It’s a journey to get to Hausu, a hip restaurant and bar situated within the London neighborhood of Peckham. However the last vacation spot is definitely worth the trek. Hausu shares a constructing with Peckham Rye station, and the classic lavatory is the depot’s outdated ready room. It was beforehand the Coal Rooms, a preferred restaurant that closed in 2024. The homeowners of the Coal Rooms contacted chef Holly Middleton-Joseph, who had beforehand placed on two pop-ups elsewhere as Hausu, and provided her a one-night residency.
“They had been making an attempt to get out of their lease, and we did a pop-up and offered it out,” Middleton-Joseph, 31, recollects, chatting with Observer in early September. “They requested us to return in for a chat on the next Monday and stated, ‘Would you wish to take over?’ It was so simple as that.”
Middleton-Joseph and her workforce made just a few tweaks to the area, together with a contemporary coat of paint and new tabletops and chairs, earlier than Hausu opened final October. It’s been a whirlwind, with Hausu shortly gaining recognition with each locals and people farther afield. What attracts company is each the meals, an thrilling mixture of recent European and globally-inspired dishes, and the buzzy environment. That vibe is available in half because of the music, performed from a classic hi-fi system. Hausu, named after a 1977 Japanese horror movie, additionally continuously hosts particular occasions, like DJ nights or document retailer takeovers.
“[As a pop-up], Hausu was all the time about bringing a hi-fi sound system to every place we had been cooking,” Middleton-Joseph says. “What I really like about this area is that we are able to have a DJ downstairs within the entrance bar or they are often upstairs within the eating room, relying on how busy we’re. It actually attracts individuals in once they’re within the entrance bar. And we all the time attempt to avoid wasting [room for] walk-ins, as a result of that’s one of many good issues about stumbling throughout a restaurant. I don’t like locations the place you’ll be able to’t simply stroll in.”
Hausu is Middleton-Joseph’s first head chef gig. She bought her begin in cooking as an apprentice at Frank’s Bar, additionally in Peckham, at 21. She didn’t have a background in meals and hadn’t attended culinary college, however she preferred to cook dinner for her roommates. She was a part of the outside café’s smooth launch in 2009, and instantly understood the attraction of a fast-paced hospitality job.
“I bear in mind the night time it opened, the tickets got here in thick and quick,” she says. “The factor I liked about it’s that you simply’re all in it collectively. It’s a bit scary. There’s panic. However when you get out of that dip, you get this uplifting feeling I really like. The camaraderie and the sense of accomplishment, and the truth that you’ll be able to be taught and evolve day by day.”
It was a problem, positive, however Middleton-Joseph was desirous to be taught. Plus, she genuinely loved cooking, particularly over Frank’s Bar’s open hearth. “I needed to seek out someplace I belonged. I didn’t examine something after I left college. This was the second I discovered that factor I used to be good at. And I like being good at stuff,” she says.
The open flame has been a standard denominator for Middleton-Joseph. She cooked often at dwelling rising up in Kent, however her strongest reminiscence is helming the barbecues in her household’s yard. “For some cause, my mum let me be accountable for the hearth,” she says. “I’ve this reminiscence of sporting goggles as a result of it was actually smoky and making an attempt to gentle this fireplace.”
Middleton-Joseph moved to London when she was 19 along with her older brother, Tom, co-owner and head of drinks at Hausu. The siblings labored collectively at a nightclub earlier than Middleton-Joseph discovered her calling within the kitchen, a joint gig that set them on a sequence of collaborations. “I labored behind the bar and I used to drink loads,” she remembers of the membership. “Tom tried to get me fired, however the bosses liked me a lot they stated no. However we’ve labored collectively at just a few locations, together with Frank’s, the Camberwell Arms and Mountain. We’re just a little duo, me and Tom.”
By the point Middleton-Joseph opened Hausu with Tom and their co-founder Christian Williams, she had sufficient expertise in kitchens to grasp what kind of environment she needed to create. A pure chief, she needed to instill a constructive vibe into her employees—no shouting and no disrespect.
“You get to set the tone of the voice that you simply wish to be heard within the kitchen,” she says. “It’s about being agency and honest, however not shouting. It was good to have the ability to do this from the start. I’ve been actually fortunate with the cooks I’ve labored underneath. I don’t assume there’s been too many dickheads, to be trustworthy. I’ve labored for lots of honest individuals, and that’s helped carve me as a head chef.”
Being a queer feminine chef has additionally formed Middleton-Joseph’s strategy. She desires to construct a protected area for different queer cooks (there are just a few on her workforce). She grew to become extra comfy along with her id early on in her profession, which she credit to her first severe relationship.
“That first relationship actually solidified issues for me, and I used to be given the boldness to say, ‘If individuals don’t respect you or wish to be afraid of you since you’re homosexual, then that’s their downside,’” she says. “I grew to become extra open to the label and started to do interviews about it. Now I don’t actually label myself. It depends upon the area that you simply’re in, so I don’t label myself until I feel it could possibly assist a state of affairs or make it higher for another person.”
