Julie's, Notting Hill, Restaurant Review

By Pendle Harte on June 8th 2011

Sunday lunch with children. Mostly, they won’t share your liking for sitting nicely around a table, eating and drinking the afternoon away. Unless it’s a pub garden with space for them to run around, you’re most likely in for a less than relaxing time. Obstructing waiters, climbing furniture, spillages, shouting and complaints about the food are among the things that put people off children in restaurants – but clever Julie’s has a solution. Every Sunday, one of the 40 year old restaurant’s many rooms becomes a crèche, a room full of toys staffed by a qualified childminder and open to children aged from two to 12. And it really works. The children’s menu features all the usual favourites (sausages and chips, tomato pasta, chicken and potatoes) along with ice cream and fruit juice – and at £12.75 it includes use of the crèche.

We arrived with a two year old and a five year old, who made time for a swig of apple juice before rushing to the playroom to be welcomed by the lovely Anita, leaving us studying menus in peace over glasses of champagne upstairs in the ever-stylish gothic room that’s all carved woodwork, stained glass and heavy tapestry upholstery. The menu is extensive, spanning the full array of classic roasts as well as a small list of alternatives and lots of starters. Julie’s has always embraced eccentricity and that’s how I explained my feta, orange, watercress and almond salad being devoid of almonds but garnished with plenty of pistachios, a nice surprise. Another starter of buffalo mozzarella with sweet and sour aubergine timbale was unusually sweet, and elegantly arranged in a mound. Main courses were the pork roast, which was a hearty affair with generous sides of roast potatoes and carrot mash, and salmon fishcakes, which were tasty and fluffy. We even had time for a decadent chocolate mousse before our two year-old embarked on the fun game of climbing up and down the stairs, patient Anita in tow, marking our time up. For Sunday lunch with children, Julie’s is the place. (Pendle Harte)

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