Rice Paper — Issue 01 / Spring 2015 by TheRicePaper

Pure Soho, Distilled & Digested

A new quarterly celebrating London’s original cool, creative heart. Distributed freely across Soho

Characters & Caricatures

The Swiss fondue king, the tranny snapper, the seething satirist and Soho’s newest biker gang

Eat, Drink, Shop, Love, Loaf

Cutting-edge cameras, classic coffee, cool kicks, kinky kits, sharp schmutter and glam jamon

I SSUE

№ 1 spring 2015

For the love of Soho

Soho Tales

Katie Glass • John Lanchester • Fay Maschler • Tom Parker Bowles • Will Self • Kate Spicer

Editor’s Letter

welc o me

Soul is hard to define but Soho has always had it. Sexy, exciting and colourful; full of noise, full of life, full of character and full of characters. It’s an uncontrived creative and cultural hub like nowhere else in London.

Rice Paper is here to celebrate Soho past, present and future – but when it comes to the latter there’s a threat on the horizon. Soho is currently a building site. It seems like every time you turn your back something else has been knocked down or gutted. Depending on whose story it is you’re buying, London’s once pleasingly sleazy heart is either being necessarily rejuvenated for the 21st century, or ravaged by rapacious property developers. The dissenting camp are crying cultural vandalism while to to the high profile closure of Madame Jo Jo’s and the plans to redevelop Walker’s Court, the ongoing threat to the Gay Hussar and the squeeze being put on community resources in favour of flash retail and luxury residential. Throw in the work on Crossrail and the spectre of the further damage that the proposed Crossrail 2 will do to the area, and it’s easy to see why there’s a siege mentality developing amongst those that love Soho for what it is, what it was and what, hopefully, it will continue to be. This isn’t about misplaced nostalgia; it’s about maintaining a modicum of the gritty glamour and the community spirit that makes Soho unique before it’s too late. We’d like to think Rice Paper, which will be distributed quarterly from here on in (next issue out in June), can play a part in trying to keep Soho special. Joe Warwick

Photography: Clive Mclean / REX

editor@ricepaper.london ⁄ @joewarwick

Editor: Joe Warwick editor@ricepaper.london Consultant Editor: Chris Maillard Art Direction & Design: Give Up Art Editorial Assistant: Richard Holmes Published by: Rice Paper Holdings PLC Ltd Website: RicePaper.london Twitter: @RicePaperLDN

Writers: Thomas Blythe ⁄ Katie Glass Tim Glynne-Jones ⁄ John Lanchester Fay Maschler ⁄ Tom Parker Bowles Will Self ⁄ Kate Spicer ⁄ Chris Sullivan Photography & Illustration: Laurie Fletcher ⁄ Dan Burn Forti James Bowden ⁄ Packshot Factory

This issue of Rice Paper would probably still have been possible without: Stolen bikes, crusty eyes, Tokyo trips, slow boats to Amsterdam, missing loafers, pork scratching tastings, Spanish hamster scenarios, aglets, and the joy of ‘21st century workflow’ 5th Floor, 85 Newman Street, London W1T 3EU

rice paper

THOMAS BLYTHE PHOTO: PA JORGENSEN

Contributors

Will Self

Fay Maschler

Laurie Fletcher

“The atmosphere... was compounded of two parts alcohol to one of camp savagery” —

“...owned by a chap who may or may not have continued farming snails in the basement” —

“I didn’t just go to Prague to drink the beer, but I must say it was very, very nice” —

Will Self, who contributed to Soho Tales, is the author of 16 works of fiction and seven of non-fiction. A prolific journalist and broadcaster, he is Professor of Contemporary Thought at Brunel University. His latest novel Shark was published last September and will appear in paperback in March. His youthful experiences in the Colony Club (see Soho Tales) were to influence his story ‘Foie Humain’, from the collection Liver (2008), in which he described the denizens of the thinly disguised Plantation Club in Soho verbally abusing each other as they steadily abused their bodies with drink, in “a perpetual motion of alcoholic fluid like a water feature with a concealed pump”. His dog is called Maglorian. @wself Soho Tales — Page 24

