Tag Archives: mark hix

Cock Shots and the Candidates: The US Election Issue

. Drinking, Eating . , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The US election season is upon us. Americans get to choose between pachyderms and donkeys. The rest of the world looks on with a fascination normally reserved for train wrecks.

On the left we have a chap who can make a great stump speech, but has spent four years proving that he can’t manage his way out of a paper bag. On the right we have an enormously competent manager who can’t figure out what he stands for and might be hewn from wood.

Democrats by and large have a Calvinist view of the world. They buy dolls and kitchen sets for their boys, so they grow up free of gender stereotypes…and sexually confused.  They wear sandals with socks, hug trees and like holding hands and singing Kumbaya. They adore European style welfare and find it sooo romantic that French unions go on strike every summer. They secretly wish America was more like France, but where the citizenry washed more often and the neighbours weren’t German.

Republicans are at heart Hobbesian. Their boys play Cowboys and Indians, preferably with real guns. They like tea parties, god and golf. They know that people join unions because they have shitty jobs that should be outsourced to some poor foreign country, so foreigners wouldn’t come to America looking for shitty work and join unions. What they really want is a sepia toned version of America with Clint Eastwood as sheriff.

Damien Hirst’s Cock and Bull dominates the interior of the Tramshed

I was drinking a Cock Shot (Absolut vodka, chicken consommé, spices) and wondering if I’d buy one for either presidential candidate. Romney probably would be too embarrassed to say cock and doesn’t drink anyway. Obama would raise my taxes (somewhere along the way I picked up a US passport and now can’t get rid of it without paying off the Inland Revenue Service) so I probably can’t afford to buy him a drink. The Cock Shot was served in a frozen glass, which felt good on a hot summer’s day.  That was about the only good thing going for it.  The Cock Shot tasted awful, slightly salty and vaguely slimy on the tongue.  My female lunch companion drew the obvious analogy. I couldn’t decide whether to Ditch that Bitch (cassis and sparkling wine) or to buy her a Twitter & Bisted (pink grapefruit, Campari, sherry and sparkling wine).

In front of me was a plinth on which stood a whole cow with a rooster on it’s back – encased in a glass case filled with formaldehyde.  Damien Hirst is responsible for the rooster/cow vitrine (appropriately named Cock and Bull) and all the artwork at Tramshed, the new Mark Hix restaurant in Shoreditch.  The artwork signals the only two things you can order at the restaurant – chicken or steak.

The Tramshed occupies a visually stunning space.  Built in 1905 as a electricity generating station for trams, it is a light, high ceilinged space with a bar on one side and a gallery at the back.  There are original two-toned tiled walls and mosaic flooring.  It is industrial chic where the soaring scale of the space helps it escape looking like a 1990’s cliché.  I liked the feel of the place.  The crowd was a mix of hipsters from Shoreditch and pin striped bankers. They all seemed to get along.

One needs to be reminded from time to time that chicken, that most ordinary of birds, can taste exceptional when cooked well.  The bird is presented upside down impaled on a stake with whole clawed feet scratching the air.  Vegetarians look away.  Actually, don’t bother coming here if you are a vegetarian – or if you don’t like steak or chicken for that matter.  There really isn’t anything else to eat, although you can apparently order something that cows might like to eat, off menu. The sirloin is nicely marbled and aged for 28 days in a Himalayan salt chamber (don’t ask).  It’s delicious, but good, expensive steak is not hard to find in London these days.  Order to share in 250g, 500g, 750g or 1kg portions.  The tomato salad I ordered on the side was amazing.  The gnarly organic tomatoes filled the mouth with moist bursts of flavor with chunks of cheddar adding a sharp counterpoint.

A cute touch on the cocktail menu

While the Cock Shot was disappointing the cocktail list is actually rather good.  At first sip the aforementioned Twitter & Bisted (pink grapefruit, Campari, sherry and sparkling wine) tasted like a fizzy cosmopolitan.  Then the nice layered complexity of a well made cocktail came in, with a hint of dry bitterness from the Campari and the smoky aftertaste of the sherry.  The Temperley Sour (Somerset apple brandy, lemon juice, Bramley apple juice and egg white) has a sinuously silky texture, with the sweetness of the apple nicely offset by the tartness of the lemon juice.  There’s a good selection of boutique beers and a fun selection of new world wines.  Battery hen cages (the insides of which the free range chicken on the menu has never seen, although it probably doesn’t care, now that you just ate it) line the entrance, filled with off sales of wine.  There is a bar menu and a well priced take away menu.

