My name is George Barker, and Mayfield has been a long time coming.

I grew up in Brighton, in a family that owned a restaurant and a cafe. From pretty much as soon as I could see over a table, I was folding napkins, clearing plates, and picking up the rhythms of hospitality without really knowing that's what I was doing. It gets into you early. Despite all of that, I took what felt like the sensible route in my twenties — corporate finance and real estate back in the UK. Food was always there in the background, but I told myself it wasn't the plan.

In 2017, I moved to the United States and did what any sensible former finance professional would do — I opened a food truck. The Hungry Royal was my testing ground, I traveled all across Orange County and LA, set up at music festivals in Las Vegas, worked the Anaheim Convention Center, and travelled down to San Diego. It was relentless, unpredictable, and exactly what I needed but I always knew it was a stepping stone.

When I found the space in historic downtown San Juan Capistrano, it wasn’t the restaurant you see today. 8 foot ceiling heights got excavated to 17 feet, the front of the building got opened up, we built a second floor and put in 12 foot retractable windows. Construction started in February 2020. We opened in August 2020. In the middle of a pandemic, which in hindsight was either brave or completely mad, probably both.

The food here is rooted in Levantine cuisine, the cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, and that comes from a genuine long-standing love of the region. I've spent a lot of time travelling through that part of the world, eating in its restaurants, wandering its food markets, sitting at tables where the food just kept coming. Those experiences shaped the way I think about eating more than anything else. The flavours, the spicing, the herbs, the instinct to share everything, it all stayed with me. At Mayfield we bring that sensibility into a California kitchen, built around seasonal ingredients and the extraordinary produce this coast has to offer.

Everything is made to be shared. That goes back to every meal I've ever loved, and it's the spirit this place was built on. Ultimately, I built the restaurant that I wanted to sit, drink and eat in. I hope you feel the same way.