Julie’s is one of those restaurants that’s remembered more for the shenanigans of her starry punters than for the brilliance of her food. She was certainly a Notting Hill institution for decades, a place where various Stones, supermodels, Beatles and bohos shook their tail-feathers and money-makers, far from the maddening crowd and safe from prying eyes.
Discreet and occasionally debauched… There was (still is) a downstairs table in a curtained booth nicknamed the ‘G-spot’ that bears an imprint of Tina Turner’s stiletto.
Yup, it was that sort of place, and my memories are suitably hazy. As I said, it was never about the food. But as the years passed (it opened in 1969), Julie’s became a sad, sorry shadow of herself, the restaurant equivalent of Norma Desmond.
She eventually closed in 2015, for a ‘revamp’, only to open again in 2019. The food was fiddly, the magic long gone, and the curtain fell again in 2022. But now she’s back, under new ownership, the room and terrace abuzz like in the old days. Upstairs is magnificent, the cushions and banquettes clad in bold fabrics, the wallpaper pretty and floral. Service matches the décor – light, bright, smart and lovely – and dogs are not just allowed, but actually encouraged.
The old haunt of various Stones, Beatles and bohos, Julie’s is, says Tom, ‘magnificent, the cushions and banquettes clad in bold fabrics’
There’s skill in the kitchen, too. Chef-patron Owen Kenworthy (who was at Brawn, then The Pelican) mixes technical precision with food the locals actually want to eat. Even the brunch menu (and I usually hate brunch, the most naff and perfidious of meals) has an excellent bacon sandwich, made with soft white scone, alongside a first-rate gruyère omelette, burnished and gently oozing.
The snacks section moves from nduja Scotch egg, fiery and porky, to spider-crab ‘toast’, which turns out to be a delicate pastry cylinder filled with the sweetest of crustacean flesh.
The starters and mains also move between the classics – steak, dover sole, a lobster caesar salad – and the slightly more ambitious, like duck-liver schnitzel, which sounds rather odd on paper, but turns out to be joyously soft and rich, three mouthfuls of crisp-coated delight. There’s something for every taste and wallet, in a room in which you want to linger. The old girl has a new lease of life, and Julie’s is rocking once more.
About £30 per head. Julie’s, 135 Portland Road, London W11; juliesrestaurant.com
