Evening Standard
By Fay Maschler
Actors want their name in lights. Most chefs are happy just to see it above a restaurant door. Seeing HIX in large letters on the façade of what was formerly Rudland & Stubbs, near Smithfield Market, made me think what a long time it has been in coming.
Mark Hix may not be a name that London restaurant-goers necessarily conjure with but they have almost certainly eaten his food. For the past 17 years Hix worked for Caprice Holdings, joining when Chris Corbin and Jeremy King re-invented Le Caprice and going on to be involved in the opening of The Ivy and J Sheekey and then — when Caprice Holdings was bought by the first of its new owners — becoming chef-director of the group with responsibility also for Daphne’s BamBou and Pasha. Most recently, Hix was the person behind the impeccable British fish menu for the highly successful relaunch of Scott’s.
We loved gull’s eggs, cooked judiciously to the point where the yolk had not completely set, served with celery salt and unctuous, obviously homemade mayonnaise; St Enodoc asparagus veiled in butter and set on an antique asparagus tray, once the property of The Savoy, on a folded tea-towel; fried skate knobs (panko crumbs) with caper mayonnaise.
In the main course, two of us shared a roasted Woolley Park Farm free-range chicken served with wild garlic sauce. The busy outdoor life of the birds at this Bradford-on-Avon farm really does impact on their flavour. I can’t remember a chicken tasting better since my childhood. Which was a long time ago. Asking for a side order of chips resulted in a metal pail filled with the crispest possible pommes allumettes.
At last Mark Hix has put his name to a restaurant — and it is eminently deserving of it.
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