In June last year, the business announced a total rebrand from Brasserie Bar Co to Heartwood Inns, marking its first step to becoming a freehold pub company underscored by a premium brasserie division.
The group laid out its aim was to become the market-leading operator of freehold premium pubs and pubs-with-rooms in the UK and went live with its new look and name o 6 July 2023, backed by £100m in funding from Alchemy Partners and OakNorth Bank.
Named after the oldest and inner most core of a tree, Heartwood said the new name reflected its “strong foundations” and “ambitious growth plans”, including growing its estate to 61 sites by June 2027 with a turnover of £133m.
The growth plans are expected to create a further 1,500 jobs, taking the total number of Heartwood employees to 2,700.
Raymond Blanc, who originally founded Brasserie Blanc Co, remained in charge of menu evolution, the quality of sourcing, and the development of staff following the rebrand.
Last year, Heartwood Collection CEO Richard Ferrier, who was promoted to the role after more than a decade with the company following the relaunch, told the MA the rebrand “symbolised the brand Heartwood is trying to be”.
“Having taken investment, one of the key things we always felt [was] we had this lovely pubco, White Brasserie Company, but we hadn't really spent a huge amount of time to ever embed proper brand pillars.
Deep dive
“When you take investment, as we have done, it shows you that we're about to invest and open lots more pubs, we should be very clear about what it is we're trying to do and who we're doing it for.
“We started off by doing a really deep dive piece of consumer research, including focus groups with quantitative and qualitative research, lots of different ways on thousands of people to try and understand what the pubs meant to them”, he continued.
Its first opening as Heartwood took place in August last year with the Black Swan in Henley, Warwickshire, with 120 restaurants seats, 60 bar seats and 100 garden seats.
Meanwhile the group’s first pub with rooms, the White Horse in Surrey, opened in March this year following a £4m refurbishment.
The historic Grade-II-listed building, which dates back to the 13th century, was acquired by the business in 2023, has 56 rooms and a 100-cover-food-led pub.
Speaking to The MA in March, Richard Ferrier said he was “very proud” of the team, and that the opening marked a “momentous point” for the company’s history.
Also in March this year, the group scooped two awards at the Publican Awards, Best Managed Pub Company (2-50 sites and Best Pub Operations Team, after being nominated as a finalist in multiple categories.
This was as well as being named Best Food Led Pub Group 2023 from The MA’s sister publication Restaurant’s R200 awards.
On the menu at most Heartwood sites, its cheese soufflé has proved popular across its estate.
A representative for Heartwood told the MA: "The twice-baked cheese soufflé is one of Heartwood's signature dishes with its chefs baking several hundred thousand every year.”
See how to makes the dish in the MA’s latest Dish Deconstructed here.
In addition, the multiple-operator was recognised as one of the best places to work in the UK by the Sunday Time earlier this year.
Moving to April, Heartwood announced it had acquired a trio of new sites, each set to receive a multi-million-pound refurbishment, as part of its expansion plans., taking its total number of sites to more than 20.
Multi-million-pound refurbishment
The London-based operator procured the White Hart pub in Lymington from Stonegate Group, the Prince of Wales in East Barnet, London, and the Old Crown in Great Bookham, Surrey, adding each historic site would undergo renovations to restore and preserve the features.
In May the award-winning group added the Manor Inn, Surrey, which dates back to the 18th century, to its estate after acquiring the pub from Whitbread.
Plans to refresh the 16-bedroom site included renaming it ‘The Ragged Robin’ and a multi-million-pound refurbishment to create a further three bedrooms as well as 150 internal covers and 100 external covers, creating 90 jobs.
Just over a year after the rebrand, Heartwood launched its second pub with rooms, the Ropemaker in Esmworth, West Sussex, following a six-figure renovation project.
The pub, situated on Chichester Harbour, welcomed customers back through the doors on 23 July, boasting 43 boutique bedrooms and a reconfigured pub space and outdoor terrace.
Most recently, Heartwood procured another 18th century inn, the Woodman in Palmers Green, Enfield, this time from Marston’s, with plans to implement another extensive renovation, creating 150 internal covers with a further 60 external covers at the venue.
Since the rebrand, the pubco now operates some 25 pubs and 14 Brasserie Blanc restaurants across the country, with the next new site to be reopened by Heartwood expected to be the White Hart in Lewes, East Sussex, in October, followed by the Coat & Bear in Berkshire and many more in the pipeline for 2025.
