Beach Blanket Babylon | Extravagant Notting Hill Restaurant
We’ve put together a list of Notting Hill’s longest-standing quirky Georgian mansions – but only those with decadent French baroque interiors, which have been serving up an eclectic range of cocktails and seasonal fare for at least 20 years.
It’s a small list, which has Beach Blanket Babylon at the top.
And nothing underneath it.
The décor here looks not entirely dissimilar to the interiors of Liberace’s home in Beyond The Candelabra: you’ll find a lot of golden chairs; sofas covered in velvet; decorated fireplaces, vaulted ceilings, dim lighting and faux French windows.
Choose to dine either in the crypt, the gallery, the chapel, the scullery or – in the summer – on the terrace, and you’ll enjoy inventive cocktails alongside a regularly-changing, seasonal menu of starters like (for example) vodka cured salmon with a beetroot & fennel salad; mains like crispy duck with jasmine rice or braised lamb shank; and something like pecan pie or pear and apple tart with vanilla ice cream to finish. Yums.
As for the name “Beach Blanket Babylon”, some people remain confused as to what it actually means – so allow us to clear that up for them once and for all.
“Beach” means, well, just beach. “Beach Blanket” is the blanket you use on the beach. And “Babylon”, in the Hebrew Bible at least, is interpreted in the Book of Genesis (11:9) to mean “confusion”, from the verb bilbél, “to confuse”. So when you put all of that together, it means “A Confusing Blanket On The Beach”.
Don’t mention it.
NOTE: Beach Blanket Babylon is open daily, noon-midnight (11pm Sundays). You can book online right HERE.
Beach Blanket Babylon | 45 Ledbury Road, W11 2AA
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