Food & Drink
Million Pound Menu winners Pilgrim to reopen in Liverpool with new Allerton Road location in 2024
1 week ago
Pilgrim, the critically acclaimed restaurant from owner Jamie Duffield and chef Jack Williams, is set to reopen at a new location on 121 Allerton Road, Liverpool, in 2024.
Known for its unique culinary concept, Pilgrim draws inspiration from Jamie’s personal journey along the Camino Frances, part of the historic Camino de Santiago pilgrimage.
This spiritual route, which passes through Spain, Portugal, and France, deeply influences the small, seasonal menu, offering diners a taste of the region’s food cultures.
Pilgrim has found its home in the city’s Allerton district, where the 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.
Refillable wine bottles to take out or drink in lend an air of casual intimacy as they aim to become part of the community, as well as a destination for those looking to explore the burgeoning restaurant scene in the city and the wider north west.
Guests can expect a short menu which will regularly change; featuring dishes such as Butterflied Mackerel with Guindilla Sauce, redolent of the smoky, fire tinged cuisine of the Basque region as well as Heritage Potatoes, Caramelised Onions and Serra de Estrella cheese from the Eastern mountains of Portugal and Fig Leaf Ice Cream, a continental flavour made from locally sourced fig leaves.
Following a winding path of its own, Pilgrim returns after a four year hiatus to their spiritual home in Liverpool. What started life as a series of sell out pop up events in Dalston in 2017 took flight when the team won a place on the BBC show ‘Million Pound Menu’, filmed in Manchester in 2018.
Remaining in the North West, the restaurant then became a critically acclaimed standalone within Liverpool’s celebrated Duke Street Market, receiving rave reviews from national figures such as Grace Dent for the Guardian and Marina O’Loughlin for The Times, who commented that ‘Pilgrim is a restaurant I want to return to again, and again’ and that ‘Pilgrim is a blast’.
A Michelin Bib Gourmand followed, which the team retained through the pandemic as they expanded their operation into an at home meal kit and bottle shop. As they move back into a bricks and mortar space, they hope to continue their positive relationship with Michelin.
Jamie Duffield said:
“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.
“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.”
Pilgrim will open in Liverpool in late 2024, sign up here for more information and to receive emails. Reservations will open, the restaurant will serve dinner on Wednesday’s and Lunch and dinner from Thursday – Sunday.