Boston is a steakhouse epicenter, and the epicenter of the epicenter is the Seaport and its environs. Here, there are more than half a dozen restaurants specializing in pricey cuts of beef and the sides that love them.
Last week, another opened its doors: Hawksmoor, a London-based steakhouse that has expanded into this country with restaurants in New York, Chicago, and, now, Boston. Located on Necco Street, it is just steps away from Mooo…. Seaport, from the homegrown Columbus Hospitality Group. One could, theoretically — because no one in Boston would ever — throw a steak knife from one and spear a rival at the other. It’s 2026, not 1776, after all.
Does Boston really need another steakhouse? It’s a valid question, with the obvious answer of “no,” because Boston doesn’t really need the number of steakhouses it already has. And what is “need,” anyway, when it comes to fancy restaurants? (Boston needs affordable housing, and a sensible way to access the Seaport by public transportation wouldn’t hurt. But I digress.)
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The Hawksmoor dining room, decorated in dark blues and greens, wood and brass, with leather and velvet banquettes.JOSH REYNOLDS FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE/Josh Reynolds for The Boston Globe
With Hawksmoor, the better question is: Would it be awfully pleasant for Boston to have a fine British restaurant specializing in steaks? The obvious answer is “yes,” because the number of those in operation has heretofore been zero. One can look at Hawksmoor as a British restaurant as well as a steakhouse, because it is as much the former as the latter. One could visit plenty of times without ever ordering a charcoal-grilled steak. I’d gather many will. That’s not a knock on the steak, but a nod to the appeal of everything else.
Hawksmoor has hired plenty of local talent, from familiar-faced servers to executive chef Thomas Park (Saltie Girl, Ruka). (I’m spotted almost as soon as I arrive.) The restaurant, launched 20 years ago in Shoreditch by childhood friends Will Beckett and Huw Gott, emphasizes its values-driven approach, a certified B Corp perennially named to “best places to work” lists in the UK. When I visit just days after it opened, Hawksmoor Boston is still wet behind the ears, the staff exuding first-day-of-school excitement, but things are already running fairly smoothly in this room of dark blues and greens, wood and brass, and leather and velvet banquettes.
The dry-aged long-bone rib chop is rosy pink and succulently marbled, served in a cast iron skillet with a marrow bone and a head of roasted garlic.JOSH REYNOLDS FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE/Josh Reynolds for The Boston Globe
The best dish to explain the restaurant is not a steak at all but a crumpet. A lobster crumpet. It illustrates exactly what Hawksmoor is trying to do at this location.
Crumpets, those very British nook-and-crannied griddle cakes served with tea, are here piled high with lobster rather than spread with jam. At the table, a server pours over drawn butter from a silver pitcher. The butter, the menu tells us, is from Vermont. The lobster tastes like it’s from Maine. It’s fresh and sweet and cooked to the precise point of tenderness, garnished with tarragon. The dish is fine dining with a cheeky wink; it’s a deconstructed lobster roll; it’s perfectly British and perfectly New England, with attention paid to sourcing and presentation.
There are similar London-meets-local touches throughout the menu, concluding with a Fluffernutter sundae. Pastry chef Carla Henriques has also created a tribute to the Sky Bar, first made down the street by Necco: dark chocolate tablets filled alternately with caramel, vanilla, peanut, and fudge. Which one you’ll get is a surprise.
Hawksmoor’s New York beverage program landed on the 2025 James Beard Award semifinalist list. Here are two of “The Sacred Six”: Shaky Pete’s Ginger Brew (left) and the sour cherry Negroni.JOSH REYNOLDS FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE/Josh Reynolds for The Boston Globe
One can also look at Hawksmoor as a cocktail bar, with its slew of original and appealing drinks. (Beverage director Liam Davy landed New York’s Hawksmoor on the 2025 James Beard Award semifinalist list.) Start with “The Sacred Six,” Hawksmoor classics that include a sour cherry Negroni and Shaky Pete’s Ginger Brew (an extremely, wonderfully ginger-forward slushie made with whiskey, pale ale, and lemon). It’s also got a teetotaler brother, Steady Pete’s Ginger Brew. I’ll be back to investigate the martini list, as well as, probably, who am I kidding, the North End Espresso, a combination pistachio-espresso martini.
