Both the brands will trade from venues operated by Incipio Group, Jefferies at The Prince in Earl’s Court and Smash Patty at Pergola in Kensington.
Launching on 3 May at The Prince as the street food and music venue re-opens for its summer season, Jefferies is billed as an evolution of Patty & Bun’s existing chicken menu items.
“I love chicken. Our specialty is beef burgers but we’ve also done a lot of chicken at Patty & Bun. Our chicken dishes have got a cult following, the Hot Chick Burger and our smoked confit wings with BBQ sauce in particular,” says Grossman.
“We were developing a few more chicken items for Patty and it occurred to us we probably had enough for a standalone chicken place. That coincided with Charlie (Gardiner, the owner of Incipio Group) wanting to freshen things up at some of the sites. So here we are.”
Chicken burgers at Jefferies include the eponymous Jeffery (fried chicken thigh, smoked garlic aioli, matts hot sauce, picked red onions, potato bun); Hercules! (fried chicken thigh, ranch mayo, hot butter sauce, Jefferies pickle relish, potato bun); ‘Koji Koji’ (fried chicken thigh, gochujang mayo, satay sauce, chilli and lime slaw, lettuce, potato bun)l and ‘Bare Grillz’ (lemon and garlic grilled chicken breast, lemon and herb aioli, pickled red onions, slaw, lettuce, potato bun).
The burgers will be sold at a slightly lower price point to Patty & Bun (£7 to £8.50).
Grossman says he may put the concept into the group’s Deliveroo Editions site in Battersea and that there is a chance the brand could become a fully-fledged restaurant if successful.
“We’re keeping a very open mind. It’s been a great creative process but it all means nothing if we can’t get it right when we actually open it and start executing the product. We’re going to put it out there. If it really kicks off there may well be potential to do a bricks and mortar site.”
Also launching early this summer, Smash Patty will also have a lower price point to Patty & Bun with burgers priced from £6.50. The menu will be tight, with just four burgers on offer.
“We love smashed burgers. Shake Shack was a big inspiration, as was our butchers HG Walter sending us some outrageous hand-chopped Dexter mince which works brilliantly smashed on the grill. The potato and buttermilk buns are unreal, too. Our Entry burger is just bun, sauce and meat. There’s nowhere to hide.”