Mark Hix has opened seven restaurants in the last four years.  They all have well sourced ingredients, a fresh take on British food and inventive cocktails.  They’re all doing well. His friend Damien Hirst has collaborated on the artwork.  Both friends are having good recessions.  Hirst has done particularly well by preserving various species (including some nasty looking sharks) in formaldehyde, where we can look at them, but they can do us no harm.  Perhaps its time he tried out his art form on some politicians…

Further Reading

London Girl About Town discusses the nearby White Cube Gallery in her review of Tramshed.  The blogger Fifteen Pickles and a Purple Plum has some mouth watering images of the food at Tramshed.  Whether it is bisteca alla Florentina or a bife de chorizo,  there are many variants of fine steak.  Here’s a good discussion on what makes a good steak restaurant from Forbes Traveller.  If you are fond of lists this top ten list of the world’s best steak houses covers the big ones from Peter Luger’s in Brooklyn to Cabana Las Lilas in Buenos Aires.  For steak in London I also like Hawksmoor, particularly their Seven Dials location in Covent Garden.  Goodman provides a properly masculine steak experience and the Argentinian steak at Gaucho is consistently good – particularly at their rather delectable waterfront location in Richmond. Moo!

HIX at The Tramshed on Urbanspoon

Square Meal

The Best of London – Olympic Edition

. Drinking, Eating . , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Olympians are in London!  I see them walking the streets ready to chase their dreams. Good luck to them all!  As the motto says, citius, altius, fortius; faster, higher, stronger!  Thrill us. We will share your joys, shed your tears, but most of all we will prepare to be amazed.

Now for the rest of you who are here to witness the spectacle, a few words of advice. You are not athletes. You really should not wear sporting attire, especially if the furthest you’ve run recently is to the refrigerator door.   Sneakers should not be seen outside the gymnasium. It is not acceptable to wear baseball caps indoors.

This is an exciting city with some wonderful bars and restaurants.  Please frequent them.  I know it is exciting for you to be here. Please contain yourself.  We don’t really need to hear your conversation. Yes we know London is expensive and it rains a lot. We really don’t need you to tell us that either.  I know you love your kids. I love mine too. I leave them at home when I go out.  All decent hotels in London have babysitting services.  They employ very beautiful Eastern European girls who speak no English, so your kids won’t bother them.

The Tower Bridge proudly displays the Olympic rings

When the sun is shining in London, as it is now, there is no finer city in the world.  Despite their stiff upper lips, the natives are friendly.  Be warned however, that they will drink you under the table.  Have a helluva time! Here are my current favourite bars and restaurants:

The best martini in London is to be had at Dukes Hotel. This is a tiny hotel and the bar is a small traditional affair. All the tables are marked reserved.  Allesandro Palazzi, the bartender, will size you up.  If you are a serious drinker there is already a table reserved for you. If you order something silly like white wine they’ll banish you to a lesser bar. Ian Fleming sat here and wrote Casino Royale.  Legend has it that the phrase “shaken not stirred” was invented here.  Don’t even think about taking your kids.

Another favourite martini haunt is the Connaught Bar at the Connaught hotel.  It is only open in the evening.  The Dukes Hotel is for serious drinkers.  The Connaught is for serious drinkers to see and be seen. It is glamourous.  They have an excellent range of home made bitters with which they will delicately flavour your martini.  I like the lavender bitters in a Plymouth Gin martini. If you want to taste a £40 ($60) martini ask for their super premium vodkas.

Some of you may make it to London with someone you actually like versus someone you happen to get married to after you got drunk together during senior week. Take the person you like on a cocktail date to the Beaufort Bar at the Savoy Hotel.  It’s dark and sexy, all black with gold leaf accents.  The cabaret stage features live music from a venue where the likes of George Gershwin broadcast over the then newly launched British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).  There are 27 champagnes available by the glass.  The bar counter is by Rene Lalique.  The cocktails are serious.

The magnificent Beaufort Bar at the Savoy

If you want to explore a proper drinking den without venturing too far outside central London I recommend the Experimental Cocktail Club (ECC) in Chinatown.  The entrance is unremarkable except for the bouncer guarding it.  Upstairs are two floors of shabby chic, a combination of fin-de-siecle opulence and antique store finds.  The drinks are reasonably priced at £10 (US $16) although you can push the boat out and order a £150 (US $230) martini made with 1950′s Gordon’s Gin. I’m not sure gin actually improves with age – more likely its a marketing gimmick to take advantage of finding a case of unopened gin in granny’s attic.  The crowd is young, hip and beautiful.  Whilst you are in London do try the most exciting new spirits houses – Sipsmith and Sacred Spirits are both brewed in London and both make an excellent London Dry Gin.  Sipsmith also makes a very good vodka. Chase’s makes my favourite potato vodka. All of the bars mentioned in this article stock them.