Fay Maschler, who wrote nostalgically about L’Escargot Bienvenu for Soho Tales, was born in India, where her love for food was imprinted, and educated in the USA where, lonely one summer, she discovered the rewards in cooking. Her first paid job was as a copywriter at advertising agency J. Walter Thompson; she later moved to the Radio Times. She has been restaurant critic at the London Evening Standard since 1972. She has won The Glenfiddich Award for Restaurant Writer of the Year six times, Critic of the Year at The British Press Awards (the only time it has been given to a restaurant critic) and in 1998 the prestigious Glenfiddich Trophy. @Fay_Maschler Soho Tales — Page 24

London-based Laurie Fletcher’s photography, showcased in our Pilsner Urquell collaboration, Czech This Out, says she is inspired by her city, enriched by her travels and energised by her subjects. Working across editorial, advertising and publishing, she shoots portraits, places and spaces in a unique, personality-rich style. Laurie’s images have appeared in print publications, art spaces and on billboards; she’s exhibited in some of the UK’s finest galleries and has had several portraits on display at the National Portrait Gallery. Laurie is currently working on a Soho-based portraiture project for an upcoming exhibition – which we will, of course, be covering in future issues. @lauriefphoto Czech This Out — Page 30

Thomas Blythe

Dan Burn-Forti

Tom Parker Bowles

“Like the best bits of London, there’s seemingly not a right angle in the place” —

“Sweety welcomed us with warmth and hospitality. Long may his fondue run” — Dan Burn-Forti, who shot ‘Sweety’ Loetscher for Soho Portrait, is a regular contributor to magazines including Esquire, The Sunday Telegraph, Wired and The Sunday Independent Review. In addition to this he works extensively in advertising. Dan has also won a number of awards in various photographic competitions such as the Association of Photographers Awards, the Creative Review Photography Annual, Communication Arts and the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize. He lives with his lovely wife and children in West London, along with their stupid dog Kitty. @burn4t Soho Portrait — Page 22

“The fruits – great spiky monsters, as menacing and monolithic as they were scarily stinky” —

Thomas Blythe, who profiled the splendidly ramshackle and utterly unique Algerian Coffee Stores for Soho Classic, is restaurant general manager for Tonkotsu in Soho and helped oversee the recent launches of their ramen bar in Selfridges and a new branch in Hackney’s Mare Street. Formerly General Manager at St. John, Merchants Tavern and Fino in London, and at Fitzbillies in Cambridge. In his spare time he likes to ponder important philosophical questions such as ‘if dog so smart, why he not drive car?’ He has a black belt in dim sum, loves a dumpling basket and is currently researching the drinking habits of Donald Pleasance. @thomasblythe Soho Classic — Page 14

Tom Parker Bowles, who has written about his schoolboy experience with Soho’s legendary Loon Fung supermarket and its lukewarm beer for Soho Tales, is restaurant critic for The Mail on Sunday and Food Editor of Esquire. He has appeared on television in ITV’s Food Glorious Food. He’s a partner in the the pork scratchings brand Mr Trotter’s Great British Pork Crackling with chestnut beer also produced under the Mr Trotter’s name. He is the author of five books including Full English: A Journey Through the British and Their Food. His most recent, Let’s Eat Meat - Recipes for Prime Cut, Cheap Bits and Glorious Scraps of Meat is out now (Pavilion). @tomparkerbowles Soho Tales — Page 24

