Tequila lunch at Hix Oyster and Chop house

A fresh email plops into the inbox. You are invited to a tequila lunch with Mark Hix on Thursday it casually says. I re-read it a few times. The words “Hix” “lunch” and “tequila” reverberate in my nosh-addled mind like strobe lighting. I call my mates, but this is no wind up. Apparently there is a God. I feel awash with happiness, like I’ve won the culinary lottery.

It’s an Inspirit Brands event  and strolling through the City sunshine to the Oyster and Chop House, even the suits emit thin-lipped smiles at one another, like vicious little paper cuts. It’s one of those days when you fall all over in love again with this skanky old town. It’s one of those days, when all you want to do is stand outside and drink chilled lemon verbena cocktails mixed by a world champion bartender, the citrusy leaves plucked fresh from his garden that morning. Which is precisely what we do.

I try not to gawp at Cleo Rocos wobbling exotically around on her crutches like the ornithological walking wounded (she’s suffering from a brutally agonising knee injury, but laughs and jokes throughout our lunch). I’m introduced to Sam Galsworthy of Sipsmith, Alice Lascelles of Imbibe Magazine, Stuart Ekins of Inspirit Brands, Peter Prescott and Nick Strangeway amongst others. They ask me what I do. I feel vaguely embarrassed – not everyone gets blogging. I have another cocktail, it slips down dangerously easily with its non-alcoholic tang, every little gulpful a fizz of lemon sherbet. They’re all so warm and it’s so luxuriously hot I feel relaxed and as if I’m amongst friends, rather than feeling like the unexpected item in the bagging area.

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