Even though Hix on Brewer Street has been open for exactly a year now, the press has only been fairly prolific in the last 4-6 months. It won Time Out's best new restaurant recently and so I'm sure its awareness has increased ten-fold. To be honest I would like it to stay slightly off the "London's best restaurant lists" radar purely from a very selfish point of view. I am in love with this place. I took a friend of mine from Tel Aviv for his 30th birthday on Friday night and it couldn't have been more of a pleasure. I have to admit from the outset that we did get some special treatment as my other friend who came with us is in the restaurant industry so pulled some strings for us but regardless this was dining out at its absolute best.
To start with the restaurant's design, feel and attitude is not what I had in mind at all. I'm not really sure what I thought, I think I thought it would be a lot more in keeping with a fine-dining experience. In retrospect I'm not sure why but anyway I digress. The minute I walked in I felt the place buzzing. I felt like I'd walked into a trendy American movie in New York. It is a wonderful juxtaposition of sleek furniture, dim lighting and nouveau art combined with space, calm and a most of all, a very warm feeling. Even though this clearly has all the makings of yet another pretentious hipster London eatery it is nothing of the sort. I saw smiles, I heard laughter and felt immediately comfortable. We were welcomed by the manager Hamish, who is just so utterly divine I wanted him to sit and eat dinner with us - and for me the night was all about this - the incredible service. Yes, I'll get onto the food in a minute but if you have faultless service from knowledgeable, attentive, personable staff the night is three quarters in the bag. The staff are totally on the ball and at your side when you need them but by no means in a sycophantic way.
So we were treated first of all to a plate of manx queenies - for those lowbrow readers out there (that includes me) these are scallops from the Isle of Man. Utterly fresh and zingy these were a perfect introduction to Mark Hix's clean, unfussy and relaxed style of cooking. I followed this with Goosnarg duck salad with radishes, carrots and landcress. The duck was delicious - very pink, very tender and simple. Along with the colours and some lovely little duck crisps this was excellent British cooking. The boys both had forest mushroom soup which was rich, woody, creamy and very mushroomey. My main was a very sizeable portion of leg of lamb with parsnip mash. The lamb was seasoned well and melted off the bone. The mash, although very good was a little too rich and heavy for me and I couldn't finish it. But if all I'm complaining about is rich mash in this review I think we can all overlook this.
The mushy peas that came with my friend's fish fingers and chips was unbelievable. I might even go as far as to say the best i've ever had.
Finally, we shared a a rich, chocolate pudding with honeycomb ice-cream. Well, I say shared, I pretty much ravished the lot.
Along with a great selection of wines and some excellent cocktails; (try the Hix Fix) I would say there isn't much to not enjoy about Hix. Plus, I haven't even mentioned the awesome bar downstairs from the main restaurant. A den of dark reds and browns, smoky mirrors, antique billiards table and chilled vibes. I'd like it to be my own personal drinking hideaway.
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