Full transcript: Mark Hix on London Real
1:36 This is London Real. I’m Brian Rose. This is Nick Gabriel, and joining us today is Mr Mark Hix, who is a London restaurateur. He’s been in the business for over 17 years and has either managed or owned such places as Le Caprice, Scott’s. I just found out the Rivington, The Ivy, and most recently Hix Oyster and Chop House, also Hix Soho and Tramshed, which is right here in Shoreditch, which is where I met Mark about 2 weeks ago where he was busy working and having a glass of wine.
2:05 Maybe it’s the same thing. You always need a glass of wine when you’re helping the day. You seem very busy even though you were drinking a glass of wine, busy drinking the glos one, yeah. You know, but running the place. So welcome.
2:19 Thank you You know, I’ve always, I was in the city for a long time, so my job was to entertain. I was out a couple of nights a week taking these Bankers to, like, you know, the finest restaurants in London, you could say. And for me, a good restaurant is like a little bit of theater, and it’s like, for me, it’s it’s like you’re not only part of the theater, you’re watching a show, and it’s like a big deal to go to the right restaurant, you know, and it’s not just the food.
2:43 It’s not just the atmosphere. It’s like a combination of things and I was wondering if you could tell me what is the magic that makes, like, a successful top restaurant? Well there’s all sorts of things, really. I mean, from the minute you walk in the door, you know, the way you’re greeted, whether it’s the doorman, the hat check girl, you know, or the receptionist. I think that first impression of the restaurant is crucial, you know.
3:05 A cold reception could, you know, lead on to being a sort of evening of disaster. So I think, you know, that first impression, obviously, consistent food. You know, some, I think, some restaurants that serve kind of mediocre food but has fantastic service. It’s easy to remember those places and have a good time. I think, you know, some restaurants serve great food and the service is not so good, you know.
3:30 It’s easily kind of forgettable, so I think you need a happy balance of all those different elements, you know. I think having consistent food, interesting menu, interesting decor, you know, is also crucial. You know, you’ve got a lot of restaurants and the rooms are quite boring, so I think, you know, an interesting room, which is a bit like what we did at the Tramshed. You know, it’s an interesting building initially, and we added a few bits and pieces, and you know, that room, you know, when it’s buzzing, is a lot of fun.
3:59 Yeah, I’m going to just hold a picture that was in Time Out magazine, but for the our people on iTunes Can you kind of describe what that room is all about? I mean, there’s a big cow and a bird in the middle of it, right? So what is going on there? What you and our meetings with the architects, who literally just ran a corner from you for about a year and a half. We looked at this cardboard model with the Tram shed, and I went into the site meeting one day, and my architect, Andrew War, around the corner, had moved the mezzanine to the middle of the room, and I said no, I don’t like that, it’s not going to give the room the white look.
4:41 So I thought maybe we need a sculpture or something. So I text Damien Hirst and said you know, opening a new restaurant, chicken and steak. If you got any ideas, you know, so 24 hours later he got his guys to mock up the tank with the in it, and there we go. I guess that’s it. It was work in progress.
5:06 I guess that’s the beauty of being able to text Damien, but it was, you know, I was slightly worried about having that thing in the middle of the room, because, you know, vegetarians, I kind of expected, you know, the first few weeks. Buckets of blood, red blood, to be thrown against my windows, but it didn’t happen, and you know, people were coming in and just, you know, checking out the piece of work and then leaving the restaurant without even eating. So it became a bit of a sort of sightseeing exercise as well.
5:38 It’s called Tramshed. Why did you call it that, and what did that space used to be? Well, it used to be a tramshed. Okay. It was Victorian.
5:44 It was a Victorian tramshed, and that bit on the left with the steel supports that used to house the generators for the trams, and that was in the late 1800s. These are overground trams, yeah. Okay. And ironically, when we opened the restaurant we couldn’t get any electricity into the building, so we had a generator outside for about the first five or six weeks. I think I remember that.
6:13 So you probably heard it from just a question, slightly from left field, but I’m really interested to know from you, Mark. What is the aspect of being a restaurateur that you enjoy the least? The least, well, it’d be much easier if you didn’t have to still deal with staff and customers. One of those virtual restaurants would be great, but you know, I think the whole thing is, or can be, a lot of fun. You know, it can be a headache.
6:45 It can be hard work. It is hard work, but the element I like is the fun side of it. When I was at college. Well, in fact, when I was at school, I didn’t know what to do in the fifth year. I didn’t have any sort of career ideas in my head.
7:02 And the last year at school, boys for the first time were allowed to do domestic science, okay, instead of another subject. So a few of us used to hate metalwork, you know, used to be filing away for weeks on end to get a really dodgy keying or something, so three of us opted to do domestic science. There was the teacher and three boys, and that was the whole class, and we just did it for a bit of fun, really. It was the most unmanly thing you could have done.
7:29 And then I still didn’t know what to do, and I was working in a pub washing up at the weekends, and it got to the end of term, and I embarrassingly won the school prize for domestic science, so I had to, I had to get up in front of the whole school and go and collect my, I think it was a Delia Smith book or something, but still I didn’t. I didn’t know what to do, and there was a suggestion from the careers guy to go to a catering college, which I thought, okay, well, I’ve got no other options, so I went to Kajin College and had a great lecturer called Lori Mills, who, this was St in Dorset, and he’d always worked in London. He was always talking about London and you know, he was probably the person that kind of, you know, curved my career, if you like and he was a lot of fun.
8:20 We used to go out and drink together, and we used to do this thing on Thursday afternoon called electives, where you could choose another subject. We used to go around to his flat with a few girls and a few litres of wine and a party every Thursday, so I thought, this is fun, you know, and I think from that period on I moved to London, and I’ve always kind of, you know, treated the business as a as a fun thing. I think, you know, if the staff are having fun, the customers are having fun, you know, sometimes we get it wrong, but we’re human.
8:55 So you’re not the guy that’s yelling at the kitchen or yelling at the staff, cuz you get these images of these. I know you’re not a celebrity chef per se, but you know, you have that aspect of you, are you not that guy? I’m not that guy. No, I do have a little bit of a yell occasionally, but not on a consistent basis. How can you run a business that way?
