Liverpool restaurant Pilgrim to return following four-year hiatus

The new incarnation of the restaurant - which is inspired by the Camino de Santiago which runs variously through Spain, Portugal and France - will be located in the North Western city’s Allerton district. 

Following a win on My Million Pound Menu, Duffield launched the first iteration of Pilgrim in 2019​​ with then business partners Dave Bone and Anthony Power within Liverpool’s Duke Street Market serving a ‘radically seasonal’ Spanish small plates menu.​​  

The project was well received, attracting a Michelin Bib Gourmand and positive reviews from Guardian critic Grace Dent and then The Sunday Times critic Marina O’Loughlin. 

Pilgrim closed in 2020 and had been due to move into a permanent site but the deal fell through at the last minute. Shortly afterwards, Duffield was diagnosed with brain cancer but has now made a full recovery.

The upcoming 24-cover restaurant and wine bar will feature an open kitchen, terrace and a small, productive green space filled with pollinators, shrubs and herbs for use in the kitchen.

Overseen by chef Jack Williams, the short menu, regularly-changing menu will feature dishes such as butterflied mackerel with guindilla sauce; heritage potatoes, caramelised onions and Serra de Estrela cheese; and fig leaf ice cream. 

“We’re so delighted, excited, relieved… you name it, to be finally opening in our own space. This little site in this corner of Liverpool is exactly what we’ve been looking for and even when we’d stripped it all back to bare bricks, it felt like home” says Duffield, whose CV includes Smoking Goat and Nuno Mendes’ Taberno do Mercado. 

“Becoming part of a neighbourhood like Allerton is such a big part of what we want to do; we want locals popping in to refill a bottle of wine they liked and maybe see what’s new and we want them to be perched at the kitchen bar chatting to people who have jumped on the train over to see us from Manchester or even up from London.”