A glass wine wall two storeys high and a menu of Greek recipes cooked with Japanese technique give the Ibiza group’s first London restaurant its character in St James’s.
At the far end of the dining room at Jul’s London, a glass wine wall rises the full two storeys of the ground floor. The group that built it began in Ibiza in 2018, and it still grows fruit, vegetables and herbs for its kitchens on its own organic farm there. In St James’s, its executive chef Christos Fotos cooks Greek recipes with Japanese technique.
A former bank on Waterloo Place
Jul’s London opened at 11 Waterloo Place in March, in a building reported as a former bank. Fotos founded the group with Jem Akyuz and his son Ilhan, and it added Humain, in the Kallimarmaro district of Athens, before London.
The design is credited to ArcSet. Marble and mosaic floors sit beside scorched wood, clay plaster and solid stone, and the Byzantine and Roman references are carried by material and colour. The plates are Jul’s own too: artisan studios make its ceramics for its restaurants alone.
Greek recipes with Japanese technique
The small plates stay close to a Greek table. There is tarama with cod roe and dill oil, tirokafteri, a spanakopita flatbread, and slow-cooked lamb on flatbread with sumac yoghurt and mizithra cheese. Fotos has said he wants the cooking “centered around the ingredients and big generous plates.”
The appetisers move further east. Bluefin tuna tartare comes with orange ponzu and a raspberry and beetroot sorbet, and wagyu souvlaki with pita and tzatziki. The otoro tuna tataki, in fish broth with pickled peach and a cucumber and jalapeño granita, is the plate where the Japanese half of the menu shows most.
Among the signature mains are a lobster risotto with butternut squash, truffle and espresso butter, and a giouvetsi of red prawns and orzo with kumquat. A spicy king crab tagliolini is made for two. Wagyu is sold by weight, from British to A5 rib-eye, beside a list of three caviars.
A wine wall two storeys high
The wall was announced at 6.5 metres. The list it holds is mostly European fine wine, from well-known houses and small growers, and the restaurant also pours the wines of Rouvalis, from Aigialeia in the northern Peloponnese.
Above the ground floor is the mezzanine, with its own bar and a walk-in wine cellar. It looks down over the dining room and takes groups of twelve or more as a semi-private room.
Bar Eleven is below the restaurant. Its cocktails come from the group’s own laboratory, where the bar team works with ferments and distillates. Serendipity sets Axia mastiha against rhubarb, thyme and goat cheese, and Symposium mixes Glenfiddich 15 with koji mango, figs and Lustau amontillado.
The bar takes cocktail receptions and late parties of its own. The whole of Jul’s London, from the bar to the mezzanine, can also be booked for a private event.
Lunch Monday to Saturday from 12:00, last sitting 14:30; dinner from 17:30, last sitting 22:30. Closed on Sunday. Small plates £4 to £17; signature mains £28 to £56; king crab tagliolini for two £110. A discretionary 13.5 per cent service charge is added.
Jul’s London, 11 Waterloo Place, St James’s, London SW1Y 4AU.
Discover more at julslondon.com