By Greg
You’ll know Julia’s Local when you see it—a borscht-red restaurant tucked into the woods on Hearts Content Road in the hamlet of Round Top, New York. Doug and I go there regularly to impress, to celebrate, to decompress. We keep waiting for the day we can’t get a reservation—Julia’s feels a hair’s breadth from a James Beard award or a Michelin star.
Part of the magic of the place is Julia herself. Picture Patti Smith if she opened a restaurant—wry, animated, and incapable of phoning it in. She floats between tables like a punk-rock fairy godmother, pairing each course with local lore, art-world scraps, or a deadpan dissection of whatever costume she’s assembled that night. On one of our visits, she wore a tailored blazer over a Justin Bieber tee from H&M. “I thought this look would really unsettle my niece,” she said, picking a piece of lint from her lapel. Whether you like it or not, Julia comes with dinner.
The food is Henning’s domain—Julia’s partner and a true master of his craft. She commands the room; he seals the standing ovation with inspired dishes, many of them built from ingredients grown in their greenhouse down the road.
When Doug’s parents visited a few weekends ago, there was no question—we were taking them to Julia’s. I love his parents, and I wanted them to love this place as much as we do. His mom, Lea, is warm, sensible, and gracious. His dad, Charlie, is also kind and deeply knowledgeable—but not prone to superlatives. He likes what he likes, and that’s that. Together, they make people feel cared for—in a quiet duet.
During the height of the pandemic, Doug and I moved out of our tiny studio and stayed with his parents for half a year. Living that closely with anyone, you start to learn their contours.
Charlie was steady, even-keeled. He didn’t give himself away easily, but his passions lived in well-marked lanes. He came alive talking about pro cycling, relaying sprint finishes and elevation profiles with intensity. At breakfast, Charlie would announce his new Duolingo streak in German. In the afternoons, I’d hear him practicing trumpet from the other room—focused, persistent, never missing a day.
I tried to meet him in his world—Googled cycling terms. Read about atonal music. But no matter how many facts I armed myself with, they never got me closer to the version of him that didn’t speak in stats or scales. He was lovely but opaque. I couldn’t reach him in the ways I usually connect: through feelings, shared stories, physical warmth. Nothing quite fit the lock.
The night at Julia’s started tense. After a warm welcome, Julia leaned in for a hug—and Charlie declined. I stiffened. Oh Christ, I thought. Here we go. Was the fanfare already too much? I pictured the imaginary caution tape going up, the door closing for the night.
After we were seated, something shifted. Julia announced the evening’s special—chateaubriand, center-cut tenderloin—and Charlie leaned in, just a little: alert, curious. He had a soft spot for steak, and Julia made it sound like art. Charlie looked like someone had just whispered a secret to him.
“Yes, I’ll have that,” he said, locking in.
Then came a pile of warm bread and a Caesar salad that could’ve been the main. When the meat arrived—a thick filet on a bed of mushrooms, crowned with a delicate nest of fried potato threads—it looked like a steak wearing a fascinator.
I was about to dig into my chicken when I heard a strange sound from across the table.
Was Charlie… moaning?
I looked up. He stared at his plate, stunned, eyes wide, letting out a soft, involuntary groan.
“This is the best steak I’ve had in my life,” he said.
I was floored. Charlie doesn’t moan. He enunciates. He corrects my grammar. And now—was that a tear? It welled and slipped down his cheek. For this dish to pull something so unguarded from him felt almost indecent. It was the moment I’d been waiting for.
Every season on RuPaul’s Drag Race, there’s a queen Ru accuses of holding back. She’ll say, “We want to see your vulnerability—so we can fall in love with you.” That night at Julia’s, Charlie would have made Ru proud.
Julia swung by to check in. Charlie stood and gave her a Paul Hollywood handshake. (Yes, he watches Bake Off.) I was so mesmerized by his reaction that I barely noticed my exceptional dinner.
And it didn’t stop with the steak. The dessert, a salty pine nut tart, shocked him. How could pine nuts—something so unassuming—have such depth of flavor? His zeal was infectious. We floated out of Julia’s full and faintly glowing.
The following day at breakfast, instead of reporting the watts per kilogram of his favorite cyclist, Charlie gave us a full replay of the chateaubriand: its sensational seasoning, perfect temperature, and clarity of flavor.
Watching him fall in love with that meal was the best part of the weekend. We wanted to show his parents a place we loved—but instead, a perfect steak on Hearts Content Road gave us something rarer: Charlie’s heart, content.
Name drops: Julia’s Local
A special thank you to this week’s illustrator, Alberth Chacon1. See more of his work here.
Alberth Chacon Salas is a Peruvian illustrator and cartoonist based in Minneapolis. His work explores animals concepts through narrative illustration and comics, often blending it with elements of fantasy and sci-fi. His practice combines traditional media with digital techniques. Lover of all animals.
