Chef Lawrence McCarthy has opened a new restaurant in Horsham called Felix, first as a pop-up and now as a permanent fixture. South African-born Lawrence has an impressive pedigree. He has worked at and with The Ledbury, Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley, Tom Aikens, and at The Salt Room (and Black Rock Restaurants) in Brighton, where he was executive chef, although locals may also know him from his time at Tristan’s in Horsham. He was also a finalist for the National Chef of the Year 2016. And Sussex Exclusive caught up with him recently to find out a little more about Felix.
Why Horsham?
I grew up in Horsham. I have tried relocating before, but I keep coming back. Horsham is my town and I am super proud to be running a restaurant like this here. It is all I ever wanted to do and a lot of the people working with me now have worked with me in the past, so I have lots of friends and support. Felix started as a pop-up on a weekly rental basis, but I have now signed a permanent lease.
How would you describe your menu?
It leans into modern European food with Italian and French influences, but all my life, I’ve cooked very flavourful Asian ingredients and used Middle Eastern techniques and flavours, so it is definitely influenced by that too. It’s very modern. When I wrote the menu, I wanted to make sure that every single dish was unique for Horsham and that you couldn’t get it anywhere else.
How often will the menu change?
I will be working seasonally and organically, as things change and go in and out of season, so I’ll change the menu. We’re hitting spring now so I will start introducing dishes that are lighter and fresher. There will be lots of vibrant colours, like tomatoes and green vegetables.
Are you using any Sussex produce?
Yes, we’re using a local Sussex butcher for our pork, beef and venison and a Brighton fishmonger. Our wines are currently European, South American, with a few southern hemisphere wines, but we’ll be looking to grow and introduce a bit of English wine too.
And what was our Sussex Exclusive verdict of the menu?
With a menu that features such temptations as brown crab crumpets, goat curd and basil arancini, stone bass ceviche, spiced monkfish tail and grilled pork shoulder steak, it’s hard not to be impressed. Our arancini was superb (soft and not too chewy as can be the case) and packed with fresh and interesting flavours. The spiced monkfish tail was perfectly cooked, beautifully presented and once again, full of flavour. Dishes were neither too rich to be overwhelming, too large or too small and the verdict was that we would definitely like to go back and try a bit more. Good luck to the team at Felix, it’s a great addition to the town.
Felix is open for dinner Wednesday to Saturday (5.30 pm to 9.30 pm) and for lunch Thursday to Sunday (10 am to 4 pm ).
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