CORA PEARL, LONDON WC2

Cora Pearl brings modern

British plates with Parisian notes to Covent Garden.

Chef George Barson

(Dinner, Viajante) heads up the kitchen in the latest project from the team behind Kitty Fisher’s, Mayfair’s awardwinning restaurant. Inspired by the life of the restaurant’s namesake, 19th-century courtesan Cora Pearl (once a resident of Covent Garden), the polished interiors of the Grade-II building on Henrietta Street combine high ceilings and bay windows with parquet flooring and teal accents.

Jars full of fresh herbs line the jade-green, marble-topped bar downstairs, and cocktails hit the spot – we loved the fruity-yet-dry Alfonso’s Cobbler, which saw manzanilla sherry matched with Chambéryzette, lemon and a strawberry and dill shrub.

The kitchen’s way with veggies impressed on our visit: creamy goat’s curd in a generous pool of grassy olive oil came with lovage and well-seasoned tomatoes. Then soft, yielding agnolotti filled with more curd – cow’s this time – on a velvety pea purée, with perfectly pitched earthiness from summer truffle. Best of all was a deeply savoury and surprisingly rich main of courgettes – pickled, puréed and charred – with aubergine, black garlic (roasted whole and as a gel) and Ticklemore cheese. A dish of flaky cod topped with delicately devilled crab was enjoyable, though somewhat underwhelming compared to the veg. Dessert was expertly crafted, though: lusciously rich poached peach, paired with an intense yet delicate earl grey sorbet.