10 questions with Will Beckett of Hawksmoor

Will Beckett is the co-founder and CEO of Hawksmoor, the British steak house groups now in 14 locations across the globe from London to Edinburgh, New York to Chicago.

You can find Hawksmoor’s Seven Dials, Spitalfields and Knightsbridge locations on the CODE app at 50% off food.

What’s the most underrated dish on the Hawksmoor menu?

Charcoal chicken Ana Mari, with roasted garlic, olive oil, and lemon. It’s honestly incredible. We’ve had multiple chicken dishes on the menu over the years, but never one as good as this. We flip a boned half chicken over glowing coals in a steel cage until the skin is beautifully crisp but the flesh is still incredibly tender and moist.

Where’s your favourite place to go after hours?

To bed! Although I’d like to be the kind of person that says I go to the Bloodshot Supperclub.

What’s your secret London tip?

The Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice in the City of London is, in my humble opinion, the most moving, and least known, thing in the whole city.

What’s the best thing you can do with £20 in London?

The magic of London is that you can have an incredible day on any budget. To me, you’d either do free galleries/museums and street food in the West End, nipping up to Regents Park for an afternoon reading in the sun, or I’d stroll from Borough to Greenwich via St Katharine Docks and Tower Bridge, grazing and drinking coffee as I go.

Where do you go when you want to splurge?

There is no better guilty splurge in London than The River Cafe. So expensive. So good.

Which CODE offers are you going to be snapping up?

I don’t use it now myself (‘Hi nice independent, I own Hawksmoor, but would still like 50% off my bill please’…) but I think it’s an incredible thing for people who work in hospitality, whether it’s for daily nourishment, occasional nights out, or creating a cheaper way to find out what the best restaurants in the city are doing. That eating and drinking is legitimately research and education in our industry is surely one of the reasons you’ve got to love it!

What’s your favourite thing to cook at home?

Long, convoluted pasta sauces, with delicious wine for the chef while he cooks, and music on in the background of a quiet house (FYI, this last part in particular never happens).

Which element of your job do you like most and like least?

Love: people, the buzz of restaurants, crises, the occasional feeling that something has gone brilliantly. Struggle with: long meetings, conflict, anything that involves a lot of detail!

What are your favourite and least favourite ingredients?

Favourites: garlic or salt. Least favourite: celery or peach.

When you’re not working in a restaurant or eating in one, where will we find you?

Doing my other job – an unpaid Uber driver to my three sons (12, 14, 16) and then watching them from a touchline, boundary or poolside.