Front

news

LIFE IS A CABARET ? NOT THESE DAYS, OLD CHUM Reports that redevelopment of the site of renowned club Madame Jo Jo’s was planned over a year ago have cast doubt over the recent enforced closure of the cabaret club and raised some interesting questions over the redevelopment of Soho. Madame Jo Jo’s was forced to close following an incident involving its security staff outside the club, which led to the club’s licence being revoked. Neighbouring club Escape was also closed after the event, which allegedly saw a drunken aggressor beaten with a baseball bat by a doorman. Despite the club taking council-approved action after the incident and replacing staff, its closure remained definite. The news was met with claims that the move was premeditated due to Westminster council aiming to gentrify the area and change the unique character of Soho. In doubtless unconnected news, the City of Westminster received a planning application from leaseholders Soho Estates in September 2013, which was accepted the following month. Supporters of the venue suspect the closure was a premeditated decision in an ongoing drive to replace Soho’s quirks with chain corporations. A Westminster council spokesperson told us: “These claims are absolutely not correct. Planning and licensing decisions are governed under two entirely separate pieces of legislation. The closure of Madame Jojo’s has nothing to do

with the planned demolition and is to do with the violent incident and confidence in management.” Fans of Soho’s alternative nightlife gathered online in an attempt to save the venue; a petition quickly gained over 7,000 supporters, and fans met in November to stage a vigil in which supporters laid wreaths at the door of Madame Jo Jo’s. Alexander Parsonage, the man behind the petition to keep Madame Jo Jo’s and Escape alive, said: “One incident in a 50-year history should not be enough to destroy an internationally famous UK brand and Soho institution, “This is part of a wider scourge of gentrification we are seeing in the capital. Creative business and individuals are being pushed out of the centre to make way for high end retail, chain restaurants and property investors. Soho is turning into a playground for wealthy shoppers and tourists.” However Tom Harvey, CEO of arts festival SohoCreate, claims that “rumours of Soho’s death have been exaggerated.” He added: “The old Soho days; sex with a condom was two quid more than without, vomit on every corner, vicious exploitation of women and you could buy a gun for 20 quid. Do we really want to return to that?” No-one does. But with so much redevelopment can Soho keep its character? The sanitisation of Walker’s Court, with Jo Jo’s seemingly destined to become yet more retail space, would suggest not.

Madame Jo Jo’s: High heels and history 1950s – There’s already a nightclub on the site,

performances featuring artistes such as Ruby Venzuela, Lily Savage, Adrella and Regina Fong. Alternative cabaret finds a home here too.

1960s – The club gains its current name. Paul

1990s – DJ culture takes off, and Madame Jojo’s becomes home to many legendary club nights such as Electrogogo, Deep Funk, Groove Sanctuary and White Heat.

though not under that name. Soho is at its dodgy height as red-light district and criminal hangout. Raymond, the legendary Soho property magnate and porn baron, buys the site.

1970s – Soho becomes increasingly seedy and down-at-heel, and audiences for the club’s traditional burlesque shows start to decline. 1980s – Along with the rise of Soho’s gay

scene, Madame Jojo’s bounces back with drag

2000s to present – Live music starts to make an appearance alongside the club nights, burlesque and cabaret shows; now-famous artists including The XX and Lorde play showcase gigs at the venue, early in their careers.

Madame Jo jo’s: Rex

A suspiciously convenient decision to close Madame Jo Jo’s burlesque and cabaret club has angered lovers of Soho

“ This is part of a wider scourge of gentrification... Soho is turning into a playground for wealthy shoppers and tourists”

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TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD REVAMP: LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL? After years of demolition and mess, the new underground station is actually open. Sort of. What’s next? Soho’s tube users, or some of them, will be breathing a sigh of relief as the grubby, tiny entrance of Tottenham Court Road has now been replaced by a shiny, airy new ticket hall. Central Line travellers may be slightly less impressed, however, as their trains won’t stop there until December. This is, of course, part of the gigantic Crossrail project that has seen buildings demolished on Dean Street (which is due to get a ticket hall of its own eventually), Diadem Court, Great Chapel Street and Oxford Street. The Tottenham Court Road station revamp alone is costing Transport for London £1bn. Underground, the Central Line platforms have been closed for a total renovation, which has seen art lovers

up in arms about the fate of the existing Eduardo Paolozzi murals; however, TfL have promised that most of the primarycoloured 1980s tiling will be kept. Above ground the redevelopment continues; Tottenham Court Road’s independent electrical shops have already gone, or are going, to be replaced by chains like Primark and Zara, while above the station itself the enormous and boxy 1 Oxford Street scheme of shops, offices and a brand new theatre is due to be finished by 2018. This redevelopment “provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity to revitalise the eastern end of Oxford Street,” according to Ian Lindsay, Crossrail Land and Property Director. We can hardly wait.

