Restaurant specialising in steak says it has 'not been able to make it work'

Foxlow is to close its Chiswick restaurant next week.

The restaurant, which opened on the former Sam's Brasserie site in 2015, said it would close on 18 March after its lunch service.

An email to customers said: "Although we’ve loved running the restaurant, and know that a good many of you have taken it to your hearts and become regulars, we haven’t been able to make it work."

Last year, the Foxlow restaurant brand had what its owners admitted was a "pretty tough time" leading to a pre-tax loss for the company overall. The Foxlow brand suffered from the perception that it was 'just a steakhouse' and efforts to rebrand and reshape the menu do not appear to have been enough to convince locals in Chiswick.

The company closed the Foxlow branch in Stoke Newington, last year and the Chiswick branch was reckoned to be on the danger list.

The chain specialises in steaks, cocktails and brunches but according to an article in a trade publication The Caterer last year Foxlow had not performed as well as the group's award-winning Hawksmoor steak chain which has six London restaurants and one Manchester branch.

This resulted in the Underdog Group being pushed into the red with a £9million pre-tax loss for the financial year ended 31 December 2016.

The company still intends to keep its Foxlow restaurants in Soho, Balham and Clerkenwell. The restaurant chain is owned by Will Beckett and Huw Gott.

Will Beckett had admitted last year that Foxlow was struggling. “There may be some factors in the wider economy involved, but we think fundamentally we allowed the brand’s identity to drift from ‘a neighbourhood restaurant based on great British produce’ to ‘it’s a steakhouse’, which is never what we intended.

The Chiswick restaurant was the third in the London stable.

After Sam's Brasserie closed, it was refurbished using reclaimed and vintage materials and offered a menu of charcoal-grilled steaks sourced from The Ginger Pig butchery, as well as seafood, smoked meats and salads.

March 12, 2018