Enough for the moment on Hawksmoor’s side hustles. It’s time to talk beef. Your server will give you the spiel: Steaks come from small, sustainable, family-run farms and ranches such as Châtel Farms in Georgia and Colorado-based Grass Run Farms. They are seasoned with Maldon salt, cooked over Virginia oak charcoal, rested to seal in the juices, and served with charcoal-roasted bone marrow. The list of cuts includes dry-aged porterhouses and rib chops, Tasmanian wagyu, and Chateaubriand: “the most luxurious sharing cut.” My table shares the dry-aged long-bone rib chop ($238 for 34 ounces), modeled after the version served at Dolly’s Beef-Steak House, opened in London in the 1700s and reputed to be the world’s first steakhouse.
Among the many ways to eat potatoes at Hawksmoor: mashed, with a creamy, melty hunk of Tunworth cheese dunked in the center.JOSH REYNOLDS FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE/Josh Reynolds for The Boston Globe
Here’s what I can say for sure: It is very delicious, rosy pink and succulently marbled, cut off the bone and sliced thick in its cast iron skillet, alongside a marrow bone and a head of roasted garlic. We eat it alongside fries cooked in beef drippings, mashed potatoes with a creamy, melty hunk of Tunworth cheese dunked in the center, Boursin mushrooms, and Stilton hollandaise. Why wait for AI to take us down?
But one can’t eat potted beef and bacon every day, and Hawksmoor knows it. I’d come here just for the Vietnamese oysters, which taste like pho on the half-shell, garnished with crispy shallots. But there’s plenty to explore, from tomato salads to Dover sole to lobster frites to salt-baked celery root (we see you, vegetarians). There’s a lunch menu that includes sandwiches (a beer-battered fish butty with American cheese and jalapeno tartar sauce) and salads (smoked bluefish with warm potatoes, watercress, and horseradish). If I were wining and dining clients midday, I would be very happy to have this new option.
Vietnamese oysters taste like pho on the half-shell.JOSH REYNOLDS FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE/Josh Reynolds for The Boston Globe
For pudding — a.k.a. dessert — the sticky toffee pudding is Hawksmoor’s most ordered, most quintessentially British option, a moist, dark cake made with chopped dates, soaked in toffee sauce and served with clotted cream ice cream. I wouldn’t kick it out of bed for eating cookies, but it won’t keep me from trying spiced pineapple and mango Pavlova or doughnuts made with beef fat, served tableside with maple bacon and custard sauce, in the future.
My next visit will be on a late afternoon, for Hawksmoor’s Sunday roast. The Dubliner does this properly, but I’m looking forward to another take. Served from 11:45 a.m. to 4 p.m. each week, Hawksmoor’s menu brings striploin with all the trimmings, from potatoes roasted in beef fat to Yorkshire pudding to bone marrow gravy. Add on very British cauliflower cheese or very American creamed spinach, if you wish. Or both. That would be the Hawksmoor Boston thing to do.
15 Necco St., Fort Point, Boston, 781-208-8300, www.thehawksmoor.com/us. Appetizers $14-$41, entrees $28-$95, steaks $55-$115 or market price, sides $10-$17, desserts $8-$24, cocktails $16-$24. Lunch $24-$45; set menu $45-$55. Sunday roast $48 per person.
One of the local touches on the menu: a Fluffernutter sundae with peanut butter ice cream, marshmallow Fluff, and graham crackers.JOSH REYNOLDS FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE/Josh Reynolds for The Boston Globe
Devra First can be reached at devra.first@globe.com. Follow her on Instagram @devra_first.
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