The Bite Magazine - Spring/Summer 2023 - Issue 33

biterestaurant I n the Middle Ages, Foxhills in the Surrey town of Chertsey was just heath and woodland owned by Chertsey Abbey. In the 1780s, it became home to parliamentarian and social eccentric Charles James Fox and his mistress, the former courtesan Elizabeth Ar- mistead, who eventually became his wife. He was the third son of Henry Fox, the 1st Baron Holland and Lady Caro- line Lennox, daughter of the 2nd Duke of Richmond. He descended from Charles II of England and Henry IV of France through his mother. A Whig politician and an MP for Midhurst in West Sussex in 1768 at the age of 19, Charles was a passionate orator with an appetite for gambling and the high life. He once made a wager with the Prince Regent on the number of cats they would see on Bond Street. He also survived a shot in his ample belly during a duel in Hyde Park, quipping he would have died had his opponent, William Adam, Treas- urer of the Ordinance, not used the government-issued gunpowder. During his erratic political career, Charles supported the American Declaration of Independence, wanted to reform the governance of India, supported the French Revolution and Catholic Emancipation, and was violently against the slave trade. His last position in government was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in 1st Baron William Grenville’s ‘Ministry of All the Talents’, a national unity government formed upon his appointment as Prime Minister in 1806 Dan DaCosta THE FOX Head Chef Profile Jada Brookes discovers the eccentric politi- cian Charles James Fox behind Foxhills Club & Resort and The Fox Dining Rooms’ head chef Dan DaCosta.