Top 100: Sam, Eddie and James Hart, Hart Bros Restaurants

Overall ranking: 69 (new entry)
Restaurateur ranking: 19 (new entry)

Snapshot

What we think
The Hart brothers are no strangers to the hospitality industry. The Eton-educated siblings are the sons of former Lehman Brothers investment banker-turned-hotelier Tim Hart and Mallorcan-born mother Stefa, who is an interior designer. Together Tim and Stefa own and operate Hambleton Hall hotel in Rutland. Before setting up their company, Eddie lived in Barcelona, while Sam ran a nightclub in Mexico City.

They returned to the UK to set up a restaurant inspired by the dishes served in Barcelona’s Cal Pep, and joined forces with the group’s executive head chef, Nieves Barragán Mohacho, who was raised in the Basque Country.

They opened the uber-cool, 80-seat Fino as a contemporary Spanish tapas bar on Charlotte Street in London’s Fitzrovia in 2003 to wide acclaim. However, its large size required a more formal, sit-down format than their original concept of an easy-going bar.

The Harts had to wait until January 2007 to realise this vision, when they opened the first Barrafina in Frith Street, Soho, with 23 stools, an open kitchen and a fresh seafood display. Its potentially risky no-bookings policy led to 90-minute queues of eager customers.

A second branch opened on Adelaide Street in Covent Garden in July 2014, complete with a Josper grill to allow new cooking techniques, especially for meat and fish. The group added a Drury Lane outlet in July 2015 with new dishes inspired by Mohacho’s trips to Galicia, San Sebastián and Mallorca.

Barrafina has won wide acclaim from both the critics and the public. The Evening Standard’s Simon Mills wrote: “The tapas are not only the best in the capital, but up there with the tastiest on the continent.”

The brothers closed Fino in June 2015, selling on the lease in March 2016 to focus on new Barrafina openings.

Quo Vadis was acquired in 2007 and reopened in 2008 after a makeover of both the interior and the menu under former Fino head chef Jean-Philippe Patruno. It relaunched as a British-style brasserie with a 90-cover dining room and bar and a private members’ club. At the end of 2011, Jeremy Lee took over as head chef and the restaurant won the Menu of the Year Catey the next year.

Last year, the restaurateurs announced they were going to relocate the original Barrafina, which earned a Michelin star in 2014, to Quo Vadis, and confirmed that James would be leaving the City to join the family firm. Barrafina in Drury Lane, on the site of Quo Vadis, still holds a Michelin star.

The brothers have no qualms about the grittier aspects of running a hospitality business. Crispin Somerville, who owned and ran Mexico City nightclub El Colmillo in the 1990s and 2000s with Sam and is a partner in El Pastór, recounted in a 2016 interview with Esquire that Eddie is always the first to roll-up his sleeves and clean up the vomit during what they call the “puking season”, which runs from late November until just before Christmas.

“I pretty much worked my way through every department, from barman to housekeeper to chambermaid to receptionist," says Eddie of his experience working at the family business Hambleton Hall. "And I loved the business.”

Further information
El Pastor to open second London site >>

Hospitality businesses at centre of London terror attack >>

Cateys 2016 Restaurateur of the Year â€" Independent: Sam and Eddie Hart, Hart Bros Restaurants >>