The Red Hedgehog

The venue name is inspired by the 19th century coffee house in Vienna which was a regular haunt of many classical composers (Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, etc.)

Brahms, for instance, obsessively refused to eat or drink anywhere else (there is a famous lithograph of the composer striding along in his top hat with a tiny red hedgehog at his heels) and the place is referred to in musical correspondence through the years in relation to many musical figures of the period.

The original Red Hedgehog suggests food, drink, conviviality, lively conversation between musicians, artists and thinkers and it is this aspect of the venue to which The Red Hedgehog (Highgate) most aspires.