9:14 Well, I think you have to be firm and fair, and you know, teaching your staff is crucial. You know, we do an awful lot of training, and twice a week I meet the staff, the managers and the chefs, and we meet for a couple of hours, and we talk about, you know, all different elements of the business. So I think, you know, communicating with the staff you know. I’ve got six restaurants, one in the West Country. I’ve got a little fish restaurant, and I try and get down there about three times a month, and I think, you know, touching the staff and making sure that, you know, they’re running your business for you as you would run it if you were completely hands-on is the important bit, and getting to know the customers.
10:01 You know, hence why I’m sitting here. It’s, I mean, I was reading your bio, and it’s clear you’ve run a lot of restaurants during the last 20 years. Is there ever a point when you’ve opened a new venture and you almost, like, a tipping point where you don’t know if it’s going to work or not, and if so, how do you identify that, and what actions do you take to tip it? Yeah, well, I mean, that question is perfect timing really, because we, a year ago, opened in Belgravia with Thompson Hotels.
10:32 You know, Thompson in New York. How would you describe Belgravia to people that don’t know it, like people in New York or in California? I’m actually trying to see how I describe it. I’ve been in London for 10 years. It’s, this, a few people that live there.
10:45 You know, there’s lots of wealthy people live in Belgravia, but you don’t see many front doors open, you know. You see a lot of maids and nannies come up from the basement, but you know, you don’t see many front doors opening, and we kind of found at lunchtime that was, you know, difficult for us business-wise. There’s not a lot of people walking on the streets. People that own the houses are probably, you know, at work in the city or they’re in the south of France or Moscow.
11:16 So we didn’t see an awful lot of business at lunchtimes, and I kind of knew it was a bit quiet, but I just sort of, I was quite confident that we could make it into a bit of a destination, but, you know, a year on, it hasn’t worked for us. So, you know, that business failed, but, you know, I, I kind of look at it in a positive way, that you know, it was money well lost, if you like, you know, because of the, losing money. Yeah, interesting. Money well lost, you know, because in a couple of years’ time we might get offered something else like that, and it just makes you think twice about, you know, the area, the position, the type of people that live there, what buildings you’re surrounded with.
11:55 Workwise, do you notice, Brian, how the successful people that we interact with, a common element I noticed amongst all of them is they’re not afraid to fail. They’re really not, like, it’s a complete opposite, because in school you’re taught, be a perfectionist, try to get everything right, you know, and that’s not how the world works. Right. Well, I think failing occasionally is good because you do learn from it. And years and years ago, I opened a fish and chip shop in Maida Vale in West London with some friends.
12:23 Is that your first? It was a kind of project on the side of what I was doing when I was doing Caprice, Ivy, Shiki, etc., and it failed because, you know, most fish and chip shops are hands-on owner-run businesses, and I had a job, and we, you know, someone was running it for us, and it was in a sort of edgy area. There’s a lot of drug dealers outside, and, but people were coming from, you know, distance, because we did lobster on the grill, lobster and chips to take away, fish fingers, you could have healthy sides and salads, but that business failed, and I lost £100,000 in a fish and chip shop, and my other two partners also lost the same amount of money, so that sort of taught me less.
13:07 I didn’t, I didn’t have £100,000, but I sort of scrubble together, paid my suppliers, because they’re the worst people not to pay. Okay, cuz they won’t work with your game basically. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And you kind of lose faith, so, you know, it worked out.
13:22 I’ve forgotten about it now, but it was a learning curve. I mean, how much is his practical experience? I mean, if if people are out there listening to this and they want to start up an adventure, I mean, you seem like the kind of guy that jumps in with both feet. Is that the kind of advice you give people? Yeah, I think if you’re confident, if you’ve got a good plan in your head to do it, then go for it, you know.
13:46 I think a lot of it is, you know, down to experience as well. Location, although I’ve just, you know, told you about the Belgravia story, location isn’t always key or crucial. You know, my West in Smithfield is found a you know, a scuzzy little back street, but it’s, you know, a good spot, and people, you know, come and have fun. You know, over the years the Caprice was sort of at the end of a street behind the r and yeah the same with the Ivy really, that was a little back street, and J Shiki, so the location is not always important.
14:25 Ploughing too much money into the restaurant is often a big mistake. I mean, our restaurant in Brewer Street, we, the previous owner had spent in excess of sort of £2 and £5 million. I went to that restaurant before you took it over. It was a Japanese place. Exactly.
14:44 I had lunch there a few times, beautiful, and he was, he’s the brother of a friend of mine, and he closed after six months, so we were able to pick up on someone else’s failure, if you like, and we, we bought it for a couple hundred thousand, and did a, we changed it from Japanese to British-looking, kept the big front door. Can you see some of things, operations like that? I mean, sometimes are they like a slow-moving car wreck where you can just see someone building something, and you just don’t see the business concept or you think they’re spending too much money?
15:16 I mean, that was a beautiful restaurant, and the service was good, but I would go in there and it was, like, really high-price sushi on Brewer Street. Isn’t the classiest venue, and it, I don’t know, I guess it just never got. Yeah, I mean, when we opened there, Rat Nesh, my business partner, we walked into the building, and Ratnesh wasn’t quite sure about it, but I looked around and I went down in the basement and I immediately thought, cocktail bar. A lot of restaurant had walked in and because it was Japanese, I think they didn’t really think too much about it, and it’s kind of the wrong end of Soho, it was at the time, but immediately I could see restaurant upstairs and cocktail bar downstairs, and I never done a bar before, so I got my friend Nick Strangeway to help me with the cocktail list, and it, you know, all of a sudden became a very popular cocktail bar, and there was no other restaurants there.
16:09 There was a building site outside there was always roadworks outside the restaurant, so we could never open the windows, all the doors, so the first six months were interesting. And the other interesting thing now is, right opposite, there’s a new restaurant opening tonight called Mash, which is a Danish steakhouse. Chris Corbin and Jeremy King, my old bosses, are just around the corner, so that street, there, look, there’s quite a lot of restaurants that have opened in the last sort of, you know, year or two, which is a good thing.