She provides, laughing, “Typically the homosexual {couples} or lesbian {couples} are available to eat, and so they sit on the counter. Will probably be two ladies, each me, and so they’re like, ‘Oh, a homosexual head chef!’”
The menu at Hausu is all the time altering, principally as a result of Middleton-Joseph remains to be discovering herself as a chef. She loves having artistic management, however is all the time open to discovery, and sometimes tries out new dishes. “I’ve fairly an excellent intestine feeling about issues, whether or not it’s going to work or not,” she notes. “And it hasn’t gone unsuitable to date.”
A couple of dishes have remained since Hausu’s early pop-ups. The chef’s upscale tackle prawn toast—a Chinese language takeaway staple in London—appeared on the menu the primary night time within the restaurant’s present area. Middleton-Joseph was impressed by the tall prawn toasts at Duck Duck Goose. “I bear in mind considering, ‘Not many eating places do this,’” she says. “I all the time love a prawn toast from the Chinese language takeaway, however they’re often fairly crap and so they’re actually skinny. And I assumed, ‘We will elevate it. We will put scallops in it and actually good prawns.’ We simply amped up the flavour.”
The toasted rice ice cream, doused with a five-spice caramel, has been on the menu since Hausu’s first-ever pop-up. Middleton-Joseph conceived it whereas working on the Camberwell Arms. The gastropub served a home made ice cream, so she determined to toast up some rice and infuse the milk ice cream base with it. She topped it with puffed rice and the caramel, which hits the tongue with the inclusion of Szechuan peppercorns. It’s addictive and well-balanced, countering the same old sweetness of a dessert with the spices and rice. It was considered one of my favourite dishes, however Middleton-Joseph says it’s not for everybody.
“As a result of the caramel has bought Szechuan in it, it has that numbing issue and it freaks individuals out,” she says. “It usually divides the gang. It’s the Marmite of ice lotions.”
Middleton-Joseph’s influences are broad, a lot in order that it’s laborious to characterize her cooking. She makes use of Asian components like gochujang, seaweed and XO sauce alongside flavors from Italy, Spain and Greece. Fermentation is a standard follow within the kitchen—the home made pickles had been so good I ate the complete plate earlier than my buddy arrived—and far of the produce comes from across the U.Ok. “If you happen to like one thing, why not?” Middleton-Joseph says. “The sky’s the restrict, and I’m fortunate I can do this right here. For me, it’s all in regards to the flavors being actually enjoyable and daring and shiny.”
The chef additionally attracts on her expertise working in Cambodia, the place she lived for eight months in her early twenties. She initially went for 2 weeks, however ended up staying to work in her buddy’s barcade. “That they had a kitchen behind the bar that was empty, so I made just a little snack menu of brown sugar rooster and fries with bay seasoning, stuff like that,” Middleton-Joseph says. “However then the actual gig was each Friday, I might do a grill out [of] the entrance of the bar with meals. We’d decide a unique nation every week, and it will be meals from around the globe, cooked on an open hearth.”
Middleton-Joseph’s love of fireplace carries on at Hausu, the place she prepares lots of the dishes over the flames. She finds cooking a steak over the hearth simpler and extra flavorful than in a pan, but it surely’s not simply the meat that will get that strategy. The extremely Instagrammable scallop, coated in an XO cream, is grilled, as are the peaches within the smoked ricotta salad.
“All the steak and fish come off the hearth,” Middleton-Joseph notes. “As a result of my apprenticeship was at Frank’s Bar, there weren’t even induction burners. We cooked every thing on hearth. If you happen to wanted to cook dinner a pan of sauce, you’d load up the hearth. So from an expert perspective, that’s how I’ve been taught—simply use hearth.”
Quickly, Hausu will have fun its first anniversary, a milestone second for the restaurant. And Middleton-Joseph has even greater goals, together with a objective of touchdown on the 100 greatest eating places record on the Nationwide Restaurant Awards. However for the chef, it’s much less about proving one thing to the world and extra about proving it to herself.
“I do have imposter syndrome, and I’ve bought to persuade myself that I’m adequate on a regular basis,” she says. “I’m slowly believing it. However once I have a look at different nice eating places that I do know and love, typically I’m like, ‘Are we only a bit too enjoyable? Are we not as severe?’ There are all the time these questions. However then you definitely learn the opinions and other people are available and so they say how scrumptious it was, and you already know you’re doing an excellent job.”
All these years after her first night time as an apprentice at Frank’s Bar, Middleton-Joseph can nonetheless really feel the joy of the job. She’s simply as motivated now as she was then, if no more so. “I find it irresistible,” she affirms. “I don’t assume I might be right here if I didn’t find it irresistible. However fortunately for me, I really like a problem and I really like creating, so it looks like that is the fitting factor.”
