In the basement of Julie’s, a 55-year-old restaurant in Holland Park, there is a table famously dubbed the “G-spot”. It has been discreet for decades: a practically unbookable snug in the corner, curtained from prying eyes. Tina Turner once danced on top of it, her heel marks a telltale memory of debauchery long preserved. For Kate Moss, who had her 21st birthday here, it was the focal point, the hideaway; even Princess Diana visited, nibbling asparagus and sipping champagne at the very same cosy banquette incumbent owner Tara MacBain and chef-patron Owen Kenworthy are sitting at now.
Well, not exactly. Closed since January last year, Julie’s has had quite the overhaul. This will be its third iteration. MacBain, just 33 years old, has bought the institution as her restaurant debut, and has grand ideas to see it live on another half-century more; no sudden closures this time round (it was also closed from 2015 to 2019).
She’s evidently spent a packet. Quite how much, she won’t say, but securing the lease involved fighting off a three Michelin-star chef and, rumour has it, one of the capital’s best-known restaurateurs. Given Julie’s was once one of Sir Mick Jagger’s favourite haunts — Sir Paul McCartney’s too — it seems a glamorous place to start in the restaurant game. Is she up to the challenge?
“This is not, by any means, a vanity project,” says MacBain, who trained at Le Cordon Bleu before going on to become a venture capitalist. “It has been funded in part by family investments, but it is heavily mortgaged and I’m heavily indebted myself to make this happen. I know a lot of people with money want to open a restaurant, to tick that off. But this is my baby. Well, my second… no, actually, my third, because I have a husband as well.”
The history of Julie’s is what makes it. It was opened by the celebrated interior designer Julie Hodgess in 1969 and became the stomping ground of the “great and the good”. Locals loved it; its heyday continued long past the Seventies and Eighties. Even in the Nineties and early Noughties, Julie’s was a rolling, swirling, frenetic space; one of laughter, of one too many martinis and then another for good measure.
This area needed more oomph in the food scene. It was mediocre. Now there’s an emphasis on quality, efficiency
MacBain remembers those later days well, having spent some of her childhood in W11, in between Montreal and Geneva. “I remember mum dressing up for parties. We used to come in for family lunches, and it was always so jolly.” The area was different then, she adds. “There was a butcher, a grocer, the whole area was a community. You have old money houses, very wealthy, but there are less affluent parts of Notting Hill too. The clientele was diverse and I want that to be the case now.” But as interest waned slightly, things changed. In more recent years the restaurant had been “Michelin guided”, MacBain says. But Julie’s was never about the food — it was a place to spend a fair whack on wine and forget about doing so by the morning.
“The first menus were sausage and mash, things like that,” recalls MacBain. “What was more important was that Julie’s was a fun cocoon. People felt safe and there was an ambience. And anonymity. Everyone was treated equally.”
She impresses the point that Julie’s is more than a restaurant. She says after word spread that it might be turned into flats, locals urged the council to impose a 30-year preservation order.
Today, the restaurateur is, to an extent, seeking to recapture old times — kitting Julie’s out with a vintage Steinway piano, a plush new awning for alfresco dining and, among other aesthetic touches, 40 different wallpapers. A martini trolley will evoke the glory years (what about three? They’re only £13 each).
“Seeing the awning come down for the first time was quite emotional,” says MacBain. “The terrace is iconic. This restaurant is legendary, and so I feel a lot of responsibility taking it on. When I got the keys and the sale had gone through, I sat with my friends outside. People stopped by and asked me what was happening. There have been so many people getting in touch with memories. There’s so much excitement.”
Though former patrons will be acutely aware that Julie’s was never a gastronomic paradise, MacBain hasn’t skimped on the food. It is 2024 and London has new demands. In charge of the madly designed kitchen, formed of snaking corridors and cubbyholes, is Kenworthy — once of Brawn, later the Pelican. He appears terrifically committed to the cause. “I want to be here for 30 years,” Kenworthy says. “I want to be here when they put in a stair lift. This is a long-term project and to be a part of it feels very special, really inspiring.”
Kenworthy, who grew up in and around Blackpool and started out cooking in the North-West, says the idea is to create a “comfortable and warm” brasserie, one influenced by Britain, New York and across the Continent. The plan is casual if specific.
“We’ve banned burrata,” says Kenworthy, a wry smile on his face. “It’s on every f***ing menu. We’ve banned avocados, too. They’re bad for the environment — and boring.”
Others bits are out as well. “We won’t do wanky food, tweezer food. That’s not what this place is,” says Kenworthy. “It’s not really what locals want — you can’t have that regularly. Julie’s is a neighbourhood space. We’re trying to be fun and accessible.”
The menu is eclectic, modern and fairly vast; it’s a style not uncommon in 2024. Where once moneyed types sought out fine dining at every turn, today the scene is arguably less contrived: the choice is either a three-star at the top of the pile, or something almost predictable and easy, but charming and joyous. There’s a reason dining rooms atop pubs are doing so well.
Kenworthy’s snacks include devilled eggs with harissa (£5), pork rillettes with cornichons and sourdough bread (£9), and spider crab toast with fennel (£9). Elsewhere on the menu is an £85 seafood tower for two, which moves from ChalkStream trout pastrami to crispy potatoes with Siberian caviar, a Julie’s omelette for £12, and lobster souffle at £39.
“We have expensive dishes, but we also want to be affordable,” says the chef who, it turns out, is house-hunting around Holland Park. “You can have a blow-out, or come in and take it easy. It’s about value for money. We won’t be serving a wedge of hispi cabbage for £17.”
He adds: “I also think the food culture in London is moving from east to west. This area needed more oomph in the food scene. It was mediocre. Now there’s an emphasis on provenance, quality, efficiency. Lots of things are going on.”
Kenworthy sits back in his chair and MacBain, having urged me to try several cocktails in the interim, is suddenly reflective. And, she concedes, quite nervous, aware of an enormous undertaking with oodles of gravitas.
“I’ve worked my ass off for this,” says MacBain, “and I’ve put everything in it. I feel emotional, and there’s been financial and physical pressure. But I’m grateful for the team. We’ve built a brilliant one, and developed something special. I look around and appreciate everything that’s gone on. This was once an area full of sub-average Italians. So many of them. This is a neighbourhood restaurant, but it will need to be a destination too.”
MacBain mentions “Nancy”. Who? Nancy is the customer she has constructed for Julie’s. “She’s an elegant, quite wealthy woman who likes steak tartare and Caesar salad,” says MacBain. “She’s on her third divorce and she’s living her life.”
Kenworthy chimes in: “She loves drinking cocktails at the bar, having a snack or two and listening to the piano on a Wednesday night. She might have a blow out meal on a Friday, and lunch with the girls on Sunday afternoon.” She sounds a hoot? “Oh she is,” MacBain agrees.
We three step out of the G-spot and into the light of day. Ahead of opening, the dining room is a flurry of activity, a handful of friends and family sitting down to try steak frites and fettuccine, general manager Emma Underwood directing, the sommelier poring over a festoon of wines.
Outside, the heaters are slowly turning on. “Are they working?” asks MacBain, before waving to her son’s friend, who happens to be skipping home from school. “Oh yes, here they go, that’s good.” It’s fitting. Julie’s is, once again, firing up. There’s life in this old bird yet.
