Hix Oyster & Fish House

My boyfriend and I went for Sunday lunch at Hix and decided to arrive 20 minutes earlier than our 2.30 booking so we could have a drink on the small outdoor bar area. Big mistake. On arrival we were told to go out there and the waitress would come out to get our drink order and bring us the menus. After 15 minutes no-one had come (despite the waitress serving people beside us and the outdoor area only seating 6-8 people), so my boyfriend went inside to enquire and he was told someone would be right out. Another 10 minutes passed and nothing so I went in to order our drinks but seeing no waitress accepted my eye contact for attention, I ended up ordering at the bar, which looked like it is designed for waiting staff only. 10 more minutes went by with no sign of the drinks and when we enquired again, we were told the staff were looking for an olive for my drink. Finally the drinks arrived (with said single olive). Waiting almost 45 minutes for a drink is beyond an outrage and cast a dampener on what should have been a lovely relaxing lunch. The rest of the afternoon passed without incident and the food we had was fairly good but for a place that should really be the number one restaurant in Lyme, the service was disorganised and shockingly tardy. Go there at your peril on the weekend!

The restaurant is in a great elevated position, on a steep hill at the back of a small coast side public park, with lovely views along the coastline – at least when it’s sunny. It must have one of the best English seaside restaurant locations; similar to Tresanton in Cornwall.

The restaurant is small, but since it has large areas of glass with very simple brasserie / café style furniture, it is very bright, breezy and airy. Not sure how it will feel on a cold dark wet winter evening ?

Service was generally very competent and friendly, and reasonably knowledgeable. There was also no pressure to push us out after our very nice very extended lunch.

The menu was short – I guess in the interests of freshness and efficiency – but with sufficient choice . We both ordered grilled bream, which was very fresh and very good – high quality whole fish with its head, simply cooked and presented – as we like it. The starters, side orders and wine were equally as good. Not surprisingly, the cooking and food style is the fish equivalent of Hix in Clerkenwell.

You can’t change the weather or the roads, but it makes a very nice change to be able to eat at such good quality seaside restaurant, without having to catch a plane.

It will be very interesting to see how locals and tourists take to this style of cooking and service, with simple quality dishes, served in a relatively informal way in smart café style interior; since it doesn’t really fit the traditional model for a relatively more expensive quality restaurant.