Robert Hunningher has opened his third cafe, this time in Clerkenwell

WHEN Robert Hunningher was 29, a chance encounter with a judge changed the course of his life.

The cooking obsessive from Highbury Barn had been down on his luck at the time, having just accepted a job as a bike courier, when he bumped into a judge who he had made a meal for a few nights earlier.

“I burst into tears and told him about the courier job,” he said.

“He grabbed me – he was really big, about my size now – and started shaking me, and said, ‘That was a fantastic meal you cooked the other night! You better keep doing the catering!’”

Last month he opened his third Humdingers Cafe, in Rosebery Avenue, Clerkenwell.

But he’s not your usual restaurateur.

The father-of-two – who regularly misses sleep and is usually found getting fruit and veg from New Spitalfield market in Leyton at midnight – has an unusual take on the hospitality industry.

“I would like to end children going to bed hungry,” he said, describing how he began sneaking food out of his house in Northholme Road for hungry friends when he first realised, as a boy, there were others worse off than him.

Since then, his desire to help has not diminished.

While he runs the cafes as profitable businesses – and they are now making money – he mainly runs them as an opportunity to give away free soup and bread to anyone who needs it.

“I had a big argument with a bunch of my middle-class friends at a friend’s barbecue the other day,” he said.

“They all ride bikes, and they’re all thrilled with the changes that we’re making on the streets [referencing a reduction in cars] and I’d say, ‘I’m thrilled with them too; but surely you should be getting the homeless people off the street before you do this?’”

He said a trip between Gucci and Piccadilly Circus station could see him pass 30 homeless people, where once there were none. “It makes no sense to me. It’s got so bad,” he said.

The chef made – and still makes – his money from his successful catering business, Humdinger Catering, whose clients include Gucci and Microsoft, which allows him to prop up the more altruistically natured cafes.

The cafes came about as an idea weeks into lockdown, when Mr Hunningher decided to open a soup kitchen from his Hoxton Street office, a 10-minute walk from his home.

In 2020 it served more than 100,000 free hot meals – an achievement that saw him given a British Empire Medal for his service to the community, awarded by the Queen.

Now, all three of his cafes – Hornsey Road, which opened two years ago; the Highbury branch, which opened last November, and last month’s Clerkenwell – serve free soup and bread to anyone who asks for it, giving away 200 litres a week. Across the month of August, it was also selling any cup of coffee for just £2, making it cheaper than almost any other high street coffee outlet.

On the morning he met the Tribune, Mr Hunningher had been up at 3am giving his Highbury cafe a deep clean. One thing not in question is his passion for his enterprise: as he sits outside the Highbury Park cafe, describing how he spent £150,000 on refurbishing the building (and winning a £500 bet with his builder that there were original tiles under the plasterboard from its previous incarnation as a fish shop) he talks about the empire he wants to build.

“I’d like to have lifelines all over London,” he says, painting a picture of the role he sees his cafes playing in public life.

He explained how people will be able to get involved with the Humdinger mission by signing up to an app, which will allow them to donate as well as access loyalty reward schemes.

But he argues his business model is pioneering what can be done to help society at a time when politicians appear to have run out of answers.

“I think if other businesses follow what we’re doing, we could change the world without the government,” he said, and called on them to follow his lead.