After ten years of trudging past Julie's on my way to Holland Park station and the office, I finally went in this afternoon. Everything I imagined about it realised the instant I stepped in with a friend; unobtrusive, almost butler-like service in gorgeously furnished rooms.

We were on the first floor sat on reclaimed and beautifully restored church pews surrounded by taste with a capital T. Opposite us was a horse shoe shaped alcove where four young Irish mothers, each clearly fashionable in that effortless way that affluence brings, and all in some way, shape or form, involved in something creative, were holding a birthday party for one of their daughters, a shy, brunette, who beamed when a birthday cake appeared and the table serenaded her with happy birthday.

It was quite glorious in a way I can't exactly articulate.

The ambience of Julie's is intoxicating; relaxed, arty, comfortably déshabillé, and timeless. No difficulty in imagining Harold Pinter, or a Rolling Stone or two, maybe Hitchens and Amis junior, or Stella McCartney holed up somewhere in this honeycomb of amazingly dressed rooms. I could, I can, see it so easily

I know there's more than a hint of Hyacinth Bouquet, snobby aspiration in other words, streaming through what I've written. But I loved this place.