16:43 I think it’s good for business to have, you know, other restaurants coming, sort of joining the area. In Smithfield Market, the only person that was there really was St John and PAs SC Oak, who’s across the other side of the market, and now there’s lots of restaurants. You know, my friend Russell, who owns Polpo, he’s opened right opposite. Sounds like Burger and Lobster was opened. Sounds like you have an abundance mentality, because a lot of people, if they were operating a business and a competitor opened across the street, I mean, a lot of people have a scarcity mentality, and they’d be like, oh no, this guy’s going to run me out of business, but I really like the way he thinks.
17:24 It’s just like, you know, cool, the more the more the better. There’s enough for everyone. It’s really cool. I think it just brings more people to the area. I mean, when I opened the Rivington first, I remember vividly James Gof, who owns Sterling Acoid, which he probably bought this building from.
17:40 What is Sterling? People don’t know there, a state agent, State AG, right? And he came, he said, Mark, he said I must shake your hand. This place has always been a failure, but, you know, I wish you all the best. And then about six months later he shook my hand again.
17:56 He said, congratulations, you made it work, eventually. So, and there’s lots of restaurants around there now. I mean, you know, I’ve just opened right opposite the Rivington, right that’s what is, yeah, but with Hix Soho, I remember it was known as, like, the place where all the celebrities were going, and had such a buzz about it. I mean, is that things where you’ll actually pick up a phone and call people, or if you’re feeling that it was struggling, can you make that buzz happen, or is it just something that has to be organic?
18:22 When I do a restaurant, I often use friends of mine who are artists to, I always trade work with, for food. So in Soho, for example, there wasn’t much wall space, so I asked a bunch of artists if they make mobiles hanging from the ceiling, and I trade with them, and they come and eat, the nothing, and sign a bill, and in turn they bring their friends in, the art dealers, gallery owners. So you kind of get an interesting kind of clientele, and there, that’s quite smart.
18:53 That is smart, devious. You can, you know, you can go shopping for art and fill the walls with all sorts of things, but I think it needs an interesting story. So by me asking artists to make mobiles, some of them had never made a mobile in their life, you know, and some of them aren’t actually even mobile. They just fixed at the ceiling. Some of them were getting a bit competitive, and some of them work really well.
19:19 Some have motors. There’s a Damien Hirst piece and a Sarah Lucas piece, who operate on motors that are kind of spinning at different speeds at different times of the day. And one of the last people to install a mobile was Michael Craig-Martin, who actually taught a lot of those artists at college, and then we just recently got a piece by Anthony Gormley. So, you know, it’s an interesting, because every so often there’s a new piece hits the ceiling. You, what’s the craziest thing a customer or a chef or a member of staff has ever done in one of your restaurants?
19:55 Oh, there’s a question. The craziest thing that you can talk about at least. Yeah, you know, that’s why. Is the craziest thing sometimes customers do crazy things? I mean, I remember years ago, the Caprice, an actor had ordered risotto with white truffles, and I saw him putting Tabasco all over it, like, a £50 dish.
20:24 And he’s put Tabasco on it. Are you the kind of guy that would come out from the kitchen and be offended by that? No, I just think it’s interesting when people do that. Why they do it, you know, because obviously their taste buds can’t be that good, you know, adding Tabasco to white truffles. What do you think of the concept of a celebrity chef, and do you think that’s something that’s sustainable?
20:44 Do you think that’s a positive or a negative thing? I, I know you’ve got a new cookbook coming out. We’re going to talk about that later on, baking. But yeah, I’ve always avoided the TV thing, video, to be honest. I noticed I couldn’t find much footage on you.
20:56 You seem to be the reluctant, didn’t cook on TV? I am. But saying that, I’m doing Saturday Kitchen this week, but that’s purely because of the book. Okay, so I was kind of say no to doing TV stuff because I want to sort of concentrate and be in the restaurants. Saying that, I did do the Great British Menu a few years ago.
21:15 Yeah, and won a couple of courses. But that’s kind of my TV career. Do you just don’t enjoy the spotlight, or no? I, you know, I think it consumes an awful lot of time when I think you could be focusing on, you know, how the restaurant works, and, you know, talking to the customers and training your staff. So it’s not something that’s appealed to me, really.
21:37 I’m guessing, like, for the Gordon Ramsay of the world, I’m guessing that their restaurants are almost a small part of their business. It’s their books and their, I mean, Gordon Ramsay’s got so many damn television shows, and I’m guessing that their business becomes bigger, but you seem to be more of a restaurateur. Yeah, but you know, on the other hand, you have someone like Jamie Oliver, who has changed, I would say, you know, is part and part of changing the way that people eat and shop.
22:03 I think what he’s done for food on TV is incredible. It’s, how has he changed the way people do that? Well, I think, you know, his TV shows make cooking at home look, you know, look easy, where it’s not a sort of studio and weighing ingredients and stuff. You know, he’s quite confident, and you know, I think it enables the viewer to understand that you can just put a hand in and, you know, create a fantastic dish. Are you talking Naked Chef?
22:31 Are you talking since then? What, well, since then, and then I suppose, you know, I think he’s even, you know, managed to open, you know, very good Italian restaurants on the high streets, you know, that would feed students or grown-ups, and I think, I don’t know, I think he’s just confident, and he’s a, you know, he talks well, and his knowledge is great. You know, I like it when he does those of series abroad, when he goes to a different country and cooks their local food.
23:03 And Rick Stein, you know, I think Rick Stein’s another of my favorite TV chefs, and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. So you’ll watch food and cooking programs on TV when you’re at home? I never watch TV. I very rarely turn it on. In fact, the last time I turned it on was a few days ago with the flooding in New York.
23:22 Okay, why don’t you watch TV? I just don’t. I just don’t. I don’t know why my girlfriend watches The X Factor, so I nor leave. Sounds familiar.
23:32 I normally leave the room at that point and start cooking dinner or something. You don’t like Simon Cowell? I just don’t watch it. I just sign it a bit, you know. I don’t.
23:43 It’s complete waste of may, a girl thing, yeah. Nick, Nick sold his television a few months ago, right? You completely got rid of it. Yeah, man, just, I’m not interested anymore. Like, there’s never a point where I miss it.
23:55 You know, yeah, on the same, that’s fair. Mark, are you a workaholic? I’m just I look at all the things you have to do. I’m wondering if you’re the guy that’s up at 6:00 a.m., are you the guy that’s on his, you know, mobile phone all the time, or not? Yeah, my phone.
