Yo-Chi just opened in Notting Hill, and London has no idea what it's in for

Move over, Vegemite. Australia's other great export just landed in London, and this one comes with a DJ booth and a disco ball shaped like a strawberry.

Yo-Chi, the frozen yoghurt brand that turned self-serve froyo into a genuine Friday night out back home, opened its first UK store on Thursday 20 August at 81 to 85 Notting Hill Gate. Two floors, more than 2,000 square feet, room for over 120 people. That is not a shopfront, that is a venue.

If you have never queued outside a Yo-Chi at 9pm behind a velvet rope, you might assume this is overkill for frozen yoghurt. It is not. Co-owner Oliver Allis told Time Out that in Australia, Yo-Chi has "become like the new club," bouncers and all. Broadsheet got more of the story: Allis says the London launch started with the fans, not head office, after Brits kept tagging their mates in Yo-Chi videos and begging the brand to cross the equator.

That is the real story here. This is not a company parachuting into London because a spreadsheet said Zone 1 had gaps. It is a brand that got dragged there by demand, which is a much better reason to expand and a much harder trick to fake.

The format stays true to the original: pick your bowl size, choose from nine froyo flavours including butterscotch and matcha, then loot a topping bar with more than 30 options, from fresh fruit to mochi to cookie dough. You pay by weight, so restraint is entirely optional. The base is still made with real cows' milk and live probiotics rather than a powdered mix, and Allis says the core product will not be watered down for a UK audience, though London-specific toppings may turn up once the team gets a read on the crowd.

Notting Hill was chosen deliberately over a generic high street, for the same reason Yo-Chi works in Australia: mixed ages, mixed crowds, somewhere people actually stay rather than grab and go.

Australian brands going global usually means a mining company or a skincare line. This time it is a froyo shop with a disco ball out-hyping half the openings on the London restaurant calendar. Get in early, because by summer next year everyone in Notting Hill will claim they went on opening week.