Restaurant Entrepreneur

I wouldn't call Cynthia a kind of person to be in the kitchen, at least not as a little girl. I don't think Cynthia helped out her mother Lillian with the family meals. It wasn't until much later, while married to John Lennon, Cynthia realized her cooking skills were limited. Once she got married, reality set in. It was one thing as a single college woman living on fish and chips and boxed/packets of food to quickly cook. But once the ring was on her finger and a baby growing inside her that Cynthia would be in the kitchen more. Vesta Beef Curry, sausage and mash, and cheese on toast were what Cynthia could manage in 1962; she would try to twist the Vesta Beef Curry up with rice or bananas.

"I was happy enough battling with the washing and ironing and teaching myself to cook.  I'm afraid I wasn't much good in the kitchen but fortunately John was easy to please.  His favourite meal at the time was Vesta Beef Curry- a dehydrated powder to which you just added water - followed by a banana sandwich and even I could manage that."

Cynthia, 1994

While pregnant with Julian and living with Aunt Mimi, Cynthia mentioned on the good days with  Mimi, she was taught how to make apple pie, among other things.

"When John was there Mimi was fine but when he was away she could be moody and sharp-tongued and in my over-sensitive pregnant state I frequently retired hurt.  Admittedly on good days she helped me with my cooking and taught me to make apple pie but, on balance, it wasn't a happy arrangement."

Cynthia, 1994

Especially once the Lennon family moved to Weybridge and started to host parties with other celebrities and well-to-do visitors, Cynthia bought lots of cookbooks to expand her repertoire when entertaining at home. Because her kitchen was designed by an interior designer as very modern with gadgets that freaked out Cynthia- there would be someone that would have to go to the house to teach Cynthia how to use a mysterious kitchen gadget. If it was too complicated, then it would be on the shelf gathering dust. When they wanted to go out and not be mobbed, Brian Epstein provided a list of places to go... in one restaurant, John and Cynthia were introduced to garlic. John also loved a roast of lamb.

“His favorite must have been lamb. When he came home to Harrie's with Yoko in 1969 she cooked him a leg of lamb when he was all macrobiotic and he loved it. When Cynthia and he were entertaining at Kenwood he particularly wanted her to cook a leg of lamb.”

Julia Baird, 1986

"He loved corn flakes and banana for breakfast and roast lunches on Sundays."
Cynthia, 1994

There was a time, probably around 1967, when John went vegetarian but it didn't last very long. When The Beatles’ biographer Hunter Davies stayed with the family, he observed that Cynthia does all the cooking while John sometimes makes tea; on one particular occasion, Cynthia served a slice of melon as a starter/appetizer and then cold meat with mashed potatoes and cauliflower along with milk by 6:30 PM. John didn't eat the meat because of his newfound vegetarianism. I'm also sure that dinner wasn't served often at 6:30 if John was in a recording studio.

Cynthia and Roberto dining, probably taken at Da Bassano restaurant in 1969

Fast-forward to Cynthia's time with Roberto Bassanini, her second husband. Roberto’s family owned and ran hotels and restaurants in Italy- it's how Cynthia crossed paths with the Bassanini family while on vacation with Julian in 1966, staying and dining there. In 1968, Roberto moved to England to woo a newly-separated single mother Cynthia while becoming a restaurant manager for his father's Da Bassano at the time. Unfortunately, Roberto was an immature partygoer who wanted to be loved and very generous to his friends, letting them fill up the restaurant and eating for free, which was bad for business. It wasn't until after their divorce that Roberto grew up and became a successful businessman.

Julian outside of Oliver's Bistro in 1981

The restaurant business must have grew on Cynthia when after she married her third husband, John Twist, and trying to make ends meet, that they opened restaurant and inn Oliver's Bistro in Wales in 1980. It was also perhaps a way to try to survive a failing marriage that was doomed from the start (more on that later!). It was Cynthia and John, along with Angie McCartney (Mike McCartney's ex-wife; former sister-in-law of Paul's) and John’s parents helping out.

"We both do the cooking and I do everything from spud-bashing to waitressing. We work well together and we work hard. We're learning as we go along but I think we've achieved something.”
Cynthia, 1980

“I waited tables, cooked and worked from 7 each morning to 2 a.m. the next.”
Cynthia, 1981

“Eventually towards the end of 1979 we opened a restaurant in North Wales. We called it Oliver's, as in Oliver Twist, and Mike McCartney's ex-wife Angie, who was a great cook, came to work with us. It was bistro food and we took it in turns to make our specialties. Angie would do Navarin of Lamb, John did Chicken Paprika which he was very good at and I did Spaghetti Milanese - a legacy of the Italian cooking I'd learned from my Italian mother-in-law. The three of us did everything. We cooked, we waited on tables, we worked and worked. It nearly killed us. But the business grew. Sadly, as the business flourished, my third marriage began to disintegrate.”
Cynthia, 1994

But the inn and restaurant phase didn't last and neither did the Twist marriage by 1981.

Cynthia and her second restaurant, Bunter's, in 1988

In 1988 and now with longtime boyfriend Jim Christie, Cynthia found herself in her second attempt of running a restaurant business: Bunter's in Isle of Man.

"For the last six months we've had the restaurant. It was fate that we got it. When we first  came to the island we stayed at a bed-and-breakfast place with a lady called Mrs Jennings.  Within walking distance was this restaurant called Bunter's; we fell in love with the  atmosphere, but didn't have any ideas about running a restaurant, none whatsoever. We got very friendly with the owner, who was 60 at the time. He decided he had had enough of it and said we were the people he would love to buy it off him. So we started thinking about it. We'd only come here for a sabbatical, to take a year off and that's what we were doing before we got started to get bored stiff and this came along. Now we are there every evening. I tried running a bistro before in 1978, but it didn't really work, and my marriage to John Twist had broken up. Then it was time to change direction. It led to my first exhibition of cartoons and drawings in America and led me more into the artistic side of life. But as Jim's parents had run restaurants, we decided to give it a go and we're really doing okay with it."

