Downtown Fairhope has no shortage of restaurants, but on a Friday evening during the Art Walk, the draw across from The Modern Eldorados’ sidewalk stage is a 35-seat dining room where the dozen oysters on ice have names, the chef trained at the Culinary Institute of America and the Cochon kitchen in New Orleans, and the owners live around the corner from both sets of grandparents.
Pearl Seafood + Raw Bar opened three and a half years ago in the space that formerly housed R Bistro, and it has quietly filled a gap its founders identified immediately: a downtown Fairhope restaurant dedicated to fresh, local seafood with a true oyster bar.
Pearl is the project of Will Sams and Erin Bell, a married couple from Gulfport, Mississippi, and Thibodaux, Louisiana, respectively — and their path to Fairhope ran through some of the most demanding kitchens in the country.
Trained in New York, seasoned in New Orleans
Will Sams started at Mississippi State, studying biomedical engineering while paying his way making sandwiches at the Bulldog Deli in Starkville. He finished his degree in business administration at Southern Miss’s Long Beach campus — where he met Erin — while working at Confusion, a Gulfport restaurant known for its eclectic menu.
With the business degree in hand, he moved to Hyde Park, New York, for the Culinary Institute of America, compressing what is normally a three-year program into two because of his prior credits. “I wanted to finish what I had started in the culinary world. It was great,” he says. One requirement stuck with him: students had to work with fresh ingredients for a full year before graduating. “The instructors were some of the best chefs in the world, many with MICHELIN-star restaurant backgrounds. There were four restaurants on campus, and in the second year, you had to work in them. You had to serve on the wait staff as well. It refined my experience.”
Part of his curriculum brought him south: a 2013 internship at the Grand Hotel in Point Clear, working with Executive Chef Mike Wallace — his first taste of the Eastern Shore. After graduating in 2014, the couple chose New Orleans, where Will started as a prep cook and rose to sous chef at Cochon, the celebrated Link Restaurant Group restaurant with James Beard Award-winning chefs at the helm. He spent four years there. Erin worked for an event company catering to corporate meetings and marquee events, the kind of operation that produces Super Bowl and Taylor Swift parties.
Orange Beach, then home
The next chapter took them to Orange Beach, where Will served as executive chef at Fisher’s at Orange Beach Marina. Three years of beach-restaurant intensity — grueling summers, constant tourist traffic, heavy staff coaching — ended when the pandemic claimed Fisher’s and its sister restaurant Playa. “The beach is hard. It was a good run, but I was ready for a change,” Sams says.
They began researching Fairhope with an eye toward opening their own place. “The restaurant offerings in Fairhope had grown since my time at the Grand Hotel, almost 10 years earlier. Yet, there really wasn’t a restaurant that served fresh, local seafood. When R Bistro decided to close, we thought it was the perfect spot to open Pearl.”
Small room, serious food
The space is intimate: 35 seats plus a raw bar that runs the length of the entrance, high-top tables opposite an extensive bar, and a specialty cocktail menu that rotates regularly. The oyster selection spans local farm-raised Gulf singles and East and West Coast oysters — guests on a recent visit worked through Murder Point oysters raw, then ordered a dozen fried, followed by a dark-roux gumbo served over potato salad.
“People see us as fine dining, but we see ourselves as casual,” Sams says. “The kitchen is a well-oiled machine and the food is delivered on time, but you will never be hurried. I’d like to think we have a fine dining experience without being stuffy.”
No reservations are taken; the room simply runs efficiently. Lunch and dinner run Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., with a five-item lunch menu. The menu changes seasonally three times a year. House staples include Redfish on the Half Shell, locally caught swordfish and, yes, fried chicken. The wine list leans white and sparkling, with unusual regional selections the staff likes to introduce.
Seasonal specials follow the Gulf’s calendar: Louisiana strawberries in an early spring mean a goat cheese salad, homemade strawberry ice cream and strawberry cheesecake. Monthly wine dinners typically sell out — an email list handles notifications — and the restaurant hosts a six-course Feast of the Seven Fishes during the holidays. Private events are available.
A family affair on a single block
The move from a 250-seat tourist restaurant to 35 seats was deliberate. “We work hard coaching the staff so the dining experience is special. We have a low staff turnover, which certainly helps with consistency,” Sams says. Erin runs the front of the house; son Will the Fifth, now 10, grew up three doors from both sets of grandparents, both of whom live in Fairhope. Erin’s sisters Amanda Calhoun and Stephanie Bergeron bought Fantasy Island Toys across the street around the same time the Samses bought the Pearl property — downtown Fairhope is, for this family, a one-block ecosystem.
Three and a half years in, the repeat business is strong. “We’ve had tremendous community support. We love this town. Besides, you can’t go wrong with fresh seafood and oysters,” Sams says. Fairhope, it turns out, agreed with him — and with the dozen oysters that started it all.