24:09 I haven’t really got an office as such. My mobile phone is my office. I get up early at six-ish, go for a swim a couple of times a week. Quite often I write early, cuz I do a column for The Independent and Esquire magazine, so it’s quite a good time, when, you know, the phone’s not ringing and there’s not many people around. So I normally either do it from home or head into the office.
24:35 You don’t have an office? The cham said, myice chice, my library so you write as well? Yeah, so I’ve done The Independent for 10 years on Saturdays, so it’s weekly, weekly full recipes, a couple of thousand words. How do you come up with that every week? I, I think, you know, I think when you’re writing, especially recipes, it’s actually good for the chefs as well, because quite often the things that are in the magazine will appear on the menu that week or the following week.
25:07 So I quite like the idea of publishing something that, you know, customers or my chefs can cook or eat on the restaurant menu. It’s interesting. What are your favorite restaurants in London? In the, who do you think does it right and who do you think does it wrong? I mean, do you walk into a restaurant sometimes and you’re just like, this is not going to happen, they miss the customer service completely.
25:30 Do you walk out of restaurants? I’ve not ever walked out of a restaurant, actually. I don’t think, not for memory, but have you, Brian? Yeah, I have, seriously. I walk out if I don’t have a good seat if I don’t have a good seat in a restaurant.
25:43 You’re the pickiest dude in the, but no, I mean, like I said earlier, I mean, for me it was always like, it’s like a show to go out, you know, especially with an important client or a girlfriend or a friend, you know. I mean, we had lunch for your birthday last year, and it was important that we go to your competition. I went to Hawksmoor, but you know, it was important that we go there, and we had good seats, and you know, I’m kind of weird like that, I don’t know, but a lot of people demand that these days.
26:05 Right? Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I think they were restaurants for certain times you know, like Chris and Jeremy, who ran the Wolseley and Delaunay. You know, that’s such a great room. It’s got a good buzz.
26:17 A lot of people do business at breakfast time now. Yeah, Wolseley is big for breakfast hour breakfast, so you know, I’ve got high regard for them. Locanda Locatelli is great. Richard Corrigan. My friend Huy has some Vietnamese restaurants around the corner, which I’m, yeah, I saw your review on, really cool.
26:38 Yeah, and he’s open next to next door to the Groucho Club in Soho, which is quite handy. Oh yeah, so you eat Vietnamese a lot. Yeah, quite a bit. I quite like going to sort of scruffy places. I used, when I used to live out the road, I used to go to the Mangal Ocakbashi, which is a Turkish restaurant with no menu.
26:58 It’s basically just a cabinet with different kebabs in there, and sweetbreads and lamb chops and stuff, so I quite like those sort of places. Japanese, I like finding new Japanese restaurants. I used to go to Nobu years ago. My friend was cooking there. Nobu still good, I think.
27:20 Zuma, but I also like finding those little backstreet, old-fashioned Japanese restaurants There’s one in Marylebone called Dining, which is very good. Yeah, that gets good reviews. Very small, isn’t it? Yeah, tiny. Yeah, you need to get in there quick.
27:35 And, actually, there’s one which I want to try, next to the Chop House, which is even smaller, apparently. It’s got about 20 seats. Do you ever have clashes with chefs, because it’s my understanding that a chef is generally someone who has quite a strong ego, and he has to be, because he’s in command of his kitchen during extremely chaotic and rush-type periods. And I mean, do any of them ever just throw their toys out of the cot and walk out? Or lots of them do?
28:04 I mean, not, it’s happening with my chefs a few times, but there are some, not mentioning any names, some fierce-tempered chefs out there. Do you just put up with them? Yeah, I mean, I don’t socialize with the fierce-tempered ones, but, mm, I think you, the problem with that is, it kind of gives us a bad reputation, you know. I think, you know, the general public, you know, often think that’s the way all chefs are. It’s like when Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, people used to say to me, so was your kitchen like that?
28:41 That book blew my mind. I mean, he’s a great writer, so I love that book. I encourage anyone to pick up a copy, but I mean, is that just New York, or do you think he sensationalized it, or is London like that? Is there cocaine everywhere in the kitchen? Well, it is.
28:53 I mean, cooking is a big thing now. It’s like a bit rock and roll, really. You know, cooking, or cocaine? When I left, you know, when I left college and came to London, which was, you know, almost 30 years ago, cooking wasn’t actually a, you know, respected profession as such. But now, you know, it’s, you know, it is a bit rock and roll, and people know, people know you, and people point you out in the street.
29:20 You know, I’m not even a celeb, and taxi drivers recognize you, and they, seriously? Yeah, yeah, so that’s quite interesting that it is. But I suppose, you know, restaurants are places where people get to eat, like going to the theater, so, you know, why wouldn’t, you know, a genuine foodie know what you look like, or what food you serve, and, you know, we’ll know a lot about you. You mentioned, before we started the show, that you’d prefer to have in one of your Flagship restaurants.
29:52 You said that you get these big tables of Bankers who are arriving after a late night out, and you said you’d much prefer to have, rather, like a hen, a hen party or something. Can you go into that a little bit more? Well, the funny thing is, when we, when we first opened the Tramshed, we had a bit of a problem with a local residents committee, and you know, we had to sort of swear that there’d be no hen parties and that sort of thing, but we don’t generally take big parties in the restaurant, but if I had the choice of a table of 10, you know, Bankers showing off and being a bit loud.
30:29 I think I prefer the party, they’re actually quieter than the bankers. So the bankers are that obnoxious? Can be, can be groups in groups in groups. Yeah, in groups especially. I mean, when I first opened a Chop House, we did have that a couple of times where, you know, they sort of pissed off, you know?
30:48 What can you do? I mean, how much can you control that environment? Well, you can’t, you can’t really. It’s kind of out of your hands. You know, you can’t start vetting people on the phone and when they’re working the table.
31:01 Do you like to be there at your restaurants at night time? Do you have to do? Do you like to be watching the floor, or do you like to watch the kitchen? Or, yeah, I’m normally in at least two of my restaurants every day, whether I’m eating or observing or chatting to people. So, you know, I think it’s important.
