Pearl Mayfair opens with Lisa Goodwin-Allen's menu

Pearl Mayfair opens its doors today, a Mediterranean all-day restaurant from the Beaumont hotel that spills onto a newly reopened Brown Hart Gardens in central London.

The Beaumont opened in 2014, built by Chris Corbin and Jeremy King of Le Caprice and the Wolseley, and Pearl becomes its second full restaurant after Rosi, the pastel dining room named for owner Wafic Said's wife Rosemary. Pearl's terrace runs the length of the elevated garden square opposite, in a design the hotel says draws on Milanese piazzas and Riviera promenades.

Lisa Goodwin-Allen oversees both kitchens as culinary director. She became head chef of Northcote in Lancashire in 2004 at 23, kept its Michelin star when founder Nigel Haworth stepped back to chef ambassador in 2018, and won the north-west heat of Great British Menu in 2010 with a rabbit and leek turnover that earned her a seat cooking for the then Prince of Wales.

Coffee at nine, lunch at one, drinks at six — Pearl bets on turnover, not a fixed tasting menu.

Breakfast through to aperitivo

Pearl runs from early morning to late evening instead of a single sitting. Breakfast covers filled croissants — lobster, pork belly and avocado versions among them — alongside "cragels," a cross between a croissant and a bagel.

The all-day menu turns to Italy, Spain and Greece: burrata, crudo and octopus with 'nduja aioli to start, then lobster linguine, grilled swordfish, lamb chops and a chicken Milanese finished with caviar. The format favours small and large plates for sharing over a fixed three courses.

A garden built for the public

Brown Hart Gardens reopens alongside the restaurant. The elevated garden, laid out over a Victorian electricity substation, has been replanted to a design by the late horticulturalist Nigel Dunnett, known for the perennial meadows he created for the London 2012 Olympic Park.

Mayfair has no shortage of hotel dining rooms chasing the same postcode's expense accounts, and Soho has just picked up its own big arrival with Beefbar's flagship. Pearl's bet is on volume of occasions rather than a single tasting menu: a coffee run in the morning, lunch on the terrace, drinks after work. Whether Mayfair actually cycles through all three will show up in the bookings, not the opening party.