Deals where larger restaurant groups acquire smaller operators tend to fall into one of two camps: the opportunistic purchase of a distressed asset or the acquisition of an emerging brand with obvious rollout potential. Brava Hospitality Group’s recent purchase of Adam White’s three-strong Riding House Café group fits neither mould. So, what is Prezzo’s owner up to?
In the communications surrounding the acquisition, Brava chief executive James Brown said the main attraction was Riding House’s “proven all-day dining model”. He’s not wrong. Few restaurant groups in London do a better job of sweating different dayparts. White, who is originally from New Zealand, combined his innate Antipodean café instincts with more than a decade at the sharp end of London’s pub scene to create something that felt both fresh and commercially astute.
Launched in 2011 in partnership with Clive Watson, the original Riding House Café on Great Titchfield Street marked a significant moment in London’s restaurant scene. With its slick design, good-quality food and drink and polished service, it helped define a new wave of all-day dining. Having parted ways with Watson, White then repeated the trick at Victoria’s Nova development with Rail House Café and at the Brunswick Centre with Riding House Bloomsbury – two schemes where many operators have struggled. It is testament to his ability as a restaurateur that he has made all three sites work.
While trading figures are not publicly available, there were few outward signs of distress before the sale. If anything, the acquisition appears to have been driven by the opposite. But a healthy business occupying three prime central London sites doesn’t, on its own, explain the deal.
Riding House is an unusual target for a group like Brava because it is not a restaurant brand in the conventional sense and therefore does not have obvious national rollout potential. Its three restaurants look and feel markedly different - hardly surprising given White’s background as an architect and his well-documented fascination with ‘ugly’ buildings (the building that houses the original Rising House site was a recipient of architectural booby prize the Carbuncle Cup).
It’s tempting to draw comparisons with another highly influential all-day dining brand. Richard Caring acquired Bill’s in 2008 when it had just two restaurants before rolling it out to a peak of around 80 locations. But the similarities end there. Riding House is not Bill’s. Nor is it Prezzo or Jamie’s Italian. Arguably, one of its key appeals is that it does not feel like a chain: each restaurant has been individually conceived, individually designed and individually adapted to its surroundings.
Seeking to replicate that today would be eye-wateringly expensive for Brava. Riding House trades from large, high-profile sites in some of London’s most competitive locations. They are difficult to secure, costly to fit out and require huge trading volumes to justify the investment. When Rail House opened, White spoke about transforming an otherwise anonymous shell through a ‘building within a building’ concept, relying heavily on bespoke joinery and a highly specified design. No figures were ever published, but it definitely did not come cheap.
That raises the obvious question: is Brava really going to sign that sort of thing off? I’m sceptical. Brava has bought an exceptional business. Whether it has bought one that can be meaningfully replicated is another question entirely.