Hix at The Tramshed: chicken, steak and Damien Hirst

You’d think the combination of a great site in Hoxton, an installation by Damien Hirst and a steak- and chicken-based menu devised by one of London’s best known and most successful chefs, Mark Hix, would be something you’d hurtle across London for but somehow his new restaurant The Tramshed just doesn't come off.

I never thought I’d find myself saying this but the menu is simply too short, offering a no-choice slection of starters, roast chicken or steak and some classically English puds which if you’re anything like us you won’t have room for. Oh and a couple of salads though, weirdly, nothing for veggies except the small starter salad of raw asparagus with fennel and Berkswell. And I don’t even know if Berkswell is a vegetarian cheese

The problem is that if you only serve one thing it has to be fantastic and the chicken just wasn’t good enough. A fine specimen but underseasoned and slightly undercooked - not in the sense of being raw but in lacking the deeply savoury, sticky skin of a well-basted bird. (Rowley Leigh at Le Cafe Anglais accomplishes this much better and also offers a choice of breast or leg. Here you have to order the whole bird unless you go for a poussin which is unlikely to have as much flavour. Which makes it difficult for one of you to order steak as we would have been inclined to do.)

Given how fussy people are about eating these days it also seems odd to leave you to carve the very leggy bird a task fraught with difficulty given the tables are so small.

The starters were a mixed bag - Yorkshire pudding with whipped chicken livers (quite livery and too bitter) is a strange concept, admirable though it might be to use up the livers that way. But you can’t really opt out if you don’t fancy it - you pay for all three starters.

The wine list is also a disappointment, given the focus of the restaurant There were next to no light to medium-bodied reds of the kind you’d choose with chicken or which would appeal on a summer’s day. No Beaujolais for example and the cheapest red burgundy, a Nuits St Georges 1er Cru, was £201.

We ended up drinking an excellent bottle of beer, a citrussy pale ale called Hackney Hopster from London Fields Brewery and a medium-dry Burrow Hill Cider - which were great value, matched our chicken perfectly and made us wonder why we were even thinking about ordering wine.

Plus points: the building - a converted Tramshed, as the name suggests - is stunning and that Hirst installation (a stuffed bird on a stuffed cow) a dramatically eye-catching focus. The chips were good and the scrumpy-fried onions even better. The takeaway (food and wine) must be a boon for local residents and office workers (pick up a cheese and chive madeleine if you're passing by). I also like the fact that you get a doggy bag to cart off the remnants of your chicken. Another thrifty touch.

But that's still not enough to make Tramshed worth crossing London for if you’re not in the area - certainly not if you're not in the mood for chicken. If you want to experience the best of Hix I’d go to his Soho restaurant instead.

We ate at The Tramshed at soft opening rates.

Top image ©Damien Hirst 2012

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