New restaurant The Kitchen opens in Poole Park

Transformed from the Boatshed into The Kitchen, complete with pizza oven, with Scoops ice-cream parlour alongside, the new eatery was launched in front of 175 invited guests and officially opened to the public on Friday.

It is the latest venture of Sarah and Richard de Lisle, who also own The Ark, the soft-play centre, ice-rink and café in the park.

“We want people just to come and watch the world go by in this special waterfront location in what we think is one of Britain’s best parks,” said Sarah.

With outdoor terrace, attractive courtyard and unfettered views across the lake, and a menu of British classics using locally sourced food, the couple hope it will appeal to everyone.

“This always has been and always will be the people’s park,” said Sarah. “This is a restaurant for the people to come to. That’s what we want.”

The building started life as Italian restaurant, Mezza Luna, before being bought by Eddie Mitchell and re-named Sevens Boatshed.

“It was haemorrhaging money,” said Richard. “We tried to make a go of it but it was losing money.”

So they closed it in January and worked on plans for a total transformation and re-launch, gaining planning permission in May.

In charge of the kitchen is executive chef Robert Holmes, who worked with Rick Stein in Padstow for more than two years and group manager is Rachael Pountney. Initially it will open from 10am to 6pm.

Scoops offers nine flavours of ice-cream alongside waffles, crepes, smoothies and shakes, as well as hot drinks.

“This is a new version of the park kiosk brought right into the 21st century,” said Sarah.

“To me as a child coming to the park was always associated with an ice-cream.”

As well as Scoops they also have an environmentally friendly ice-cream van which tours the park and The Ark has a parlour which offers more unusual flavours.

She added: “You can still go to the park and have an ice-cream as you could 60 or 70 years ago.”