No business like showbusiness… except the food business, says Mark Hix

Chef Mark Hix says that restaurants are like the theatre — because so many actors work in them.

Hix, who is launching a bar in the Old Vic this month, told the Standard: “It’s very common to have waiters who are actors in-between jobs. Restaurants are all about theatre, your whole dining experience should be a bit of theatre.

“Some people go into my business as a career, but it’s a good business to go into if you’re a performer as well. The minute you walk onto the floor in a restaurant it is a performance — good or bad.”

Mark’s Bar will serve theatregoers before and during shows and will be open to the public afterwards until late.

It is his seventh venue in the capital but his first stand-alone bar. Hix, 52, said: “If I was perfectly honest, I’d rather have a load of bars than a load of restaurants. I’d rather sell martinis all day long than steaks.

“It’s more straightforward from a business point of view. It’s easier to produce drinks.”

The former Ivy chef added: “We don’t use the word ‘mixologist’, our bartenders are good old fashioned cocktail bartenders. They mix proper drinks so your face doesn’t get full of stuff when you go to take a sip of it.

“I’m anti cocktails with so many ingredients in that you can’t taste the main ingredient.

“It’s like our food philosophy of no more than three ingredients on the plate.”

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