Although public restrictions have eased early into the third year of the pandemic, I am still trying to sort through the carnage wreaked on the restaurant industry, figuring out who’s closed and who’s reopened.
For instance, I was excited to learn Café Julia had quietly reopened last year. It took a while because the restaurant is tucked away inside the YWCA Laniakea, so there was no outward indicator that life had returned to the space, and unless you live or work in the downtown area, you’re not likely to hear about it.
I wanted to revisit to see how the restaurant has fared since the downturn and found it’s returned to business as usual with a bustling lunchtime crowd Monday through Friday.
The funny thing is how the pandemic changed my perception of the cost of lunch here. Pre-pandemic, I thought it was very pricey (entrées were running about $17-$24 a decade ago), a place reserved for business lunches or a celebratory TGIF escape. Now that higher food costs have affected everyone, menu prices elsewhere have caught up, putting the café in line with a majority of restaurants, even casual takeout spots.
If the cost of a lobster roll is now running about $20-$30 at to-go counters, why not enjoy one in this relaxed, beautiful space for $25?
The older I become, the more I appreciate the en during beauty of the YWCA and café’s 1926 Beaux Arts architecture, the work of its namesake Julia Morgan. The San Francisco architect filled the restaurant’s Beaux Arts arches with decorative grille work to leave a semi-protected opening to the outdoors, allowing natural breezes to flow throughout the space.
I love looking up between bites at the grandeur of the vaulted ceiling and other period flourishes that make this space unique among restaurants here.
In addition to physical fitness, the YWCA was envisioned to be a venue where women could gather for lunch and language classes in our diverse community. This genteel environment would seem perfectly suited for high teas and the delicacy of finger sandwiches and petit fours. The reality is that the restaurant offers much more substantial fare in addressing business executives’ demand for the power lunch, complete with meat.
To start, there is garlic cheese bread ($10.50) and a daily soup offering running $9 per cup or $15 per bowl.
What follows are several entrée salads such as Julia’s chicken Caesar salad ($23) enhanced by the addition of tomatoes and Kalamata olives. There’s also a Greek salad ($21) and Chinese chicken salad ($23) sweetened with Mandarin oranges. And for those in pursuit of the health benefits of bitter greens, there’s a watercress salad ($22) with radicchio and endive, the bitterness kept in check by roasted pears, candied walnuts and honey-mustard dressing.
Protein add-ons for the salads include chicken ($9), shrimp ($11), ahi ($13) and salmon ($12).
Those who take a tactile approach to food might want to wrap their fingers around a range of sandwiches such as olive oil-, basiland garlic-marinated ahi ($24) on a sesame seed burger bun, to a vegetarian ($20) offering that stacks grilled eggplant, onion, portobello, zucchini and roasted peppers with pesto, Romesco sauce and Boursin cheese on baguette.
I enjoyed a Kobe wagyu beef burger ($22) cooked to a blush medium rare. The presentation was simple, but burgers often need little enhancement beyond onions, lettuce and tomatoes. The burger comes with salad or fries, and for $2 more, those fries can be upgrad ed to the house’s flavorful garlic-furikake fries.
Another favorite was the furikake-crusted salmon ($26) served with your choice of white or brown rice, or over a bed of crunchy steamed veggies, most recently zucchini, carrots, red bell peppers and tomatoes.
If your company is lax with lunch “hour” time-keeping, stay for desserts of bread pudding ($9.75) or an unbaked cheesecake ($9.75) of lilikoi-flavored cream cheese that arrives looking like soft-serve swirled in a martini glass, topped with whipped cream and dotted with chopped strawberries.
I’m glad we can count this lunch spot among the pandemic survivors. Like many restaurants, there are too few servers for the packed restaurant, but they do their best to respond as quickly as possible to guests’ needs.
Café Julia
YWCA Laniakea
1040 Richards St., Honolulu
Food: ***
Service: ***½
Ambiance: ****
Value: ***½
Call: 808-533-3334
Hours: 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Mondays-Fridays
Prices: About $60-$80 for two
Nadine Kam’s restaurant visits are unannounced and paid for by Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Follow Nadine on Instagram (@nadinekam) or on YouTube (youtube.com/nadinekam).
