HIX
66-70 Brewer Street
London
W1F 9UP
Kina Lillet
I stood in front of a heavy wooden door on Brewer Street on a sunny Saturday afternoon and looked forlornly at a heavy wooden door separating me from HIX.
"It looks closed," I said glumly to my associate, Jerry Boam, "what kind of drinking den is closed on a Saturday afternoon?" Luckily I thought to try the door and when I pushed on it, it swung satisfyingly open. Because I knew the bar was downstairs I wasted no time chatting to the overly inquisitive staff on the door or even looking around the ground-floor restaurant. I’ve eaten at the St John Street operation and I know the food is mouth watering: get me to the cocktail list.
At the bottom of the stairs, we found ourselves with a most agreeable situation: a beautiful bar and it was ours, all ours. I wanted to move in. Literally. We fell into plush chesterfields at one end of the room and sighed at the sight of the cocktail menu. After considerable perusal of the entirely too wordy menu, JB decided not to stretch himself with one of the more adventurous looking delights and plumped for old faithful. By which I mean he had a Negroni. Which tasted like a Negroni.
I, on the other hand, was craving an Amaretto Sour, but for the benefit of you dear reader, took the bullet to find out what HIX’s cocktail wizard was capable of. I ordered a Forbidden Sour. Once I got over the inanity of ordering such a ridiculously-named drink, I could appreciate the subtlety of the thing. Initial impressions of the drink - composed of Julian Temperley's Apple eau de vie and Galliano L'Authentico - were favourable, but an unexpected anise seed after taste gave me pause. The next round saw me cave in and order that Amaretto Sour with he-the-next-chesterfield-over sticking with the Negronis. He said they were delicious. I wasn’t interested. The Amaretto Sour was predictably satisfying: sweet, but lip-puckeringly sour. Honestly, I could drink them all day.
Given that a rather large dish of cobnuts appeared on our table out of nowhere, top marks for bar snacks.
HIX is the sort of place I’d like to live in. It’s like a heavenly IKEA. You go in; you lose track of time; you forget there’s natural light outside; you can’t find your way out. But you don’t give a damn, because the barman is just about to bring you another Amaretto Sour.
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