31:21 You have to keep an eye on the business, and that’s why I’ve kind of stayed away from the TV thing, because, you know, you can’t run a business from a TV studio. Interesting. Well, some people can, you know. Rick Stein does it very, very well, really. He’s probably the only restaurant chef I think does the two things.
31:41 You know, just not your style, though. I guess I always hear about, like, those barding stories, and I’m always wondering can you really run a business in the long term when there’s all that mayhem going on, and all the cat going on? I mean, does that, cuz no other business could function that in the long term? But how can, so how can a kitchen? I always wonder.
32:00 Yeah, it’s, you know, the kitchen is probably one of the toughest places, you know, you can work, really. I always, when someone tells me they want to be a chef, it just, I can’t think of anything the heat I couldn’t handle, and then the burns that, like, Bourdain would talk about. Is it really that bad, or the pressure? It is, yeah. I mean, you know, years ago I used to have sort of scars at my arm from opening the, and putting things in under pressure.
32:24 And it’s, you know, it’s hot in there, you know? It’s hot, it’s noisy, it’s busy, you’re under pressure. So, you know, amalgamation of all those things together is, you know, it could be a recipe for disaster, but I think you have to approach it in a slightly different way. That’s why I like, I quite like it to be fun and not too serious all the time, you know. Have a bit of fun with the menu, have a bit of fun with the decor.
32:54 It’s just, and you know, things with any project. It’s like Brian and I were just talking about yesterday, is when we’re having fun, our work is better, you know, 10 times better. 10 times better, yeah. When we’re not, it’s when it becomes too serious and too heavy. It suffers, you know, and I guess it’s because, ultimately, we are playful creatures, you know.
33:12 We come here to have a good time. That’s what I believe, anyway. I think you can manage that, and play, and have a good work ethic too. I guess you just have to kind of watch yourself. I read about the, you know, the place in Belgravia that you’ve just, you’re going to be shutting down.
33:27 Is it you actually didn’t choose that space? I think that space was already built, and then you talked about a place like the Tramshed, where I think you built a restaurant around the space, and how important is that? Maybe for someone that’s thinking about opening a restaurant, but how important is it to custom-tailor it? And also, customers aren’t stupid, are they? Like, you talk about the artwork and Hix Soho.
33:45 I mean, people notice these things, right? Yeah, I think the building and the look is important. If there’s a story behind the building, like the Tramshed, then, you know, go, great. You can tell the story, hence the name of the restaurant as well, because coming up with a name for a restaurant is quite tricky. I mean, yeah, before we opened the Chop House, Ratnesh, my business partner, myself, he said, I think we should call it Hix, and I said no, no, no.
34:12 I don’t want my name above the door. You know, would that have been your first self-named restaurant at that point? Yeah. Okay, yeah. Anyway, he managed to persuade me, and my staff persuaded me to, you know, to call Hix, and actually it’s quite a good logo, just three and all straight lines, so it’s quite a good, you know, sort of natural branding.
34:32 So naming a restaurant is actually difficult, you know, cuz you either end up with the name of the street or a previous building, like the Wolseley was a, you know, Wolseley car garage. I think if you can capture that, that’s great, but you know, quite often restaurants end up becoming the name of the street or the number of the street, or whatever, so it’s boring, can be, or we end up calling the restaurant something that you know doesn’t particularly mean anything. You know, I mean, Tramshed’s over the top, and it’s almost, like, kind of cool, and how rough it is, and then you serve the chickens with their feet in the air.
35:10 And, you know, at the restaurant, I mean, it’s quite kind of a brash take on things, isn’t it? It’s intense, cuz I think, you know, things like that are, they stand out, you know. If you’re, if you’re sitting at a table at this, and you see the chicken going past you, I’ll have two of those. So yeah, and that’s a bit of theater for me. You know, that is the theater element of you, the customers get stuck in, they carve the chickens out themselves, and I think that’s what makes it fun.
35:39 So, Mark, what would you do if, if you weren’t a restaurateur, or, let’s say, for whatever reason, there’s a huge market decline or downturn, and you couldn’t be a restaurateur anymore? What would be the first thing that jumps to mind? That’s a very good question. Thanks. I, I don’t know.
35:55 Now, actually, I mean, I’m not really, I haven’t got any other skills, as such. When I was at school, there was a little group of us that were very keen golfers. All my friends ended up becoming golf pros, and I went to catering college, but I’m sort of glad I never went down that route. I mean, they all did, you know, pretty well, but I don’t know what I’d do, really, if I was, maybe I’ll become an art dealer. Wasn’t know, probably.
36:29 It’s funny, cuz you know, I would, I would expect a restaurateur to be kind of, me, you probably would too, to be kind of like the slick guy, right? And to be kind of, but that’s not you. Do you get, do you get people say that to you a lot? Yeah, I sort of, I normally, so when I get up in the morning, I think, okay, is today a suit day or is it a jeans and a T-shirt day? Mm, and you know, that’s the, you know, if I’ve got a bit of a hangover, then it’s normally a suit, and make sure I’m looking good.
37:00 But yeah, I’m not, I’m not a smart or slick, I don’t think. Mm-hmm. How do you get up at 6:00 a.m. if your job is to be in these restaurants till late, and to be kind of in the bars, and I mean, what, Mark’s bar is probably over until 2 a.m. or something? Yeah, it is difficult getting up an hour after you’ve gone to bed. Yeah, must like the city.
37:22 Well, sometimes you miss getting up, cuz. Wow, wow. See worse, but I’ve calmed down a bit. Now we just had a baby, and I moved to West London, so I’ve defected from the East End. Oh, you were East End before, and how are you finding that?
37:39 I like it, actually. There’s, I sort of know equally as many people in the West as I do in the East, so it’s quite a good balance, and I’ve got my scooter, so it’s, you know, easy to maintain on the scooter. Dangerous scooter. I’ve got, like, a very London Real question. But what do you think?
37:55 If you can make a phone call to the 25-year-old Mark Hix, what kind of advice would you give him? To a 25-year-old, yeah, to yourself at 25? Oh, I see. Well, I wasn’t, I was motivated. You remember, I was motivated and kind of got on with it, without maybe too much ambition at that point.
