Hawksmoor Guildhall.

Hawksmoor Guildhall

Dolly's, which may have been the world's first steakhouse and was supposedly handed by Queen Anne to her favorite cook around 1702, stood a few streets from this door, and there is an etching of her in the private dining room (Hawksmoor, The Nudge).

Why go

This was the third Hawksmoor, opened in October 2011 on the corner of Basinghall and Gresham Street with 160 seats in the restaurant, 75 in the bar and a private room for 22, now 24 (Hot Dinners). The beef is native breeds, Ginger Pig-reared Longhorn hung 35 days, cooked over charcoal and sold by the 100g, so the board gets read to you rather than printed. Two things belong to this site rather than to the brand. There is a walk-in wine room built for tastings off an extended by-the-glass list, and when it opened this was the first restaurant in London with a dedicated port enomatic, which pours fine port by the glass without oxidizing the bottle. Weekdays the floor is a City business crowd. Sunday has since become the room's own institution, and the operator now calls the roast its main event.

Order this / avoid

• Order: whatever native-breed cut is chalked up, cooked rare, with triple-cooked chips and bone marrow. The seafood is real: Salcombe crab on toast, Dartmouth lobster with garlic butter. Finish on a glass of port off the machine. If you come at lunch, take the set menu.
• Avoid: the full a la carte at dinner unless someone else is paying. Harden's respondents have said for years that it is verrrrry expensive and that prices verge on silly1. And check Sunday before you plan around it: the venue lists Sunday as closed even while it advertises the roast.

What locals & experts say

• Harden's diners' survey, the praise: Prime cuts of matured beef are perfectly cooked and served in striking surroundings with a carefully curated wine list. The top tip is unambiguous about where the value is: Set lunch on a Monday when you can BYO wine for GBP 5 represents excellent value.1
• Harden's diners' survey, the dissent, from an earlier edition on the same page: quality has dropped off a bit in recent years, the formula is starting to look a tad tired, and service can also sometimes seem increasingly impersonal with one diner quoted as you are just a number! The survey's own summary line: Are they losing some of their je-ne-sais-quoi as they get bigger and badder? There's a sneaking suspicion the lustre is being slightly lost.1
• The Good Food Guide on this branch: Bullish homage to best-in-show grass-fed British beef, and this cavernous branch of the Hawksmoor steakhouse chain still cuts the mustard in the City. Rated Good.2
• Adejoke Bakare, chef-patron of Chishuru, in the Michelin Guide, 2 March 2026, naming the brand and not a site: My eight-year-old nephew Victor adores steak, so I always take him to a branch of Hawksmoor, where he eats more beef than any middle-aged man. That is a chef's word about the concept. It is not a review of this address.6
• The Nudge (14 August 2022), Neil Frame: The wood-panelled, gentlemen's club-style decor at Hawksmoor Guildhall is as impressive as the steaks are (priced by the 100g, although they generally start at half a kilo).4

Good to know

• Where: 10-12 Basinghall Street EC2V 5BQ, two minutes from Bank and Moorgate.
• Timing: venue open Monday to Friday midday to 9pm and Saturday 5pm to 9pm, with the kitchen running lunch to 3.30pm and dinner from 5pm. The bar goes to 11pm Monday to Saturday. The venue's own page lists Sunday as closed while also selling the Sunday roast, so call before you book a Sunday.
• Booking: essential on a weekday, and the 24-seat private dining room is the sensible answer for a group.
• Price: four pound signs a la carte. The 20th-anniversary offer running in summer 2026 is steak and chips at GBP 20, or one, two and three courses at GBP 20, 25 and 30, Monday to Thursday. Harden's says Monday BYO corkage is GBP 5.
• Who runs it: Will Beckett and Huw Gott, who opened the first Hawksmoor near Spitalfields in 2006. The group is now 13 restaurants including Dublin, New York and Chicago, with Graphite Capital holding a 51% majority that was put up for sale in July 2024 at a reported GBP 100m valuation (Harden's). Richard Turner is the executive chef behind the food.
• Hygiene: FSA rating 5, very good, from a City of London inspection on 3 March 2026 (record).
• Dietary: the venue publishes a full allergen listing through a third-party app linked from its own page. No specific dietary flags are claimed here, because the venue makes no vegan or celiac statement that could be cited.
• Sites: ten in the UK. The ones a Londoner confuses this with are Spitalfields (the 2006 original), Seven Dials, Borough, Air Street, Knightsbridge and the floating Wood Wharf barge at Canary Wharf. Every review quoted above that is not explicitly about Guildhall is about the brand, and is labeled that way.

Verdict

could-visit — Reliable, expensive, and knowingly built on the spot where the format was invented: Dolly's, which may be the world's first steakhouse, stood a few streets from this door. The beef is native-breed, hung around 35 days and cooked over charcoal, sold by the 100g off a board. The room has a walk-in wine room for by-the-glass tastings and the first dedicated port enomatic in a London restaurant, which is a specific piece of buying conviction rather than a menu line. It goes no higher than could-visit for two reasons the evidence makes plain. Harden's own diners, the most sympathetic audience this brand has, now say the formula looks a tad tired and the service can feel impersonal, and this is a 13-site group with a private-equity majority holder that tried to sell 51 percent in 2024. If you are in the City on business, the set lunch with GBP 5 corkage on a Monday is the version to take. Chishuru's Adejoke Bakare takes her nephew to a Hawksmoor, which is a fair summary of what the brand is for.