Cynthia, 1988

Cynthia found herself doing exactly what she was doing a few years prior but didn't mind- she did enjoy the work. But the Bunter's experience didn't last long, only for a year. I guess Jim and Cynthia sold it before moving on to something else. They did continue to live on Isle of Man for a number of years until moving to France before eventually breaking up by 1999.

Lee Starkey, Cynthia, Julian, and Maureen Tigrett in Lennon's, 1989

In 1989, Cynthia gave the restaurant business a third and final try: Lennon's in London. The walls were decorated of articles on the Beatles, with memorabilia and dishes like Rubber Sole and Sgt. Pepper Steak. At first it seemed successful… Maureen was a frequent customer during its short life. But competition in the neighborhood was tough: it rivaled Bill Wyman's Sticky Fingers that is still in business to this very day. Cynthia left the business; Lennon's did try to continue on but not long until it finally folded. However, Cynthia carried on her love of food and cooking until her death.

“Noel and I love cooking. He does his cooking and I do mine. I’m the traditional English cook, with a twist now and then. Because I was married to an Italian, I’m also pretty good at Italian food. Noel, he can cook anything, so can Julian.”
Cynthia, 2005

“She was a real good cook. She was the one who got me to like roasted lamb with potatoes. In the early days at my house, she would say, 'Let's have a bacon butte.’ They were always so delicious and I'm surprised I wasn't 300 lbs by the time she went home! When I last saw her at her home in Spain, she had had a pot cooking on the stove for days, making her amazing gravy. Any food that wasn't used or leftover went into that pot. I got a little taste of it the day I was heading back to London. I had so wished that the gravy was ready before I left. The taste lingered on my palate for a while.”

May Pang, John's assistant and former girlfriend, 2015

Julian cooking at home in 2011

"The first thing Julian wanted to do in life, well, before he wanted to be an artist and then a musician, was to be a chef. He'd come home and say 'Why don't you bake cakes like my friends' mothers?' I'd say, 'Oh, Julian, go out and buy a Mary Baker cake mix and do it yourself!' That started him off! By the time he was 13, he'd disappear into the kitchen whenever we had visitors and emerge with beautiful canapes. Now he thinks nothing of cooking for ten or 15 people, and he does it so calmly."
Cynthia, 1999

"I probably have more of a passion for cooking than I do for music. I love traveling and finding great little hideout restaurants and little villages and going to the open markets. Eventually I must admit I want to do a cookbook, though people might think it a bit gimmicky - the musician turned cook. Cooking and music, they're very much the same sort of therapy. Both depend on adding the right ingredients to come up with a product that not only you, but everyone else, enjoys. A friend of mine in the South of France has a house with an enormous kitchen. When I'm staying there I tend to find myself less in the sun than cooking for about ten people every day. Music might give me a couple of hits a year, but in cooking, depending on how many meals I cook, I can get three hits a day!"
Julian

“If I hadn't gotten involved in musical photography, I would've been a chef. Food is one of my number one things in the world; I absolutely adore it and have been involved with several restaurants. I was living life a little bit, because when you're on the treadmill of the industry, you literally don't have much of an outside life.”

Julian, 2014

“Of course, my initial choice before music was to be a chef. I am a closet chef! There’s a great similarity between all of that. It’s mixing it up in the pots for the finished product. I like to do fusion and a little bit of everything.”

Julian, 2016

“Cooking. Well actually, I’m such a food lover I’m not sure I ever could. If I hadn’t gone into music, I would have been a chef.”

Julian, 2016

Julian did follow in his mother's footsteps but is more of an investor and part owner of several restaurants. Here's what I know of:

1995- The Revolution in San Francisco, California

2003- Red Bar & Grill in Mallorca, Spain

2004- Blowfish Sushi To Die For Restaurant in San Francisco, California

"This is something I've dreamt about for six years with my old songwriting partner Todd Meagher. He now lives in San Francisco and it seems as if he may have found some people to support our ideas. People will tie the name in with the Beatles but there is no connection. It's similar in concept to 'Planet Hollywood' or the 'Hard Rock Cafe,' but instead of displaying memorabilia from the film or music industries it will be tied in with men, women and companies who have made a change for the positive in this world. For instance some of the pieces may come from Martin Luther King or Mother Teresa. For the rest of the displays we hope to hang work from artists and photographers in San Francisco and part of the money raised from the sale of these works will go back into local charities. It will be a socially-conscious, awareness-raising venture. The idea is for people to come and enjoy themselves, and leave with more than just a full stomach."

Julian, 1995 about Revolution

“Had I not been involved in taking the direction of music or now with my interest in photography I certainly would have been a chef, no question about that. When I was living in Spain I opened what was probably the first of its kind lounge bar/club with fusion food. They’ve never seen anything like it. In the polls we ranked three years in a row, one, two and three. So we did pretty well with them and I oversaw the whole putting together of it. That was one of my desires. It was just a nice escape from the industry and everything I knew. So to be able to go and open that lounge bar/club on this beautiful Spanish island was wonderful.”

Julian, 2013 about Red Bar & Grill

As far as I know, Blowfish is still in business. I don't know about Red nor Revolution, it doesn't really show up when I Googled it to see if it was still open. So far, Julian doesn't want to do a cookbook as he wants to keep his secrets of cooking tight-lipped. He did reveal that there was an idea of musicians doing a cooking show but it was never materialized other than being an idea … who knows? Maybe one day Julian will share his cooking wisdom with us. Never say never!