38:19 I sort of did things quite early, so I would always recommend that, you know, it’s hard work, and quite often a bit of luck is involved. I remember in my career, I kind of had a few strokes of luck. Getting the job at the Caprice was literally, I was working in a restaurant in the City, and my fishmonger threw me up, said, hey, the Caprice job is coming up. I’d never even heard of The Caprice, and I went in, and Chris and Jeremy, the owners, grilled me about four or five times.
38:54 They came into the restaurant, and then just by chance one night I was having dinner at Alastair Little’s restaurant in Soho, and I was chatting to Alastair, and he would, once you got on the subject of food, you know, it was difficult to stop listening, you know, cuz he was a mind of information, and Chris Corbin came into the restaurant and sort of caught me talking to Alastair, and that was probably one of the highly regarded restaurants at the time. And it’s, a little, cuz his food was very kind of simple, but cutting edge. You know, I remember seeing a tomato and mozzarella salad, and I didn’t realize that many different types of tomatoes existed, and this was, you know, 20 two years ago.
39:45 Now it’s normal to, you know, get five different types of tomato on your plate. So that, you know, that for me, that was a stroke of luck, and when I joined them, I was given a membership at the Groucho Club, and I met a lot of people at the Groucho Club, so it was a lot of networking. Lot of networking, not intentional, though. Not intentional, no, just you know, over a glass of wine. Or, they say, the best thing to do with these networking things, cuz a lot of people go to these networking events, and they work, they try to give their card out to 25 people, but I’ve heard the best advice is just to have a good conversation with somebody.
40:20 Yeah, yeah. And the Groucho Club’s always been full of interesting people. So yeah, I would, so my advice is, you know, hang out with the right people. It’s probably important. Work hard and be ambitious, but not over-ambitious, you know.
40:38 Just step, step carefully. I would say, you have a business partner. I think I saw him on one of the YouTube videos, and he seems kind of like your, your CFO, kind of the voice of reason sometimes, versus your creativity. How does that work? Well, we worked together.
40:52 At, he was the finance director at Caprice Holdings, and he left before me, and he went on to have his own little business with looking after accounts for different restaurants, and he kind of urged me to leave, and you know, set up with him. So we, you know, the first restaurant was the Chop House, and we both bunged a bit of money and borrowed some money from the bank, and we’ve kind of done that all the way along, really. You know, we’ve kind of just borrow a bit of money from the bank.
41:22 We haven’t got any backers. Okay. Can you get loans these days from the, well, for restaurants? That’s, that’s tricky. I mean, when, in the Tramshed, I just sold my house and I had to put all the proceeds of my house in a bank account with Lloyds in order to borrow £700,000 to do the Tramshed.
41:40 It’s like it’s crazy. I mean, you’re taking risks on a monthly basis, aren’t you? Yeah, but, you know, a lot of people have big backers, or have big stakes in the business, and you almost become an employee then. So we’ve kind of just done it and scratched around, borrow a bit of money from here and there, and reinvested money that we made in the business in the next restaurant. It’s a high-stakes game.
42:03 It really is. Restaurant, too, yeah, big time, and lots of people fail. You know, lots of people think that they want to open a restaurant, who have never owned a restaurant in their lives. It’s glamorous, right? Speaks about in the book, and those are the biggest failures, often, the people that think they can become restaurateurs, because they throw a lot of money at it.
42:25 What they don’t realize is, your bottom line is more often than not only about 10% profit, and if you’re making less profit than that, then, you know, there’s not much return at all. So all the time you’ve got to make sure that your turnovers are high, your costs are good, and your profit is, you know, in good stead. When you see one of your restaurants, like, slowing down or something, I mean, do you panic sometimes? Is there a way that you can try to drum business up?
42:55 I mean, it is scary, because, you know, you look like a guy who never panics. Must relax. I put my whole house and my whole network on the line, but yeah, I mean, when things slow down, it is worrying. You have to look at yourself and think, okay, what are we doing? Do you ever, like, say, look at it and say, wow, I got this one wrong?
43:19 I have to, Jer like that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, the Belgravia one was a good case in point, but I think you know, keeping an eye on your business and always evolving it is crucial. I think, you know, the minute you take your eye off the ball is the time when things do start slipping, and that’s the good thing with having Rat Nesh as the business partner. You know, he is the numbers, really.
43:42 You know, so on a daily basis, I know which every single restaurant is turning over, okay, and who’s been in and everything. So who’s been in, as far as, yeah, yeah, well, regulars, or important people, less important people. Okay. But we, so we don’t have a managing director. We don’t have a CEO.
44:02 We kind of both do that ourselves. So some days I’m the CEO, some days I mop the floor. That’s crazy. That must be a key to your success, is this just keeping your ear to the ground? Yeah, yeah, and I think you have to be seen to be mucking in.
44:17 Not that I’m mucking in the kitchen these days, but I can just get on with other stuff. And yeah, let’s talk about your cooking, let’s talk about this book. Why, why now, for this book? And why baking? Cuz, like you talked about baking, I know the first thing people think, baking, as you said in the foreword, is, I can’t bake.
44:34 I mean, I can get in the kitchen and cook, but if I want to bake something, I get scared. Well, you know, when you do cookbooks, I’ve done about eight cookbooks now, and, you know, your publisher summons you for another meeting, and you know, they say, Mark, what about a baking book? And you think, hmm, I’m not, I’m not so good on cake. I’m not, you know, I don’t get home every night and start baking. And then this idea came into my head that, you know, baking isn’t about cakes and pastries and things.
45:05 Baking is something that started in an oven. You know, whether it’s a cobbler or, you know, someone making horseshoes, you know, horses for shoes, and so heat, you know, bread was made in the center of the village, and you know, or a hole in the ground, maybe, you know. So ovens, two, three, four, you know, a thousand years ago, you know, they were, that was baking. Obviously it moved on now, and what’s in the book is, you know, all sorts of different things.
45:39 There’s veal baked in hay. Oh, wow. Which, you know, is a it’s a good method if you’ve got an Aga which isn’t working very well, and the hay keeps the heating. What’s an Aga? An Aga is one of those old ovens that heats the house as well.
