When I walked through the Groucho’s front doors early on a mid-December Monday,

Mark miraculously ascended up the steps opposite the entrance, bags and carry-on parked next to the reception desk – he must equally just have arrived for his weekly drop-in. Dressed fittingly in a snowflake-patterned jumper - that night the first snow had coated London in white- he strutted from the downstairs bar right into the dining room as if it was an extension of his living room in Dorset, warmly greeting his staff and his career-long cocktail man Nick on the way.

We sit down in one of the blue-bolstered leather booths by the smoke-separating curtain that leads to the oxygen-sparse outside terrace. Mark orders a White Americano, the daily’s first, and a small portion of Eggs Benedict, perhaps muscle memory from his time as chef director at legendary A-List attractor Le Caprice, which offered in AA Gills praise, no less, London’s “very best”.

At that point, of course, Mr. Hix had been involved in London’s dining scene since he was eighteen, trained under two influential Antons: German Edelmann formerly at The Grosvenor House Hotel, and Swiss Mosimann of The Dorchester past. It was during his 17 years at Caprice holdings, which includes renowned The Ivy, when he initially joined the Groucho Club as a fresh-faced thirty-something. Shortly after, Hix decided to go solo in 2007, opening the first of his eponymous restaurants, The Oyster and Chop House, which was then followed by a couple more branches, taking over London in a flash. Not only a food writer and contributor, both past and present, to The Telegraph, GQ, Dorset Mag and a multitude more, Hix was honoured as MBE in 2017 for putting British Cuisine back on the culinary map.

Three years later, a strike during Covid cost him his gastronomic claim of London and led him to kickstark an ebay-sourced seafood truck in his coastal home. Newly appointed as Food and Beverage Manager since November 2022, that late breakfast Hix talked his first oyster(s), the surprising appeal of going out on a Monday night and getting back into the “nitty gritty of it all”.

Lena Müller: You’ve been a member here for over thirty years- how has it been stepping into the club not purely as a guest anymore but as the food and beverage manager?

Mark Hix: It’s fun. I sort of know what goes on in the club, but not so much [what’s] behind the scenes. It’s quite a good insight to get stuck into the nitty gritty of it all. There’s loads of stuff every day, every hour. But that’s why I’m here.

LM: I reckon it’s a big responsibility, considering the Groucho’s history and legacy. How do you feel about that?

MH: I know how good it can be. The ownership over the last ten to fifteen years, I don’t think, has been focusing on the creative side of the club, whereas now, the new owners

have a very good vision and are willing to get the club back on track. There’s a lot to do, especially from a member’s point of view, which we’re seeing already. Lots of the old members are coming back.

LM: For a lot of the members, this really is almost like a second home. It’s something more than a club: it’s a close-knit community.

MH: That’s a big part of my job, getting the members on side, vetting them and seeing what their views are. I think the family environment is nice. People have been giving really good feedback. In lockdown, it wasn’t a good time to judge it.

LM: I heard you don’t really want to change a lot, you’re more about an evolution of sorts.

MH: It’s very difficult to change overnight. It’s more about standardizing stuff, like training the bartenders to make consistent drinks to a certain standard as opposed to having their own free hand. It’s got its challenges. Some people are receptive [to change], some aren’t, [but] with conscience comes contact and communication.

Now, we’re open again in full swing. It’s quite funny, because the past Mondays and Tuesdays have been good nights. I quite like the surprise of a Monday night. (laughs) People get quite naughty.

LM: You have to start out the week the right way. (laughs)

MH: You have to. (laughs) I’ve not been coming here for two and half years, camping out in Dorset. I didn’t think I’d miss London until this came up and now, I’m back - half a week here, half a week in Dorset. I’ve lived up here for forty years, I felt more akin to London than Dorset. I used to see it as my home, but actually it’s quite nice in Dorset. Down there, I can just go out with my boat and fish. [The fishermen,] they’re my drinking buddies. (laughs)

LM: Do they miss the food truck?

MH: Yes, a little. The trouble is, you end up slotting your guts out for not much. Last time, I took thirty quid on a freezing cold Saturday morning (laughs).

I thought, I could be doing better things. During lockdown it worked out really well, because I was supporting the fishermen and able to offer the locals fresh fish. It’s quite a satisfying thing, [however], it was the only thing I’d had to do, because I lost my business. The landlords and my business partners decided to pull the blanket from under my feet without so much as a meeting. That was quite a tough time to be in.

LM: Especially seeing you’re coming from a successful restaurant empire, and now you’re transitioning back into running a team – how has that been?

MH: It’s been a lot of fun, because the staff here is really nice. The kitchen brocade is really good, they’ve been here for about four to twelve years and they’re very receptive. I know a lot of them from before.

LM: How much time do you spend in the kitchen?

MH: I don’t really, because they remind me of the chefs in Japan. You show them something once and they’re very good at copying it and getting it right. We’ve had minimal fuck ups so far. And then I brought Nick along, my cocktail man - he opened my bar in Soho. He’s one of the best-respected bartenders, he won’t say it, but in the world. Nick’s philosophy on drinks-making is very similar to my food philosophy. We like to champion British producers.

Having him on board is perfect, because I can leave him to get the drinks right and I focus on the food element. It does fall hand in hand a little bit, whether it’s some of the wild food to use or infuse drinks with.

LM: Are there any specific ingredients you want to introduce here then? I know you’re all about provenance and foraging food?

MH: Different things come in on the menu, so once we get January out the way, there will be one or two things on the menu changing, weekly. It might be a bit of deer [or] we do the hedgehog fungus, and they should be going through into January, hopefully. There’ll be some Truffle as well, some English Black Truffle. It’s good for the chefs, to keep them interested.

LM: Walk me through a typical day here.

MH: On Mondays, I drop my daughter off at school. That’s the only day I’m really here. We then talk about menus and whatever’s going on for the week. It’s one of those things, where it’s always a moving target.

LM: You were one of the few chefs, who brought oysters back on the London menus.

When did you have your first oyster and what was that experience like?

MH: I was about 16 or so. When I was at college, we used to do these trips to France. They were wine tastings and that’s when I had my first oyster. We had about twelve or twenty each. We’d been drinking a lot as well, so some of them weren’t very good. (laughs)

[But] you’re right, actually. It’s nice to set a precedent and do something a little bit different, [although] it’s not that different, ‘cause oysters are associated with London anyway. They used to be street food and then they sort of vanished in disease

Not everyone enjoys them. It takes quite a while to get into them.

LM: Not for you (laughs).

MH: Well, even when I first had them, it did take a while until I really liked them, properly. You also have to be in the right mood to eat an oyster. It’s not something you can eat at just anytime of the day.

LM: How do you usually have your oysters?

MH: The Native ones plain, the rock oysters with shallots. We also do an Asian one with Ginger and Chili and Ponzu.

LM: Are you influenced by any films or books these days?

MH: Sometimes, late at night, I’ll watch something on me iPad to send me to sleep (laughs). Recently, SAS: Rogue Heroes and then I watched Legend. He’s good, I like Tom Hardy. We’re trying to get him for a dinner and a talk. That’s the great thing here, we can have a bit of fun and utilize members and do dinners, whereas you wouldn’t always get [that] opportunity in a restaurant environment. There’s no boundaries at the Groucho.