To get to The Oyster Club in Mystic Connecticut, you take Main Street into Historic Downtown Mystic and turn left on Water Street. If you reach "Mystic Pizza," made famous in the 1988 sleeper hit of the same name that first won Julia Roberts attention, you’ve gone too far. If you start thinking about Julia Roberts on your way to a totally unrelated assignment, your first-ever restaurant review, you’ve also gone too far...
In the classic romantic comedy My Best Friend’s Wedding, Julia Roberts plays a food critic of all things. In her very first scene we see her at a fine dining establishment. Before she leaves the restaurant she recites to her waiter what she’ll say in her review. This immediately marks the movie as a work of absurd fiction because a food critic would never! (The rest of the movie is pretty great, though)
The Oyster Club in Mystic, CT
When you arrive at The Oyster Club, the first sight is a shockingly orange door. It is not unlike those times when Julia Roberts wore atrocious ginger wigs over her glorious auburn in Steven Spielberg’s worst movie (Hook), Stephen Frears' worst movie (Mary Reilly), and Gary Marshall’s worst movie (Mother’s Day). Only not, because the orange door really grows on you… especially once you see the restaurant’s subtle and charming interior. It’s like that time in Notting Hill when you thought Julia Roberts’ character would be so annoying since she was basically a thinly veiled Julia Roberts but she totally won you over anyway!
The food at The Oyster Club is like that too, minus the “thought it would be annoying” part. In fact, the raw oysters were as perfectly chilled and sensual as Julia’s underrated star turn in 2004’s Closer. With one tiny slurp they veritably leap into your mouth, with all the eagerness to be consumed as Julia's star-making moves in Pretty Woman. The mussels in coconut broth prove as addictive, fun, rich, and satisfying as her Oscar win for Erin Brockovich. Not everything's a winner though -- the country fried fluke is served with creamy grits and celeriac slaw. Those companions totally steal its thunder, which makes Julia's "eat the fish, bitch!" rampage in August: Osage County slightly ironic.
Me and my restaurant date Julia, a brilliant dramaturg and writer, in CTThe Oyster Club opened in 2011 which is one year after Julia’s movie Eat Pray Love reminded us of how fun it is to eat at restaurants while travelling, especially when your date’s name is Julia.
The Oyster Club is a fine name for what turns out to be a really great restaurant that you’ll be so glad you went to instead of Mystic Pizza. But it should have been called The Pelican Brief or Oceans Eleven because they both conjure thoughts of seafood and then Mystic Connecticut could have had two Julia Roberts themed restaurants within one block of each other and this review would make a lot more sense.
Unlike Julia’s totally unprofessional food critic in My Best Friend’s Wedding, I did not tell my waitress that I was reviewing her restaurant. She was as pregnant as Julia was always hoping to be in Steel Magnolia. I hoped the critic’s badge I forgot to remove would not panic her as I madly scribbled notes while trying to concentrate on the food and forget all about Julia Roberts.