Twenty five years or so ago, when Mark Hix was being lined up to become chef-director at Caprice Holdings — its trio of stars then Le Caprice, the Ivy and J Sheekey — he could not have seen that things would go as they have.
Sixty next month, Hix has, you might say, been around the block. After Caprice came the kind of success that arrived bundled up with book deals and TV spots and wondering which place to open next; but lately there has been the low of losing a restaurant empire and the humiliation of temporarily being barred from using his own name for business. Having first moved to London more than 40 years ago, Hix even left town, scuttling down to Dorset to sling fish from a food truck. Most days, he says, he’d have a small bottle of cider brandy on the go to share with the local fishermen, or he’d go and join them at the harbour.
“I looked at myself and I thought, you’ve been in the business a long old time,” he says now, with a rueful glance into his coffee. “And there’s nothing in the bank account.”
But despite a scalding past couple of years, the chef’s soft-spoken weariness is the affable kind. He is sanguine in both senses, a ruddy-cheeked optimist. And his confidence has come good — last Tuesday, the Standard broke the news that Hix was making his London return, this time as director of food and beverage at the Groucho, the Soho club famous for the bad behaviour of the artists, writers, rock stars and royalty that come in. That evening, Hix could be found sat at the bar, having a drink, holding court.
It is happy news after a hard time. The first indignity was the well-publised collapse of the Hix empire in March 2020. “It was nothing to do with the pandemic,” Hix says. “My old business partners decided to put us into administration”. Those business partners, WSH Group, to whom Hix had sold 75 per cent of the group to in 2016, disagree. In October of 2020 they reported that the administration was an “unanimous board decision made by all the directors, including Mark Hix.”
However it was, the chef was gone and headed west empty handed. Back in Dorset, after most of a bottle of wine and £8,000 later, he’d bought a fish truck to sell the morning’s catch to locals. “In some ways, it was demoralising, like… ‘fuck, I can’t do this for the rest of my life!’” he says, smiling wryly. “But then it was quite invigorating. You’ve got £500 a week, but that ain’t even gunna pay the bills. So you have to start thinking.”
Thinking, in this case, meant “taking out all my life savings and the pension.” Christ, I say, that sounds terrifying. He nods quickly. Next, he managed to buy back his Hix Oyster & Fish House restaurant in Dorset — which came with the rights to his name — “for 15 grand, cause I’d known the landlord since I was a kid. I still had the keys!”
Call it a roll; soon he opened the Fox Inn. “I got talked into doing this pub, which was a fantastic pub. But it was in the middle of nowhere, and even the regulars only came in twice a week at most. So for a year-and-a-half, the Fish House was bailing out the pub.” And so, after barely 18 months, it shut too. Then he was apparently chef-director at One Lombard Street, in the city, but nothing seemed to come of it. He waves it away as a fill-the-time marketing thing, “I was just picking up the phone, giving them a bit of advice. But it wasn’t even a paid consultancy or anything.”
A battering run. But Hix Groucho seems a good fit. “It’s what… 30 years I’ve been a member here?” he grins. The move marks the first major appointment by Artfarm, the Hauser & Wirth arm that bought the club over the summer. But just as Artfarm have spent a few months settling in before doing anything, so too will Hix take time before messing with what’s there. “For the moment, it’ll be just a case of tweaking things on a weekly basis, rather than just coming in with a brand new thing. At the moment, I’m just manicuring the menu.”
So squirrel — once a Hix calling card — won’t be making the menu anytime soon? “Well, not yet… maybe on certain nights,” he says, with a coughing sort of laugh. But while Hix is set on “a clubbie sort of menu, people don’t want wondering where the fish and chips have gone,” he has his plans.
“I do want to do collaborations with other chefs — all my old mates,” he says. Who’s on the list? “Richard Corrigan might be the first one,” he says, laughing again now but shooting a sideways look — he and Corrigan both like a long night and a good glass of wine, and have had plenty of both here. “But also people like Mitch Tonks, or Angela Harnett. I was at a lunch with one of my old head chefs and he works with Wolfgang Puck. And that would be a good collaboration, Hix-Puck, or probably Puck-Hix. It’s exciting for members.” Given Puck is known for packing his restaurants with A-listers, and is the man who caters the Oscars’ after-party, it might seem quite the coup; on the other hand, it wouldn’t be the first time Leonardo DiCaprio or Harry Styles have eaten here.
Members seem to be at the forefront of Hix’s mind. “We’ve put a hold on the new ones joining for the moment, just to assess… just because there’s all sorts of people that wouldn’t have necessarily got in back in the old days,” he says, slowly, on good behaviour. “For good or bad, you can be a music lawyer…”
There is a sense — though he won’t say, at least explicitly — that he’s keen his appointment comes as part of an invigoration of the Groucho, and that he wants its crowd to feel more loyal than ever. He mentions how good it would be to have more artists back, as it was when Tracey Emin and Peter Blake were regulars. “I keep hearing members going: is it going to change? And I think, look, the club’s in safer hands than it has been for years.”
Hix is, though, looking for a return of sorts to the old ways. “When I first joined, a lot of the drinks list and the menus would be quite heavily subsidised, and it would be cheaper than going to a mid-range restaurant. And I think that’s probably members’ expectation, to have good value, so you could have a £100 bottle of wine for fifty quid or someting,” he says. He adds that since last week’s announcement, he’s been asked often about his signature dishes — say the whole chicken (which really is whole; at his restaurant Tramshed, it would come complete with head and feet), or ‘Heaven and Earth’, a black pudding, potato and apple recipe — so they seem likely, along with more seasonal menus (“as a British club, I think it’s that stuff we should be showcasing.”).
Tellingly, he twice mentions why Monday and Tuesday nights were once his favourite: “I remember you’d come in here and there’d be all the artists from a party here, and then there’s be the journos, maybe a film-maker. And then me and Corrigan would come in and be a couple of hours behind.” He chuckles. They took playing catch up seriously.
If those parties return, don’t be surprised if Hix is at them. While he will oversee the kitchen, he seems more keen to be wandering the club, talking to guests, maybe having a glass with them and seeing what’s what. After everything that’s come before, there’s a sense he wants to get this right. But is this the start of a grander return? With Artfarm expanding rapidly — they’ve just opened the Audley pub and Mount St Restaurant — is the Groucho simply a starting mark for a broader return to town? He hums. “No, no, no. It’s just the Groucho,” he says, then looks. “To start with.”
After being burnt before, it’s unsurprising he’s cautiously toeing the water. And his time away seems to have done him good, offered a little perspective. The past few years have seen others take the same ride Hix has been on. His one-time mentors, Chris Corbin and Jeremy King, went through it earlier this year, losing their empire (while Corbin is expected to stay retired, there are rumours King will be back by April). Russell Norman, who’s known Hix for more than two decades, has found his star back on the rise with Brutto — ironically, perhaps, in the old Hix Oyster + Chop house — after nearly losing it all with the deflation of Polpo. There are others.
“I’ve been a victim before, of opening a restaurant and then another site comes up,” Hix says. There’s no rush, he adds. “And then also, this can become a template for whatever else might happen. I think it’s important you always have a model you can work on for…” He trails off, perhaps wary of saying too much too soon.
And though the Groucho, with all its stories of wild nights and gleeful debauchery, feels a funny place for a fresh start, he’s taking it slowly. It’ll be a couple of days a week up in town to start with. But sat in his club, a club that’s had 30 years of his life and is set to see out many more, you think: it’s good to have him home.