“The Tottenham Court Road station revamp alone is costing Transport for London £1bn”

In yet more Crossrail-related mayhem,

CROSSRAIL 2 TO CRUSH CURZON, SEAL OFF SOHO SQUARE Much-loved cinema to face final curtain, unique square to be used as builders’ depot for a decade

the much-loved and award-winning Curzon cinema on Shaftesbury Avenue is fated to face the wrecking ball if the current Crossrail 2 plans come to fruition – and Soho Square could be out of bounds for up to 10 years. The arthouse venue, once named the best cinema in London by Time Out readers, is earmarked for demolition in order to build the ticket hall and entrance for a new Crossrail 2 station. Michèle Dix, Transport for London’s managing director of planning, said: “The plans, that are subject to consultation, have identified that the Curzon Cinema, near Tottenham Court Road, may be required to enable the construction of a Crossrail 2 ticket hall. As the plans for Crossrail 2 become clearer, we will work with Westminster, local residents and business affected to ensure local impacts are kept to an absolute

minimum. Future plans for the above site redevelopment may include a replacement cinema.” There’s already a petition to save the cinema with over 21,000 signatures on it – and if you’d like to add your name, go here and do that: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/save-the-curzon-soho Meanwhile, the most recent maps of the project’s impact released by TfL reveal that the extremely well-used Soho Square, one of the few areas of open public space in Soho, would be cordoned off and is expected to be used as a ‘temporary’ builders’ depot during Crossrail 2 works – which are due to go on for 10 years. Currently the construction phase of Crossrail 2 is scheduled to last from 2020-2030. Still, at least when it’s finished you’ll be able to get from Cheshunt to Epsom a bit more quickly. Which is nice.

news

the goulash co-operative battles on. Hussar! People power hits the Gay Hussar as its customers collaborate to try and save the Hungarian classic A year ago it seemed that the moody, dark-panelled rooms of the Gay Hussar on

Greek Street were going to be closing for good, bringing to an end the reign of a classic Soho haunt of the politically wellconnected, and one that declares itself England’s only Hungarian restaurant. The venue was faced with becoming part of the history it helped create, thanks to a change of ownership and a plan to redevelop the site. But a group of stubborn customers continue to fight for its survival. A year ago, 160 loyal customers formed the Goulash Co-operative and offered to buy the business. The owner, Corus Hotels, initially accepted their bid, only to have its Malaysian board demand a higher price, which the co-operative refused to pay. Undaunted, the customer collective have raised more funds via new members and events including a recent ‘eat-in’ to mark the anniversary of the Goulash Co-operative

(rather cheekily, they sent an invitation to Pauline Chai, a former Miss Malaysia and estranged wife of Dr Khoo Kay Peng, the billionaire Corus director, whom she is suing for a £500m divorce). This has allowed them to mount a new and improved bid – though as we went to press there was no word on whether it has been successful. The Gay Hussar has been famous for many years as the place where left-wing politicians gathered and journalists came to eavesdrop. Infamous stories include Foreign Secretary George Brown being ejected for groping a female customer, Mick Jagger being invited to enter politics in an upstairs room by the notoriously promiscuous MP Tom Driberg, and Tony Blair first considering standing as an MP. For more on the Hussar see our chat with cartoonist Martin Rowson (p36), a leading member of the co-operative whose caricatures decorate the interior.