London’s food scene is cosmopolitan and exciting.  Unfortunately most good restaurants get booked early.  Go in the early part of the week or book lunch which tends to be less crowded (and frequently better value).

If you are going out to eat in London you must taste the best of British cusine:

  • Fergus Henderson at St John Hotel near Leicester Square (plus his original Michelin starred St John Bar and Restaurant at the Smithfield’s).  Don’t take your muslim friends here.  Fergus celebrates eating the pig, every part of the pig, in what he calls “nose to tail eating”.  He serves up inner organs in big exhilarating dishes that combine high sophistication with peasant roughness.
  • Jason Atherton at Pollen Street Social in Mayfair.  Atherton won a Michelin star at Maze and it won’t be long before his solo venture receives the same accolade.  This is sophisticated but fun food, served in a bright space with great cocktails.  Moreover there is a bar where you can eat the same food if the restaurant can’t find you a table.
  • Mark Hix at Hix in Soho.  I also like his new restaurant Tramshed in Shoreditch.  There is a daily changing menu of seasonal British food.  The emphasis is on beef and shellfish, particularly oysters.  The art is by Damien Hirst and a revolving panoply of British talent.  The bar downstairs is exceptional (see my review in Bombay Rolls, Persian Lovers and a Bit of Hanky Panky)

Cigarette Girls in their prime at Quaglino’s

If you’ve forgotten to book early, look for a large restaurant with a bit more space.  My favourite last minute haunts are Quaglino’s in Mayfair and Le Pont de la Tour in Shad Thames (by the Tower Bridge). These are both establishment restaurants that have stood the test of time.  John le Carre’s spies met their handlers at Quaglino’s.  My friends in the intelligence community suggest it still is favoured by James Bond types.  The cigarette girls who sashay amongst the tables no longer offer cigarettes, but they still sashay.  Quaglino’s offers a classic brasserie menu.  Le Pont de la Tour offers a French menu, a waterfront setting and fabulous views of the Thames and Tower Bridge.  There are no cigarette girls at Le Pont de la Tour but the service is impeccable with an old world courtesy rarely seen in busy restaurants.

Before Margaret Thatcher kicked socialism into the long grass and put the Great back in Britain, the food here was atrocious.  It was said that the only edible food you could find in the UK was Indian.  London still has some of the best Indian food in the world.  Amaya in Knightsbridge serves some of the most creative Indian food in the world.  It is better than anything I’ve tasted in India, plus the waiters smell nicer.  Amaya was one of the first Indian restaurants in the world to be awarded a Michelin star.

If all else fails drop me a comment on this site and I’ll suggest some alternatives.  I’m keeping the home bar going for all visiting friends. No baseball caps please.

Further Reading

This fabulous tube map of some of London’s best cocktail bars was put together by the Gin Monkey.  Click for a larger image.  The list of bars mentioned is also available on Foursquare; handy if you want to meet people once you’ve had a few drinks and feel irresistibly attractive to the opposite sex.  You can find a very reliable list of London’s top 40 cocktail bars at Class Magazine, produced by the Difford’s Guide

Tube Map of Cocktail Bars – copyright The Gin Monkey (ginmonkey.co.uk)

Bombay Rolls, Persian Lovers and a bit of Hanky Panky

. Drinking, Eating . , , , , , , , , ,

Time was when a restaurant bar was a place to have a drink while you waited for your mates to show up, or for your table to become available.  These days however, several restaurant bars have become destinations in their own right.  I love the basement vibe and cocktails at the bar at Hawksmoor Seven Dials, the subterranean steak house in Covent Garden.  The bar at Hakkasan Mayfair is great for people watching and Chinese nibbles.  My current favourite restaurant bar and certainly one of the hippest is Mark’s Bar at Hix Oyster and Chophouse in Soho.

The restaurant itself is on my recommended list, big and bustling with art by Damien Hirst and an edgy take on traditional British cuisine.  Mark Hix used to be the chef director of Caprice Holdings (including the Ivy) and in addition to Hix Soho his current empire includes restaurants in Farringdon and Dorset.

I went to Mark’s Bar recently with some good friends who provide financing for businesses in Lesser Developed Countries (LDCs).  These worthies included Gummy Bear (so called for his fetish for a green gummy bear in yellow Y-fronts featuring in the Gummy Bear video), the Cat Woman (a feline creature surrounded by cats) and the Bombay Roller. I naively thought a Bombay roll referred to a savoury snack until I checked out the Urban Dictionary.  Look it up if you must.

Hard core decor at Mark’s Bar

Mark’s Bar is in the basement of Hix’s restaurant and is decorated in the inter-war style that is hip in London these days.  A low zinc bar dominates one side of the room with smoky mirrors, tin ceilings, art deco lamps, arty prints and comfortable Chesterfield’s completing the look.  This is an easy going place, heavy on style and light on attitude.  It’s a place where you feel instantly comfortable.  The best bars always are.

