How many restaurants make a chain? If the number is four, then Hawksmoor, the superb chop-house named for the Baroque architect Nicholas Hawskmoor, has collapsed on a pile of cheques, the dirty girl, and is now officially a chain, embracing the inevitable suck of cash. It has added to its venues at Guildhall, Spitalfields and Seven Dials a vast restaurant on the oddly named Air Street, right on the great curve of Regent Street, in what used to be an Asian fusion tapas bar. (In restaurant terms, this makes it haunted by shrimp and loss.) It is as large as a bingo hall in Streatham, or an ice rink; it echoes, whistles, knocks.
It is a handsome place; the other Hawksmoors are spit-and-sawdust, Wild West-ish cow haunts, so a jump to pretty would be madness.
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