Restaurant and bar group Hawksmoor is to expand outside of London for the first time with a new site in Manchester.
It has announced that it has signed a lease for the Courthouse building in Deansgate near Spinningfields to open Hawksmoor British Steakhouse and Cocktail Bar next year.
Founded in 2003 by Will Beckett and Huw Gott, Hawksmoor has grown to five steakhouses in London – Knightsbridge, Air Street, Guildhall, Seven Dials and Spitalfields – plus an award-winning cocktail bar (pictured) at its Spitalfields site.
Will said: “We’ve been coming up to Manchester for a few years now, and in that time have really
enjoyed the bars and restaurants up here.
“We always said that if we were going to go anywhere else it would have to be somewhere where we really enjoyed spending time, and we love Manchester.
“There’s a really friendly, relaxed atmosphere in the city, and I hope that Manchester in turn will like what we do – really high standards of food, drink and service, but in a relaxed environment with none of the stuffiness that sometimes comes with fine dining.”
The Courthouse was originally built in 1896 by the Office of Woods and Forests and, as part of its redevelopment, is set to offer other food and drinks operators.
Huw said: “We love opening restaurants in heritage buildings, and the Courthouse is a beautiful late-Victorian building. I hope we can do something there that does it justice.
“We always try to adapt what we do to the local area, and we’ll be aiming to do something Manchester can be proud of.”
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