The launch comes a few months after the opening of Red Dog American sandwiches situated next door to the main Red Dog Saloon restaurant which opened in 2011. Red Dog South aims to bring the restaurant to a different area of London.
Location matters
Brooke said: “We chose Clapham because it’s a brilliant location and a really cool area. The kind of people who live there are young professionals, those between 25 and 30, which is the age range of our usual customers at Red Dog.
“It’s also a fun and lively place to be with lots of bars and clubs about. That’s the sort of atmosphere where we fit in. I chose the restaurant site because it was off pitch, a real destination site in an exciting place.”
The restaurant can sit 86 inside and has a 32-cover terrace outdoors. Like Brooke’s other restaurants it will serve large slabs of hickory smoked meat and poultry, including stacks of buttery ribs and the Red Dog Saloon signature list of burgers alongside pies and desserts. It will feature a large bar for cocktails and beer too.
Quality at the core
“There are a couple of big differences between us and other American BBQ-style joints,” said Brooke. “The first is the quality of our food. We make sure that our meat is the highest quality and put a lot of work into sourcing it. A lot of barbeque style joints will serve quite cheap meat, but ours is the very best you can get. I’d put it up against any fine dining establishment.
“Another thing that makes us stand out is the strength of our core recipes. We’ve put a lot of time and effort into establishing our signature dishes and those are the ones customers come back for.”
The most popular dish served at Red Dog is the devastator, a combined burger, pulled pork and smoked bacon dish.
Brooke said: “The devastator is what we’re all about, burgers and barbeque meat. It manages to combine both. My brother actually invented it, he just came in one day fancying both at once and so threw it all together, and now people love it.”
Re-invented
The restaurant sits on the site of a former Spanish restaurant, La Terraza, and Brooke has completely renovated it to fit with the style of Red Dog.
Brooke said: “We had to completely tear down the site and start again. The kitchen was in the middle of the dining room and that didn’t work for us, so when we moved that we had to change everything. We completely redecorated too. The restaurant has a relaxed and fun feel now, which is what we’re about.”
Red Dog South is due to open on Monday 14 April at 27/31 Bedford Road in Clapham, opposite Clapham North Tube. The restaurant will be serving lunch and dinner at 50 per cent off normal price for the first week of its opening.