London,

Hix

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Cuisine: British
A meal for two with wine, about £110 including 12.5 per cent service

66-70 Brewer Street
Nearest Tube: Tottenham Court Road

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Phone: 020 7292 3518

Open: Open daily noon-3pm & 5-11.30pm (10.30pm Sun).

 

 

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A fine focus on fish in Hix

 

Old muckers: head chef Kevin Gratton, left, and Mark Hix have focused on seasonal, regional, small-scale suppliers

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Mark Hix was in civvies. It was presumably an acknowledgement that after opening a number of restaurants — in his case Hix Oyster & Chop House, Hix Oyster & Fish House (in Lyme Regis) and a consultancy at The Albemarle Grill at Brown’s Hotel in less than two years — you can’t expect the name on the door to be frying a Gladys
May’s duck egg or slicing a puffball mushroom.

Mark was working the room. One of the most gregarious chefs in London with a strong sideline in friends from the art world, I would say that on last Saturday evening — the first night of full prices — almost every diner was known to him. I was, and my tactic of booking as Mrs Robinson was rumbled in a trice.

This business of friends and “others” gave rise to some understandable disgruntlement soon after the opening of Hix Oyster & Chop House in Smithfield. Hix has made the point that he was then working with a team of untried (by him) chefs and waiting staff. Eighteen months on, he has built up a trust-worthy coterie and indeed his old mucker Kevin Gratton, with whom he worked at Le Caprice and together opened Scott’s for Caprice Holdings, is head chef in Brewer Street.

One man’s loss is another man’s gain. By this, I mean, of course, that Gary Yau having to close his short-lived sleek Japanese restaurant Aaya at this address for financial reasons has provided Mark Hix with handsome, spruce central London premises for less investment than might usually be the case.

Conversion to what the website describes as “rugged Georgian” has left some original finishes and detail in place. The two long bars, one at the back of the ground-floor restaurant, the other downstairs, were a gift. Unremitting hard surfaces, including bare wooden tables, means that in the restaurant, noise booms and bounces around. Maybe some people conflate difficulty in conversing with a good time being had by all. I was relieved when four loud men at an adjacent table left but they were almost immediately replaced.

Mobiles dangle from the lofty ceiling. Damien Hirst has fixed fish into Perspex blocks and Sarah Lucas suspends and balances tins of Fray Bentos steak and kidney pies. It is agreeably playful, especially in conjunction with the leaded windowpanes and monastery-like door and brings a style and excitement to Brewer Street that has not been there since Randall & Aubin ceased to be a French butcher’s shop.

Mrs Robinson and her party were given a plateful of prawns from Poole in Dorset. You shouldn’t look a gift prawn in the mouth but they were too cold, too salty (almost preserved in texture) and the mayonnaise pallid, not the unctuous ointment it can be. The sautéed prawn shells, a second serving — an idea, said Mark, that he had
discovered in Japan — were more diverting empty, hot and crackling than they had been full.

The menu, in its admirable embrace of seasonal, regional, small virtuous suppliers and so forth, is similar to that at the Chop House but with greater emphasis on fish. A first course of Seashore Salad was a perfect evocation of a well-stocked rock pool, the sort you might remember from an idealised childhood. Cod’s tongues, actually a gelatinous strip of flesh from the fish’s throat, were crunchily crumbed and served with more girolles (aka golden chanterelles) than you could shake a stick at.

Another opener called Heaven and Earth apparently came about thanks to a conversation at The Rivington Grill when friends told Mark about a Düsseldorf bar called Brauerei zum Schüssel, where they appreciated Himmel und Erde, a combination of black pudding, mashed baked potatoes and apples. A sphere of soft, deeply savoury blood pudding (morcilla?) is hedged with mash and, according to its recipient, preserved lemon has made an appearance in the trickle of sauce. It is much liked.

In the main course, you can lash out on grilled Orkney lobster with garlic butter and chips at £39 and Aberdeenshire beef fillet on the bone at £34.75 for 300g or you can steer a middle to a relatively cheapish course as we did with Herdwick mutton, kidney and oyster pie at £15.50, hanger steak with baked bone marrow at £17.50 and grilled puffball served with good old Gladys May’s duck egg and woodland mushrooms for £14.75.

The pie, with its oyster served separately riding in its shell, was diminutive but praised for its flavour. The hanger steak, usually such a ribald cut, was a bit dull. The friend who ordered the puffball wasn’t sure if it arrived oversalted or whether he had mindlessly oversalted it himself. We’ll never know.

Desserts celebrate British prowess in the pudding course. Kingston Black (a cider apple) and blackberry jelly with vanilla ice cream and Yorkshire parkin with clotted cream are two we try and they are excellent.

At £7.50 and £7 respectively, it is perhaps helpful to know that you can also order ice creams and sorbets at £2 a scoop or four Venezuelan chocolate and apple brandy truffles (made by Julian Temperley) for £4.

Downstairs is a bar — neon signage courtesy of Sue Webster tactfully refrains from calling it Mark’s Club —where seating is soft and snacks are served. It will become a hangout. Mark my words.

Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.

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