Last Updated on January 27, 2026
Making a splash on Kensington High Street
Our March Restaurant of the Month is the newly opened Jacuzzi on Kensington High Street. This trattoria is the latest venture from Big Mamma, a restaurant group which started life in France in 2015 and has since brought its particular brand of colourful, dramatic, over-the-top dining, decor and hearty Italian food to London.
With the opening of Jacuzzi in January of this year there are now four Big Mamma restaurants in London and no two are the same. Gloria in Shoreditch was the first, followed by Circo Popolare in Fitzrovia and then Ave Mario in Covent Garden. And in May Carlotta will make it five, this time in Marylebone. In keeping with Big Mamma’s flair for gigantic puddings, the star of the show at Carlotta is likely to be the promised ten-tier chocolate fudge cake. It sounds like my sort of dessert but it will be interesting to see how this can compete with the absurdly tall lemon meringue pie that’s such a feature at Gloria and all over Instagram.
The Big Mamma website proudly announces Jacuzzi as “Our Villa of Worldly Pleasures” and “this crazy trattoria” – both are pretty good descriptions. Spread out over four floors, the 170-seater restaurant is jam-packed with Italian objets. Theatrical and eclectic, the different floors all have different feels. The ground floor, for example, looks like the Queen of Hearts’ lair.
The lunchtime crowd on the day of our visit was a good mix of families, babies, couples, groups of young things and, this being Kensington, “people who lunch”.
We dined on the middle floor, overlooked by a balcony straight out of Romeo and Juliet and under a greenhouse roof and lots of cascading plant life – lovely for sunny daytime dining. We sat on comfortable green velvet bench seating and whicker chairs, amid rounded archways – a nod perhaps to the 1970s London trattoria. There is background music – mainly Italian pop and easy listening – but it is not intrusive.
Pleasingly, there are proper white tablecloths and napkins. We were both very impressed that someone came and ironed the new tablecloths on the tables between guests.
So much of what is fun and interesting about the Jacuzzi experience is in the details and especially in the tableware. Even the water comes presented in a beautiful blue glass fish.
My companion decided to go for the full “White Lotus” experience (well not quite – this will make sense to anyone who has watched the TV series) and order the Coco Mario in a “Sicilian head vase” aka a Testa di Moro. The menu described this drink as “Your winter vacay” – presumably because it is essentially a Pina Colada with a bit of Christmassy cinnamon. Anyway, she loved her extraordinary cocktail and quizzed our waitress about buying her “head” – a no-go, I’m afraid.
My drink looked positively dull in comparison. I’d chosen the Aperol Spritz, which was pleasingly strong.
Many of the signature cocktails are available in virgin form with the option of adding a single or double shot of the spirit of your choice. My companion fortified her first Coco Mario but went for the mocktail version second time around. This time it came in a female head so we rechristened her Coco Maria.
For our starter, we picked the Burrata al Pistacchio. An enormous 250g of creamy oozing burrata was brought to the table slathered with creamy pistachio pesto and served with shards of crispy carasau, a traditional flatbread from Sardinia. Our waitress had encouraged us to order the focaccia too as she was worried that the carasau wouldn’t be enough. Bearing in mind the feast ahead of us and the fact that we already had half a pound of cheese on the table, this was probably not such a good idea. All I can say is thank goodness we decided to share a starter.
When it came to discussions about main courses we did briefly consider sharing the Spaghetti al Tartufo for two, tempted by the idea of home-made spaghetti alla chitarra with creamy truffle sauce, Parmigiano Reggiano foam and fresh black truffle all served in a Pecorino wheel. We decided that it would just be too much for our gallbladders not to mention cholesterol levels on top of the giant burrata. Next time!
My companion, who would eat truffle on almost anything given the chance, opted instead for the Truffle Makers pizza with provola affumicata, truffle cream, sautéed mushrooms, and chives finished with fresh black truffle. Satisfied sounds came from her side of the table but the truffles were declared not as truffly as she’d had in Italy. Again she was defeated by the sheer size of the pizza. We’ll know to share everything next time.
One thing which isn’t completely OTT about Jacuzzi is the prices. Pizza and Pasta dishes, for example, start at £15.50 though it is certainly possible to spend considerably more when ingredients like caviar and lobster are added into the mix.
For my own main I decided to pick something from the Secondi section of the menu and chose the Italian classic, Saltimbocca alla Romana. Again this was double the portion necessary for a medium-sized person. It was pleasingly meaty, with a delicious marsala sauce and crispy sage. The potato gratin with Parmigiano Reggiano was the perfect plate of comfort food – like dauphinoise but with cheese. I did feel slightly guilty about not ordering greens as my side dish but sometimes you just have to give in to greed. I’m glad I did.
Defeated by her pizza and two huge sweet coconutty cocktails, my companion forwent pudding. Resistance was not an option for me. I love a good chocolate mousse, especially when it is served from a gigantic bowl at the table by a waiter who keeps asking if you want more. I thought I was pretty restrained. Lovely.
Jacuzzi has very entertaining loos – head to the basement for the disco toilets and hall of mirrors or go upstairs for the homoerotic tiles.
Jacuzzi is good for food but great for spectacle and people-watching. It’s very Instagram and selfie-friendly if you are into that kind of thing. This is a restaurant where the menu changes every month so that should keep things interesting. I hope the mousse and the potato gratin are permanent fixtures though. If you like your restaurants theatrical, bustling and fun, this is the place for you. Doubly so, if you have a huge appetite.
All of Big Mamma’s restaurants are popular so it is a good idea to plan ahead. Bookings for Jacuzzi open at 9 am 20 days in advance for groups of two to seven.
Jacuzzi
94 Kensington High St,
London W8 4SJ
Other upcoming and new restaurants that have caught our eye this month include:
The Freak Scene
28 Parsons Green Lane,
Fulham
London SW6 4HS
We’ve been trying out Phil Howard’s NOTTO and can highly recommend it for what our reviewer described as the Michelin Star chef’s diffusion range. We’ve also been to Taro in Walthamstow, the latest in an authentic Japanese dining room restaurant group with five other outlets in London, this one stands out not just for excellent food, but for a quirky location – in a listed Pie and Mash shop!
Check out our earlier restaurant of the month reviews:
Humo for fine dining in Mayfair with a fiery twist – all the food is cooked on a wood-burning grill
Bouchon Racine – The stunning new opening from Henry Harris.
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