Hawksmoor celebrates 2 years with a party in The Tellers' Room

Last week, Christopher and I were privileged to be invited to the celebration of Hawksmoor’s second Edinburgh anniversary in the new private dining space, The Tellers’ Room. They’d put on a feasting menu with matched wines and a talk by Fiona Beckett, food and wine writer, and mother to one of the founders.

Main plate number 1: sirloin, chateaubriand, chips, mash, spinach and Bearnaise sauce. Bliss!

The Tellers’ Room is a lovely space: it sits up to 60 people, has a very high ceiling and makes for a friendly yet elegant space. Christopher and I sat on the blogger’s table. It’s always fun to meet people whose handles you know but whose faces your not so sure about – and nice to catch up with people you’ve met before. (Hi, Emily! Hi, Adele!)

Fiona Beckett told us a lot about getting into wine, both professionally and for fun. I like the idea of a wine club, like a book club.

The dinner was fabulous. We tried three white wines with oysters, scallops, salmon and radish salad. My favourite pairing was the Journey’s End chardonnay with the smoked salmon. The wine was big and, to me, had something smoky, almost oily about it. It was delicious on its own but with the salmon it became even better.

Sweet, succulent oysters brings the sea to your palate.

For mains we had all the beef (chateaubriand to die for, sirloin with packs of flavour, ribs from heaven) with all of the trimmings (buttered lettuce, Tunworth-topped mash, triple-cooked chips, my favourite sauce ever – Bearnaise, marrow bone, and lemon and garlic spinach. Everything was exquisite. With the meat course we had three reds. My favourite here was the Vina Tondonia, a 2005 vintage that tasted like alcoholic ribena and was scented with purple fruits.

Mysterious on the outside, juicy on the outside: sirloin to die for.

By the time the stick toffee pudding and the passion fruit pavlova arrived with two glasses of delicate sweet wine, I was rapidly becoming delirious with food-related joy. The sticky toffee pudding is a point of pride and I understand why: it is very good. I had second helpings. To be honest, I had second helpings of the pavlova too.

Because my pictures of scallops were pretties than my pictures of dessert. Oh, look at that!

Hawksmoor puts on a very good party. This dinner reminded me how very good they are at what they do and made me long to go back soon. Hawksmoor are famous for their beef and seafood but pay just as much attention to the other dishes on their menu. Christopher enjoyed a generous roasted celeriac and spelt salad and that radish salad with the starters was delicious. If you haven’t been yet, you should visit. Soon. And tag me in any pictures your take for my vicarious enjoyment.