The cocktails at Mark’s were created by Nick Strangeways who also developed cocktails for Cecconi’s and Hawksmoor.  We started with some light fun drinks including Mark’s Blunder made with a home made Somerset apple aperitif mixed with Aperol and lengthened with sparkling wine; a delightfully refreshing apple flavoured take on an Aperol Spritz.  Aperol is an Italian orange liqueur with about half the alcoholic strength of Campari.  The Bombay Roller ordered a porn star martini off menu.  I’d never actually had one before – in a glass or in the flesh for that matter.  Mark’s version is good; the passion fruit is fresh, the hint of vanilla in the vodka and the bite of fresh lime balanced perfectly with a hint of bitters which gave the drink a sophistication belying its name.

We moved the drinks up a notch in sophistication and potency.  The Hanky Panky is done particularly well here.  Legend has it that Ada Coleman, the second head bar tender at the Savoy Hotel was asked by the actor Charles Hawtrey to make a drink with a “bit of punch”.  Her concoction, made after hours of experimentation drew the appreciative comment, “by jove, that’s the real hanky panky!”  This is a classic cocktail made on a base of Beefeater 24 gin, Antica Formula red vermouth and Fernet Branca, finished with a bit of orange zest.  Fernet Branca is an acquired taste but has legendary curative properties.  Its ingredients are rumoured to include coca leaf, wormwood and codeine.  Its taste has been likened to licorice flavoured listerine.  The Hanky Panky is served in a small chilled metal cup.  The rest of the drink is kept ice cold in a small carafe buried in ice.  The long chill notes of the gin is given a slightly bitter, earthy complexity by the Fernet Branca. The orange zest leaves a citrus tang on the palate.

Keen to test a brown alcohol based drink I also tried The Avenue, a drink created at the Cafe Royal in London and served through the Art Noveau era of the 1890s right through to the high point of Art Deco in the 1930s.  It consists of Four Roses bourbon, Somerset Cider Brandy (apparently brewed since 1678), homemade grenadine, passion fruit nectar and a dash of orange blossom water.  The sharpness of the passion fruit made a nice counterpoint to the warm mellow, slightly sweeter flavours of the brandy and bourbon.

These are potent cocktails and we needed sustenance.  Looking for a change of scenery we moved to Wright Brothers Soho Oyster House.  Wright Brothers is a modest, casual restaurant with some of the freshest seafood in London.  The oysters, shellfish, and “day boat fish” (caught by small boats during short day time fishing expeditions) they serve here are exceptional.  I usually like to start with a British craft vodka or gin martini (Sipsmith vodka and No.3 gin are house brands here) followed by a made to order platter of fruits de mer.  I’ve also tried their oyster and wine pairings which are unique – although making for a slightly befuddling menu.

Oyster and Wine pairings at Wright Brothers Soho (click for larger image)

Towards the end of the evening we were abruptly reminded that we live in a large city when one of our party had her purse stolen.  Fortunately, nothing irreplaceable went missing, but she had lost the keys to her flat.  In the best tradition of soused chivalry, Gummy Bear and I decided to sort the situation out for her.

There is always a strange gin-soaked quality to the wee hours.  It brings out the best and the worst in people.  Everything seemed to move in slow motion as my arm arced through the night, releasing a stone at a strange man’s window.  He was a drummer in a rock and roll band.  Fifty something with a beard and pony tail, he was apparently from Iran and spoke no English.  We finally communicate that our friend had lost her purse and couldn’t get into her flat which was across the hallway from his.  He makes contact with his Iranian friend, who was also her landlord and passes us the phone.  It was on speaker.  “Hello, if I help you will you be nice to me….” he asks the girl who’d lost her purse.  Her voice is flat, her tone cold and non-committal  “I’m always nice to you, ” she says.  Twenty minutes later, Iranian lover boy screams up in his car.  It’s after 2 AM but he is freshly shaved and in a suit.  His crisply pressed shirt is unbuttoned to his midriff exposing a hairy chest and several gold medallions.  A heady cloud of perfume hangs about him.  He is ready for action.   Our man is crestfallen when he discovers that his damsel in distress has company.  Spare keys are handed over and the Persian love machine zoomed off in search of more action.

I went home and mixed myself another martini.

Further Reading

Mark’s Bar reviews
Bar Chick
A Little Bird

Mark's Bar on Urbanspoon

Wright Brothers Soho Oyster House reviews
Gin and Crumpets
Buoun Appetito aka Ramos Gin Fizz

Wright Brothers (Soho) on Urbanspoon