It's the first of five restaurants from the Wright & Bell Company, whose name, borrowed from Sir Alexander Graham Bell and the Wright brothers, is a mark of its ambition. As is the Kitty Hawk, which fleshes out a grand old building near Liverpool Street station with five "departments of dining" – an oddly bureaucratic term for the bars, cafes and restaurants within. That said, keeping track of what they're all up to is an exercise in logistics.
The ground floor bar and kitchen, for example, kicks off the day at 7am, with tea, coffee and breakfast classics rom toast and pastries to the full English. Once brunch is out the way at 11.30am, it moves on to flatbreads, sliders and skewers and keeps them coming until closing time.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Downstairs, meanwhile, there's the restaurant, open from 11.30am until 10.30pm, and a private dining room, where you get to write the rules.
I arrive at 7.30pm to find the bar in the full swing and head downstairs to the relative calm of the restaurant. Despite the aeronautical name – Orville Wright made his maiden flight near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in 1903 – the look is more maritime than aeronautical. Plaited ropes line the ceiling, softening what might otherwise have been quite a cavernous space.
Steak and shellfish are the twin specialities, so I order scallops and an Ashdale rump steak, aged for 35 days. All the beef here is sourced from a West Country family business that rears its cattle on open farmland.
Kitchens can be stingy with their scallops, but this one isn't. Plump and opalescent, the shellfish arrive with a generous accompaniment of pancetta and garden peas. The steak is as rich and savoury as you would expect from meat that has spent five weeks reaching peak maturity. Bordelaise sauce, a sweet and salty reduction of red wine, beef stock and bone marrow, brings out the best in it.
The pick of the puddings, unusually, is the fruit - albeit fruit spiked with fire and alcohol. It trundles out from the kitchen on a mobile stove, on which it's caramelised, sluiced with vodka and set alight. The flames stop just short of the ornamental rope, which is just as well. Smouldering hemp might attract the wrong crowd.
The Kitty Hawk, 11, 13 & 14 South Place, London EC2
-
Switzerland could vote to cap its populationUnder the Radar Swiss People’s Party proposes referendum on radical anti-immigration measure to limit residents to 10 million
-
Political cartoons for February 15Cartoons Sunday's political cartoons include political ventriloquism, Europe in the middle, and more
-
The broken water companies failing England and WalesExplainer With rising bills, deteriorating river health and a lack of investment, regulators face an uphill battle to stabilise the industry
-
Arcadia: Tom Stoppard’s ‘masterpiece’ makes a ‘triumphant’ returnThe Week Recommends Carrie Cracknell’s revival at the Old Vic ‘grips like a thriller’
-
American Psycho: a ‘hypnotic’ adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis classicThe Week Recommends Rupert Goold’s musical has ‘demonic razzle dazzle’ in spades
-
Can London’s pie and mash shops make a comeback?Under the Radar Traditional East End eateries are on the ‘brink of extinction’ – but a younger generation is giving the Cockney cuisine an unexpected boost
-
Breaking news: the rise of ‘smash hit’ rage roomsUnder the Radar Paying to vent your anger on furniture is all the rage but experts are sceptical
-
Why is London’s property market slumping?Today's Big Question Some sellers have reported losses of hundreds of thousands of pounds
-
Jane Austen lives on at these timeless hotelsThe Week Recommends Here’s where to celebrate the writing legend’s 250th birthday
-
David Hockney at Annely Juda: an ‘eye-popping’ exhibitionThe Week Recommends ‘Some Very, Very, Very New Paintings Not Yet Shown in Paris’ testifies to the artist’s ‘extraordinary vitality’ and ‘childlike curiosity’
-
The Peninsula: London’s first billion-pound hotelThe Week Recommends As the capital’s super-luxury hotel scene continues to expand, the respected brand is still setting the standard