this ain’t rock’n’roll, this is property development Tin Pan Alley looks set for a high-tech revamp despite rockers drumming up support to stop it well-established neighbourhood, making Tin Pan Alley’ thanks to its star-studded it a vibrant community for people to work, pop music history and surviving guitar meet and live,” he claims. “The developand gear shops, looks like it’s about to be ment will invest in local shops and not the latest area to be steamrollered by the only safeguard, but reinvigorate the area’s Tottenham Court Road development. fantastic music and cultural scene.” It may not be, strictly speaking, in The rest of his plan, however, which Soho (technically it’s St Giles), but it’s all includes statues of locally-linked musipart of the massive Crossrail/TfL scheme cians and a hall of fame-type attraction which has already bulldozed major Soho is meeting with rather less enthusiasm music venue The Astoria and the smaller from music fans, who have described it as Metro club on Oxford Street. ‘tacky’, ‘cartoonish’ and ‘Disneyfication’. The last active resistance was halted Meanwhile the centrepiece of the not long ago when police development, futuristically evicted squatters occupying named OuterNet and includ“It’s a weird ing a couple of enormous the12-Bar Club. Despite a petition attracting around flat-screen multimedia dystopian 27,000 names, Camden displays which, we are told, vision... Blade will offer ‘branded real-time Council have approved the scheme and owners Conthat add value Runner without experiences solidated Developments are to people’s lives’, has already the flying cars” started to attract criticism, pressing ahead with their plan to redevelop the site. The Guardian’s Marc Marc Burrows with The plan consists of a Burrows indulging in an mixed-use development impressively grumpy rant on St Giles High Street to call it “a weird dystopian and Denmark Place. This vision, an emotionless touchmeans demolishing rehearsal screen void where engaging studios Enterprise – smelly with ‘brands’ is the most and grubby, but one of the important aspect of anyone’s few surviving central London day, and the gig-going expefacilities for semi-pro bands. rience is defined by the free It’s also wiping out ‘Little MP3 you can download in Seoul’, a small but distinctive the queue. It’s Blade Runner neighbourhood of Korean without the flying cars.” restaurants and shops. The existing businesses There are a few positive signs, howare bracing themselves for refurbishment ever; the owner of Consolidated Developof their admittedly tatty buildings over the ments, Lawrence Kirschel, does have munext year or so. Whether this will result sic industry experience, having played a in soaring rents and the smaller traders part in the attempted (if failed) rescue of being driven out is another yet-to-beSoho’s Marquee Club in Wardour Street determined question. – now huge Conran restaurant Floridita So if you want to experience one of – and having owned most of Denmark London’s few remaining specialist quarStreet for 20 years. He knows the area’s ters in all its grubby, noisy, out-of-tune history well, and talks a good game. “It will glory, you’d better get a move on. Pick up enrich and integrate with the surrounding a few plectrums to remember it by. Denmark Street, known as ‘London’s

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OPENINGS My Night with Reg

Now, until 18 April Celebrate the 20th anniversary of Kevin Elyot’s modern theatre classic as ‘My Night with Reg’ transfers from the Donmar Warehouse to the Apollo Theatre. Set in 1985, the multi-awardwinning comedy explores the tragedy behind homosexual relationships and has had a big influence on many gay men. £25 - £55 Apollo Theatre 31 Shaftesbury Avenue apollotheatrelondon.co.uk

Milked

3 - 8 March

BÓ Drake Eat

First staged in 2013 this show, by Channel 4 playwright Simon Longman, makes its London debut at the Soho Theatre. ‘Milked’ provides a tender portrayal of rural life, unemployment and friendship through the use of dark comedy and direction from Elizabeth Freestone. Soho Theatre 21 Dean Street sohotheatre.com

British produce given the East Asian BBQ-meets-Mexican treatment from Roka graduate Jan Lee. That means the likes of bo ssam with pulled pork, kimchi quesadilla and Korean lamb cutlets. 6 Greek Street bodrake.co.uk / @bodrakesoho

Stephen K Amos 10 - 2 1 March

Cheery Stephen, descibed as ‘the maestro of feelgood comedy’, is back with a new show. Arriving from sell-out tours of Australia and New Zealand, the comedian and regular radio and TV star will be presenting his new show ‘Welcome To My World’. Soho Theatre 21 Dean Street sohotheatre.com

