Will this woody café satisfy our hunger for a Hyde Park all-rounder?

An all-occasion park-side brasserie is the holy grail for urbanites, so why do so few places get it right? On a corner just outside Hyde Park’s Black Lion Gate, the entrepreneur Jeremy King — a royal among restaurateurs — may have the answer. After landing the ground floor of a new building on hospitality-starved Bayswater Road, he imagined a menu of lobster rolls, ribeyes, hotdogs and other accessible American favourites, served with the panache of a grand European café. The plates would be big and brash, yet the space would adopt the finer points of dining in Vienna or Paris.

To create this modern hybrid he turned to Shayne Brady, who’d recently left a partnership to form a new London design studio. For his part, Brady turned to Limba, a sumptuous golden timber with a soft brushstroke grain that feels fresh while reminding customers of the park outside. The wood coats the walls, wraps around banquette tables, forms louvres for the window blinds and segments the contemporary coffered ceiling. Even the bespoke wood chairs and tables, commissioned from Noble Russell, were crafted from the same Limba.

Central to the scheme is a sweeping double-curved staircase at the entrance that also became the central challenge over months of design and construction. A gentle swish down to the restrooms, it’s now fitted with a bespoke wood handrail and framed photography by Horst P Horst. ‘It’s like stepping off Fifth Avenue into a Central Park-side classic, only to find oneself still in London,’ says Brady.

Further along, a gently curved marble-topped bar and a suite of leather stools have minimalist midcentury undertones while brass hardware and a fiddle rail recall a bygone era. Brady collaborated with Atelier Lighting on milky alabaster pendants and sconces, and brought in additional art by Le Corbusier, Alex Katz and Ti Foster.