Hush Holborn Brasserie Turns into Haché Burger Social Tomorrow

The Hush Brasserie site on High Holborn has undergone a change of use and will open tomorrow (9 January) as a fully-fledged 90-cover Haché Burger Social, following a basement pop-up on the site by the same operators since the end of 2016.

The operators of Hush (in Mayfair), who also own the Cabana Brazil group, acquired Haché in September 2016 — what they call “the original better burger brand.” A two-month pop-up in the basement of the Holborn brasserie soon morphed into a long-term residency.

They say the move will allow them to offer not just Haché’s “6oz prime hachéd steak burgers,” but a longer selection of cocktails and their recently launched breakfast and brunch menus, as well as the capacity to offer delivery. The basement formerly home to the pop-up will become a 35-seater events space.

Since Jamie Barber and Ed Standring’s (Hush and Cabana) acquisition of Haché, £350,000 has been injected for refurbishment and on a “complete brand overhaul,” in which they have refocused on the brand’s “core strengths”: “reclaiming burgers for grown-ups, within a buzzy, all-day setting.” The group eschews ‘no reservations’, has no place for ‘dirty burgers’ and don’t kit their venues out with a ‘warehouse interior.’

As well as burgers — including the brand’s best-selling “Steak Le Fume,” served in a smoke-filled dome — the restaurants offer small plates. At Holborn those will include spicy buffalo cauliflower dipped in hot cayenne sauce, and halloumi fries with a pesto aioli dip. Haché’s most well-known dessert is a homemade, accented, banofé pie.

Haché was originally founded in 2004; it now has six sites across London: in Camden, Chelsea, Clapham, Holborn, Balham and Shoreditch.

According to the owners, 2017 was a good year for Hush Mayfair, in which the site underwent a half million-pound refurbishment in April 2017 as part of the celebration of its 18th birthday. The change of use in Holborn “will allow Hush to focus on its core site,” a statement said.

“The plan was always to convert the Holborn site into a Hache as soon as we acquired the brand in 2016, we just wanted to see how it would take in that location, hence the ‘testing’ with the pop up,” a spokesperson told Eater London.

“The stand-alone brasseries (we closed the one in St Paul’s a couple of years ago) didn’t really get the essence of the brand and we decided this wasn’t the route we wanted to go down for it — they diluted what made Hush, Hush.

“Not sure about burgers being the saviour but Hache is small enough that it still operates like an independent restaurant — growing Hache allows us to expand the business whilst preserving Hush as the special place it is.”