More competition in St Andrews Square Edinburgh as Hawksmoor decide to launch new restaurant brand in old RBS site

by XPRESS, 15 January 2018

Hawksmoor has revealed plans to open in a mothballed building in central Edinburgh that was once an office for the Royal Bank of Scotland.

The 170-cover restaurant will open in the former Royal Bank of Scotland Hall, a grade A-listed building in St Andrew Square, this summer.

One of Scotland’s leading chefs, Andrew Fairlie, issued a warning about the restaurant’s arrival. “It’s about to get tougher for independent restaurants in Edinburgh in an already tough market,” he wrote on Twitter. Hawksmoor’s original site was opened in Spitalfields, close to where architect Nicholas Hawksmoor built Christ Church. Subsequently, there are four other restaurants in London – in Seven Dials, Air Street near Piccadilly Circus, Knightsbridge, and the Guildhall district of the City.

Most recently the company opened its first restaurant outside London, Hawksmoor Manchester in Deansgate (near Spinningfields). A branch is also due to open in Westfield World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, New York, in the near future.

Speaking about the Edinburgh branch, co-founder Will Beckett said: “We’re really excited about opening Hawksmoor in Edinburgh, not just because we’ll get to spend more time in such an amazing city but because we’re going to be able to indulge in two things we love – produce and working with beautiful old buildings. It’s no secret Scotland has some of the world’s best ingredients and we have an opportunity to bring life back to a building of national importance that’s been closed off to the public for the past ten years.”

The restaurant will be based within the 1942 building designed by architects Leslie Grahame Thomson and Arthur Davis, which has lain empty for a number of years and is on the at-risk register.

Article credit; Propel info