Roast Dinners in London

Welcome to my review of the pop-up, Out-Back, currently starring at The Hawke Pub in Hackney.

Or you could instead read a review of Lilibet’s in Mayfair by Grace Dent.

Or you could instead read a review of Lilibet’s in Mayfair by David Ellis.

Or you could instead read a review of Lilibet’s in Mayfair by Jay Rayner.

Or you could instead read a review of Lilibet’s in Mayfair in The Telegraph.

Or you could instead read a review of Lilibet’s in Mayfair in Country And Town House magazine.

Or you could instead read a review of Lilibet’s in Mayfair in Tatler.

Or we could just carry on with this review of Out-Back.

G’day, mate.

I did a little Google search to see if any publication has been to review Out-Back. Nope.

But for some reason we need 593 reviews of Lilibet’s in Mayfair by the usual London dining cognoscenti, all within a few weeks of each other. Google it. OK, fine, I’ll Google it for you (link might have porn adverts on fyi so maybe be careful).

So Out-Back is a pop-up, and I tend not to review too many pop-ups because by time anyone reads it, it’s gone.

But then the guy running Out-Back messaged me and said, “You should come down for a roast?”, which I guess is his equivalent of employing a PR team to get some publicity.

I looked at his Instagrim feed, and decided I should go down for a roast.

Out-Back should be at The Hawke until March/April 2026, so I’m told. And who knows, maybe it will get extended – maybe they’ll go elsewhere. It’s certainly popular, the rather small pub was fully busy by 1pm.

I’m a bushman, lady. I’ve got no time for fancy city nonsense.

Also word-of-mouth seems to work around Hackney, in a way that it might not in Mayfair.

It has to – as the nearest overground station is 20 minutes walk away. Everyone at the table had a story of how much of a mission it was to get to The Hawke. And then I would just say, “Croydon”. Yeah it was 80 minutes from Croydon…nice walk along the canal from Mile End though.

Anyway, before you get too bored and go read yet another review of Lilibet’s, we should probably talk food.

And smoke. It really did smell of smoke inside – and if you go out into the garden at the back, it really was smoking.

On the menu was half a chicken at £24.00, pork belly rib at £26.00, aged beef rump at £28.00, roasted squash at £20.00 or a combination of all three meats at £30.00.

I was really torn. Like, really, really torn. There was a review on Google of the chicken which made it sound outstanding, pork belly is like my favourite meat ever – but something also pulled me towards the beef. I just had a feeling about the beef being special here.

It’s like a mirage, only it’s real.

Starting with the cabbage which was on the crunchy side with a few charred bits here and there – had clearly been on the smoker, which added some appreciated extra flavour.

Likewise the carrots, again smoky and crunchy – though some were rather blackened, such as the carrot on my accomplice’s plate:

The parsnips also had a similar problem – they were tasty, the nuttiness brought out well yet some parts were just burnt to a crisp and wouldn’t fit on my fork – my £11k teeth which are still in place 8 months later, weren’t going anywhere near the burnt ends.

We also ordered a dish of cauliflower cheese at £7.00, which I don’t think we finished between us. The cauliflower was really crunchy, too much for me, topped with crumbs and just about tasting of cheese – for me this dish needs a bit of work.

Onto the roast potatoes which sadly were missing the crunchy bite to the outsides. Yet they were soft inside (and outside) and tasted quite glorious, they had that sheen of having been roasted in something better than vegetables oil – I had thought duck fat, though the menu insists they were cooked in beef dripping. Kind of hard to tell with all the smokiness going on, but they were an upgrade on normality…if only they had crispy sides.

You will have concluded that Out-Back likes burning things, the Yorkshire pudding continued that theme with the top of that being burnt. And much of the rest of it was in quaver-form, having been sat around under a heat-lamp and dried out, one assumes. Not the greatest – but with enough gravy, some of the bottom softened enough to be edible.

No worries, mate.

Onto what we were here for, the smoked meats – beef in my case. This was sexual. A generous 4 slices of beef rump, all seriously tender, and sexily smoky – the fat rendered close to perfect too.

It was so sexy I was about to get my willy out, but then I realised that I might end up in prison. Granted we seem to have some kind of accidental release lottery, and maybe I feel lucky.

That sentence isn’t ever going to be on one of the reviews of Lilibet’s in Mayfair, is it? Well, maybe Tatler…my Tatler subscription seems to have expired. Would you like to see what Lady Delphi Primrose and Lady Olympia Onslow (real names like Lord Gravy is my real name?) were wearing to The Little Black Book party at Tramp? No? You want to see some even sexier meat? Yes, yes, you do.

You could probably argue that the pork belly was one step closer to heaven than the beef. I was massively risking FOMO by eschewing my favoured cut of meat, and this was probably (definitely) better than any pork belly I’d had all year, but my beef was so sexy that I was totally fine to miss out on this…but maybe I’ll be ordering pork belly every week from now on until I get something this good.

Yeah, it’s worth the 20 minute walk from Homerton just for the meat.

Finally, the gravy was pretty good – a reasonable consistency and some meat stock flavours going on.

Out-Back

Well, I hope you are reading this before Out-Back moves on, as there is plenty to enjoy here.

There were some imperfections – the yorkie was a dried-up duffer, and some of the vegetables were cremated. Perils of whacking it on the barbie, mate.

But there was also some glorious smoky flavour going on in the veg, the roast potatoes, whilst needing crispy edges were above average – and that beef rump, wow. Some seriously sexy meat.

WHOA. STOP ALL THESE COMPLIMENTS. Because…

They charged for extra gravy. Yep, £1.50 charge for extra gravy. Wouldn’t happen if I was writing for Tatler.

Drinks at The Hawke were a mixed bag, some on the table raved about their Bloody Mary, I was impressed with the blonde beer which was the nicest beer I had all day (and I did have quite a few to compare, to my regret the next morning) – yet the bottle of Malbec we ordered was naff, of Tesco Express levels of quality.

Service broadly good, though some elements of confusion at times.

Scores around the table were high, as you might expect for somewhere with seriously sexy meat. The highest was nearly a 9.00 until the charge for extra gravy reduced it to an 8.80, the other person eating the pork belly scored it an 8.50. For the beef there was an 8.10, an 8.40 and from myself…I’m going 8.10 out of 10 also. I might even try to get back here during the week, as the weekday menu sounds just as good – plus they sell chicharron.

Two Sundays in a row with an excellent roast dinner. Can I make it 3? Going to a craft beer pub next Sunday…will they actually do good roasts too?

You’re going to Lilibet’s, aren’t you?