45:55 You know, if you go to your friend’s country houses, though, they normally have an Aga there that doesn’t work very well, and the heat’s not really that hot. I saw that recipe, and I was like, where do I get hay? But is it, e you said it was not hard to find, right? You go to the pet shop, can I have some, can I have a bag of hay for my veal, please? Clean hay?
46:17 No, it’s a bit mucky. It’s actually better flavor. Okay, but you have to soak it in water. And there’s some baked vegetables there. There’s salmon baked on a sort of Scandinavian-Russian salmon dish that’s baked on a plank of wood, spread with mustard and dill.
46:34 You soak the wood in water, and you put the salmon fillet on the wood in the oven, so the salmon imparts a bit of flavor from the actual wood itself. Wow, that sounds cool. And there’s a dish in there from Mark Edwards, my friend, who was, he’s a chef at Nobu, and when they opened Nobu in Berkeley Square, he bought, he had a wood-fired oven just installed, so he was messing around with different dishes, and he brought me out a half cabbage which was baked in the wood oven, and it was covered with shaved black truffles.
47:09 So that’s baking. Okay. When I think of baking, I think cupcakes, so far removed from that. But there are some, you know, there are some pastries and stuff in there and cakes and a lot of vegetables in there. A lot of vegetables.
47:23 There’s pies, you know. All sorts, English It’s interesting how, like you said, Mark has this, like, abundance mentality where he’s dropping all these competitor restaurants, but you seem to just be thinking as British cuisine just rises, everyone rises. Yeah, I think the food available now, compared to 20 years ago, and the, you know, British food, it’s moved on so much. You know, 20 years ago when I first moved to London, all the best ingredients came from France.
47:55 Now our farmers are making great chickens, ducks, you know. We’ve always had good beef, but also our farmers are growing amazing vegetables and fruits, which weren’t available, you know, they would have been imported in the past. So now, you know, we’ve got everything on our doorstep. You know, you don’t need to go too far afield. It’s interesting how, like, England’s become such a gastronomy hub, whereas, I mean, it used to be known as the place of the shittiest food in the world.
48:24 Why does British food get such a bad rap? Well, you know, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, the food wasn’t that good. You know, the average High Street restaurant would have been serving trash. But yeah, these days you’ve got a good chance of going to a restaurant off the street that you’ve never heard of, and you know you get half-decent food. Well, very good food.
48:46 But I think in France it’s actually gone the other way a bit. I don’t think the food generally in France, you know, it was, you always say, you know, you could stop on the roadside and you could always rely on getting, you know, a good meal, lunch or dinner. So, and also they, that’s changed, Mark. Yeah, I, I think it’s changed, and also, I think the other thing with France is they don’t let other nationalities of cuisine in. Right, right.
49:15 So in France, you know, say Paris, you don’t get the best Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Turkish, Greek, you know. There’s London, you know, within 15 minutes of here. You’ve got all sorts of different types of food which, you know, which I think that’s what’s great about London, is that any time of the day you can just go and eat, you know, whatever you fancy, and I think that’s why we’re actually much better now, because there’s so many different influences from different countries.
49:47 You know, if we walk ten minutes that way, we go to an Indian supermarket, you can get whatever you want. It’s like a Bangladeshi supermarket on Brick Lane, these fish that look like aliens But I mean, I always, I mean, I have Indian friends in New York that say the best Indian food is in London, not even in India. And I always tell people they’ve got to come to London to try the food, cuz it’s some of the best food around, because you get so many choices.
50:10 You know, I got a Paris, I agree. It’s hard, you get French food, and then French food with two stars, and French food with three stars. But, and if you’re vegetarian in France, it’s no good at all. They don’t understand that concept. This is vegetarian, something you have to think about in all of your menus these days.
50:25 Yeah, each of the restaurants have a vegetarian menu, including Tramshed. They just have chicken feet flying around. So is that, and what percentage of customers actually? I always think people say they’re vegetarians, but I always wonder if they actually practice it. So I know a lot of vegetarians eat chicken and fish.
50:42 Nothing that’s so sad. Is it like 10%, 20%? You reckon? Yeah, quite a high percentage, especially in London. But I find in the West Country in my restaurant there, you hardly ever come across any vegetarians.
50:56 So, and to what do you attribute that? Well, I think in the countryside, you know, you’re kind of brought up with meat and fish, old-school stuff. Yeah. What about raw food? Do you think you’ll be opening Hix Raw anytime soon?
51:11 That’s a good question. Well, you know, my first restaurant in Soho, you know, was actually about oysters and chops, so, you know, we have five or six different types of oysters. We do quite often do raw dishes. It might be just a, you know, a kind of ceviche-type of dish, okay. But raw is quite interesting, because you could, you know, go for days and days without actually having to cook anything as such.
51:41 So yeah, it’s quite, is that a dream? What’s your take on organic ingredients and ethically sourced meats and poultry? Organic, we don’t do organic. You’ll find that a lot of farmers that farm well aren’t organic. Everything that we source is fish, especially sustainable.
52:11 Mm. Sadly, a lot of people still aren’t understanding the sustainability side. You know, it’s crucial that we spread out the different types of fish that we’re eating, and to give stocks a chance to replenish. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, that’s what’s happened with the blue tuna.
52:31 You know, I don’t know if you’ve seen that film, The End of the Line, which is, it focuses on the Japanese market, and it’s a very good documentary. Friend of mine was one of the producers, and you know, I think that’s a good example of, you know, a species that, you know, we all like to eat blue tuna, but we’re not allowed to eat blue tuna. But I think sourcing, well, you know, you don’t ever see the word organic on my menus. I think organic the word organic is slightly misunderstood or misread.
53:06 Organic farming is quite expensive for the farmer, and it’s not always about taste. You know, organic things don’t always taste better than something that’s been well-reared and well-fed. So for example, the chickens that we have over there, you know, they’re not organic. They’re kind of semi-free range, because if you filled this room with chickens and left the windows open, they’d stay indoors, you know. They wouldn’t go out.
53:34 And I’ve been to lots of chicken farms which are free range, and you know, chicken s*** hat it, yeah, and all the doors are open and hardly any of the chickens ever go outside. You know, so they’re free range, cuz they can, they’re allowed to do whatever they want, so a lot of it is down to, you know, them being able to roam free and what they’re actually fed on. So yeah, so organic doesn’t exist with us. I occasionally by mistake pick up a pint of organic milk in the supermarket, so you just don’t even engage with that concept.
