Table talk

William Sitwell at Hicce x Wolf & Badger, London

I THINK THAT you and I are quite similar. We like to think we’re openminded. We relish the idea of new experiences. But we are also quite comfortable. We like watching a bit of telly, feel soothed when we hear Zeb Soanes read the news on Radio 4, and enjoy Dijon mustard on our roast chicken.

So when it comes to eating out, given the money that we’ll spend and the fact that we could have stayed in and watched The Chase, the new experience needs to be more than just novel and experiential. Which brings me to this week’s restaurant. Because so much of it was interesting. There’s the location for starters – I was with my two teenagers and we all thought that Coal Drops Yard was just so cool. We appreciated how this once-industrial area, a short walk north from London’s King’s Cross, has been transformed into an architectural wonder. We loved how this part of the city now has little shops and cafés and restaurants nestling within the brick buildings. We revelled in the brilliant contrasts that London presents to the wide-eyed and curious.

We loved the entrance to the restaurant, too, via a trendy shop called Wolf & Badger and then up in a lift. We were also interested in the name of the place, even though we didn’t know how to say it. Hicce. Did it rhyme with tick or tricky? In fact you say ‘ee-chay’. Fascinating eh? I’m told it means trendy in Latin. My Latin-learning kids were unable to shed further light on it. I don’t remember Erasmus using the expres-