“My dream was always to be a chef and be a part of a kitchen but I also always wanted to follow my own entrepreneur ambitions.”
Meet Max Aynsley-Rigden, a 22-year-old catering school dropout who found his own path to follow his dreams. He is Head Chef and joint owner of Burgers @ N8, specialising in house styles of gourmet burger, tucked into a disused car park off Crouch End Broadway.
Starting at 17-years-old, Max worked for free in local bistros and cafes to gain experience and skill.After going through the motions at Southgate Catering College for a year, he decided to invest in his own entrepreneurial aspirations and take cooking head on. He attached himself to inspiring chefs at the Hempel Hotel where he worked for 2 years and then Connaught hotel for just under two years whilst building himself up.
What is most remarkable about his trendy kitchen is that it is entirely made up of recycled materials. The infrastructure itself is 5 shipping containers welded together and inside recycled wood furnishing makes for a cosy canteen.
But not all loved his idea from the jump, Max describes the process of getting permission from the council to use the empty site in which his restaurant now proudly sits upon as “a lot of jumping through hoops” and it took over a year to get it all sorted.
It was all worth it though as he states “it was a beautiful idea to be able to think about making something out of something that has been nothing for ten years”.
Long-term goals are said to build a franchise and have ‘Burgers @’ popping up in postcodes all over London soon, but the idea is to keep the separate restaurants independent. Buying only from local suppliers so the restaurant “benefits the people and the area” it is placed in. Take the private tour of the makeshift restaurant and watch Max prepare his burgers here.