54:10 You think it’s overdone? Do you think people just associate with the wrong – I think, I think if you’re sourcing your ingredients well, then you don’t have to get on the organic. I remember when I was doing my book British Regional Food. I went up in the north of England and visited one of my producers who does, you know, various types of beetroots and big shots, and sprouting broccoli, and there was a motorway right next to his farm, and I asked him the question what you just asked me about organic, and he said, you see that farm on the other side of the motorway, that’s an organic certified farm, and it’s that far from the motorway.
54:51 Wow. So but there are things like Freedom Food now. Freedom Food is interesting. Our salmon that I smoke on the roof of Selfridges took me a long time to find the right salmon, and Freedom Food applies to all sorts of things, but it’s it kind of, it is what it says. Freedom Food.
55:10 They are well fed, well reared, and for me, Freedom Food is kind of a couple notches up from organic. Yeah. I didn’t know, is this a pop-up? Restaurant? Are you just, you just usually go to the roof of Selfridges to smoke?
55:21 Well, I used, I started smoking. You can get it on YouTube, actually. He has a smoker in his house, a salmon smoker in his backyard. Yeah, that’s pretty cool, and I used to get home at night and have to go to the bottom of the garden and carry all the salmon and put it in the fridge for the restaurants for the next day, and then production started getting a bit high. We opened our restaurant in Selfridges, and then the Food Hall.
55:43 We started selling in the Food Hall in Selfridges, and you were smoking all that at home? I was, at the time, and taking your – and I asked the guys at Selfridges if I could have a space up on the roof, and they built me a little shed. That’s amazing. And I put my smoker in my someone call that an obsession, Mark? So that’s the – so I actually don’t do the smoking anymore.
56:05 I’ve delegated that to my team at Selfridges, but that was one of the things I wanted to do. I wanted to do when I opened the Chop House. I wanted to do something that was interesting and unique, and I thought, you know, smoking salmon, there’s a lot of ropey smoked salmon around. You know, there’s that stuff you buy in the supermarkets. It’s been sliced in a packet for ages, doesn’t really always taste of what it should be tasting of, so I thought, you know, go back to a real old-fashioned, traditional smoked salmon, and cut it Scandinavian style, slightly thicker, so that you can taste the fish and you can taste the smokiness on the outside.
56:45 Yeah, I saw you doing that in that video, and we always associated smoked salmon with, like, the super-thinly sliced. I never had it that way. Well, I was always taught to slice it as thin as possible, so that you can see the plate through it almost. You know, that’s the way I was, I was taught to cut salmon, you know, but you’re changing your mind now? Yeah, you – we’ve only got a few minutes left, but I was wondering what’s in your future, Mark.
57:05 I mean, are we going to, I would love to see an ethnic kicks restaurant, because you kind of have the Ode to British Cuisine to a certain extent. But yeah, I mean, it’s funny when I opened Belgravia, actually, or Selfridges, maybe. I went off piste a bit, because, you know, my philosophy and I suppose I’ve got a bit of a reputation for British produce, yeah. But the crowd itself, AG is, you know, is obviously very, very different. You know, there’s a whole mixture of people that go in there shopping, so the menu there is a bit of an international menu, so you can go and have a risotto or bowl of pasta, or a ceviche, you know.
57:39 So the menu there is a bit, a bit different, and when I, when I cook at home when I’m down in the West Country, or do a dinner party at home, more often than not I tend to cook Asian dishes, especially if I’ve just been out and doors and caught a couple of lobsters, or I turn them into something a bit Asian, because I’m used to eating and serving, you know, British food, quite simple. So that sort of a little bit of kick, you know, with a bit of Asian fragrance and spice, you know, is often well received at a dinner party at home. Okay.
58:13 But will we be seeing that in a future restaurant of yours? Maybe. Okay, you never know. And are you good for now with your portfolio, or are you always looking for the next thing? At the moment we just wanted to do some more chicken and steak restaurants.
58:27 Okay. Because I think, you know, the way restaurants are going now, there’s quite a few restaurants around that just do one or two things, and it sort of makes you think, you know, what I’ve been doing for years, having menus with 10 starters and 10 main courses. You suddenly open something with, you know, almost no choice. I kind of like it. It is, cuz you know what you’re going to get.
58:48 We’re going to go there, Nick. One of these days we go down the road. See Mark for lunch. So if they want to get your book, I saw it on Amazon, is the best place to get it? Well, the sad thing is these days that, you know, a lot of those little independent bookshops are sort of a bit hard done by because of Amazon.
59:05 Okay. But go to an independent bookshop if you can, otherwise, if you’re a bit lazy, go to Amazon. Okay. And that’s Mark Hix on baking. Are you a, are you a Twitter, Mark?
59:17 I’m guessing you’re not. Well, do you know what? We tweet and we blog, but really, from a, for a sort of marketing point of view, so my staff tweet and blog, because it’s interesting, that whole PR marketing thing these days in restaurants is just changed completely. You know, you can get a message out to the world these days by, you know, tweeting, and, you know, in the old days you’d have to hire a PR company or a marketing specialist to find out what the best way to market your restaurant and tell the world about yourself.
59:51 But these days, you know, you can do it instantly. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But I think, you know, there are also people which I’m sort of discovering more and more, you know, the way your website is built and the way things appear to get you higher up the Google list. Yeah, it’s quite interesting in a restaurant. Yeah, we should have a talk about that later, SEO.
1:00:14 But your website for Tramshed is chickenandsteak.com. Yeah, okay. And the restaurant, or just go on to Hix here, Hix, hix.co.uk. Okay, fantastic. Mark, thank you so much.
1:00:26 That was very enlightening. It’s nice chatting here yeah, it’s good to see what goes on behind the man, you know. So that’s good. And I’ll put all your contact information up so people can find you. Great.
1:00:36 Thank you. Cool. Until then, it’s about the journey. All right, thanks, guys. Obama is not all the time.
1:00:45 I think the world is our playground, and it’s not because people like to say it’s urban. It’s not urban. It’s, it can be in a jle. It can be, you know, like T, you know, T is, it’s a guy who does par
