Is it a curse or a blessing to be described as “an institution”? After all, usually institutions are things that people go into and seldom come out of, intact at any rate. But Julie’s, the grande dame of West London restaurants, has now been going in some form or other since 1969; to put this in perspective, the entire career of Marco Pierre White, chef, has come and gone during that time. As for Julie’s, the first time I ever walked past it, I saw Nigel Havers lunching with some impossibly glamorous woman. That, I thought, sounded about right; it is a compliment to call Julie’s a very Nigel Havers kind of place.
Yet with no disrespect to Sexual Favours himself, Julie’s could not continue to be a haunt of well-heeled actors of a certain age and remain relevant in the fiercely competitive London dining scene. So when it reopened earlier this year, now owned by Holland Park resident Tara MacBain and with Chef Patron Owen Kenworthy installed in the kitchen, it was clear that even though the clientele will remain well-heeled locals, progress and change are in the air, and anyone who cares about serious, hugely able cooking, in one of London’s buzziest and most iconic restaurants, is going to be very happy indeed with the new-look Julie’s.
I was most amused, on our corner table, to be surrounded by two examples of the new Holland Park. As we drank excellent cocktails – a Sauternes Martini for Boothby and a Pear & Pastis for me, instead of the Beurre Noisette I ordered, but never mind – we enjoyed eavesdropping on a trio of ladies-who-dine in the corner, talking about St Tropez and Botox, and two laddish types dining next to us, one of whom seemed very pleased and proud about his engagement.
As we ate superb snacks of crispy n’duja quail’s eggs and spider crab toast, the newly engaged man must have proudly announced five or six times, during the course of his meal, “I’m not gay!” ‘The laddie doth protest too much, methinks’, Boothby pronounced, and we both sniggered.
If you’ve been to anywhere Kenworthy’s cooked before, including Brawn and The Pelican, you’ll have a very good idea of what to expect; classy Anglo-French cuisine, served with flair. Tuna tartare to start is very good, and Boothby’s skate and potato terrine is lifted to a higher level by the addition of sauce gibriche. But it was the mains where the kitchen really came in its own, helped by our waiter’s fine suggestion of a bottle of a 2020 Langhe Nebbiolo from Piedmont; sirloin bordelaise and duck confit are both very fine examples of provincial French cooking, done to perfection, and if there is an inevitable incongruity about the heartiness of the food – especially with side orders of very fine frites and the tomato and basil salad of one’s dreams.
We still, somehow unbelievably, had space for dessert, and after some good-natured (read: ill-tempered and sulky) squabbling over who would order the chocolate pavé (me) and who would plump for the cherry & almond tart (Boothby), both of which were, in the end, predictably excellent, it was time to leave the surprised-looking women in the corner, who by now, two bottles of wine deep, were bitching about their adulterous husbands and the decidedly tactile-looking newly engaged young man (“I’m not gay!”) and head out into the evening.
Julie’s, under MacBain’s careful stewardship, is once again a London institution, serving fantastic food at fair prices, and the human circus that you find there is an added bonus. I’ll raise a confident glass to its being around in another 55 years.
Julie’s, 135 Portland Rd, London W11 4LW. For more information, and for bookings, please visit www.juliesrestaurant.com.
