If you're looking to eat some of the best steak and burgers in London, then look no further than two restaurant chains that take a pride in sourcing and serving the best beef the UK has to offer. Often spoken about in hushed, reverent tones Hawksmoor and Goodman are destination restaurants for meat lovers in the know, and while predominantly focused on steak, they also both serve a top notch burger.

Hawksmoor

Hawksmoor's London restaurants are beef shrines where diners worship at the altar of London's most amazing steak and burgers. Head chef Richard Turner, who also part owns London super star butchery Turner & George, has made it his mission to source and serve the best meat on offer in the UK, following a journey across the world to find the perfect steak. At the core of the Hawksmoor offering is Longhorn beef (the oldest pure breed cattle in Britain), which is raised for 30 months on grass (as opposed to 18 months on grain like so much supermarket beef). This gives a great flavour and texture to the meat. The beef is then dry-aged for anywhere between 35 – 55 days to bring out the exceptional flavours and deliver a melt in the mouth experience. In brief it's nothing short of exceptional.

Luckily they also do a great burger, combining aged beef, ogleshield cheese and a brioche bun with a generous portion of beef dripping or duck fat chips.

Hawksmoor has four restaurants across London.

• Spitalfields just around the corner from Liverpool Street station: 157a Commercial Street, London E1 6BJ
• Seven Dials a short walk from Covent Garden tube station and opposite the Pineapple Dance Studios: 11 Langley Street, London, WC2H 9JG
• Guildhall in between Moorgate and Bank tube stations: 10 Basinghall Street, London, EC2V 5BQ
• Air Street a hop, skip and a jump from Picadilly Circus tube station: 5a Air Street, London, W1J 0AD

Goodman

Goodman is a slightly smaller chain of steak restaurants, with just three branches in the City, Canary Wharf and in Mayfair, but it's no less impressive. Showcasing a range of steaks from the US, London's top butchers – including O'Shea's and The Ginger Pig – as well as ageing its own beef in-house AND with a house-created burger to boot, Goodman is one of my favourite places to get away from it all and eat great meat. The restaurants are an aesthetically pleasing mix of white and black flagstones, with dark wooden tables that contrast the starched with napkins and branded plates.

Before you make your choice of meat, you're introduced to the day's steak, and talked through the style, taste and recommended cooking. If you can ignore that and focus on the burger, you're rewarded with an unctuous, beefy patty and the choice of bacon, cheese, or egg – or all three – as toppings.

• Goodman City is a stone's throw from Bank tube station: 11 Old Jewry, London, EC2R 8DU
• Goodman Mayfair is slap bang between Regent Street and New Bond Street: 26 Maddox Street, London, W1S 1QH
• Goodman Canary Wharf is slap bang in the finance district: Discovery Dock East, 3 South Quay, London, E14 9RU

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