Can Julie's find its groove again?

Mick Jagger was a regular and Tina Turner danced on the tables... Will the new owners get the magic back, asks Josh Barrie

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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?