like about where we are, it just felt the right blend of office and residential with being a destination area itself. We always liked the idea of being off the beaten track and we’ve got a lovely building there to do that in."
The CEO hopes that Hawksmoor will prove to be well-suited to Liverpool and believes that the restaurant's ethos has a lot in common with the city's. He thinks that will allow Hawksmoor to become a "great Scouse restaurant".
He said: "That feeling which I recognise was we felt if people wanted a really great destination, a great restaurant experience or something special, they might have to leave Liverpool. Or you had to go down the fine dining route, but that’s quite a specific kind of taste.
"But if you wanted the special destination stuff that Hawksmoor offers, you had to leave Liverpool to get it. I hope people feel like you can get that now - not just for people who live in Liverpool, but for people who come to Liverpool. You can come to Liverpool for special stuff".
Will added: "The main thing is that I hope we feel like a really great Scouse restaurant. We’re not trying to open a London restaurant or a New York restaurant or whatever in Liverpool, we’re trying to open a Liverpudlian restaurant.
"We’ve hired a great team of Scousers and it strikes me that the Hawksmoor ethos fits with the Scouse ethos - nice things, with no frills to it, just good things, a sense of humour - I think Scousers are like that.
"We’ve found it really easy to build a team of committed, hard-working and lovely people who like Hawksmoor because it’s good.
"This is our eleventh restaurant and we’ve never opened anywhere where people have thanked us for opening except Liverpool. To my mind, a surprisingly high number of people have said ‘thank you for coming in’ because it says something to them.
"Our last opening outside of London was in New York. To have a restaurant that goes to New York but also opens in Liverpool and goes to spend the amount of money there, hire a big team, I think people really care about that stuff."
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