Margaret Thatcher, Queen of Soho 17- 21 March

Wear

The French ready-to-wear fashion brand finally has a foothold in Soho, their second London branch after Shoreditch, to showcase the clean lines of their designs for men and women 48 Lexington Street apc.fr / @apc_london_UK

top dog Eat

Boujis founder Matt Hermer is opening this hot dog shop in parnership with his wife Marissa, fresh from her stint on reality TV show ‘Ladies of London’. Expect a choice of buns and organic dogs. 48 Frith Street top-dog.com / @TopDogSoho

Juice Well Drink

art fix View

Cold-pressed juice bar backed by restaurateur Will Ricker (La Bodega Negra) and fellow Australian entrepreneur Joe Cross, famed for the film ‘Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead’ which proselytizes the juice diet. 4 Peter Street thejuicewell.hk / @TheJuiceWellLDN

A gallery and space for the performing arts on the site that was previously the Harmony store (now selling sex toys on Oxford Street) with an eclectic programme of events and a coffee bar. 27 Peter Street artfixlondon.com / @artFixLondon

Mayor of soho: Jamie Abecasis/Rex; Tin Can: Dan Burn forti

A.P.C.

‘Queen of Soho’ is a camp odyssey in which Margaret T hatcher – played by Matt Tedford – gets lost in Soho on the eve of the vote for Section 28 and accidentally becomes an overnight cabaret sensation. Multi-award-winning writer Jon Brittain brings a camp odyssey about gay rights, the ’80s and disco back to its rightful place. Leicester Square Theatre 6 Leicester Place leicestersquaretheatre.com

Milroy’s Whisky Shop revamp From March 2015

Taken over by the people behind Coal Vaults, this revamped whisky shop now has a 55-seat basement cocktail bar serving up seasonal and traditional cocktails. They’re keeping it simple on the food front with cheese and charcuterie boards on hand to soak up the spirits. Milroy’s of Soho 3 Greek Street milroys.co.uk

upcoming

( NOt ) ThE MAYor OF SOHO Don’t go pulling his chain

YES WE CAN: TINCAN TO OPEN AGAIN IN SOHO Tinned seafood restaurant returns after critics flip their lids over first pop-up

Does Soho need ‘saving’? By my reckoning the streets of Soho have been damned since around about the mid-19th century, when all the respectable sorts moved out, the prostitutes moved in and the music halls opened up. That’s why we all love it so. The only way to truly ‘Save Soho’ would be to flatten it and start again, which, predictably enough, is the shortsighted approach being taken by the cabal of property developers that have been allowed to carve up the area between them while Westminster Council watch on. But then just because I’d like to expel my bowels from a great height on Soho Estates’ plans for Walker’s Court – which if the artists’ impressions drawn-up by Matt Architecture (Shoreditch’s Boxpark is their work) are anything to go by, seems to involve making it resemble the soulless, mixed-use retail space off Carnaby Street that is Kingly Court – or curse Crossrail for the trail of

devastation it’s left in its wake while opposing the further impact of Crossrail 2 – doesn’t mean I feel the solution is to record a fucking charity record. So please forgive me if I find it hard to take the well-intentioned efforts of ‘Save Soho’ seriously. Founded late last year in the wake of the Madame Jo Jo’s closure by musician Tim Arnold (lead singer of no-mark mid-’90s Britpoppers Jocasta), it’s now chaired by Stephen Fry and has the support of celebs including Benedict Cumberbatch and most of the cast of EastEnders (Arnold is the boyfriend of Jessie Wallace, aka Walford’s Kat Slater,while his mum Polly Perkins plays Dot Cotton’s sister). Arnold recently auditioned for BBC One’s The Voice. His showbiz connections and love of Soho are clear but his song ‘Don’t Go Changin’ Soho’ remains a long shot to trouble the charts. Its chances are unlikely to have been helped by the YouTube clip (mercifully short at only 27 seconds) that’s circulating of him ‘harmonising’ on its chorus with a bandwagon-jumping Boris Johnson...

In amongst vintage Soho street scenes, portraits of painters Lucian Freud and Frank Auerbach, and ‘Unknown Girl in Café’, the image used on the cover of Rice Paper, the book Under The Influence (see p35 for a chance to win a copy), which collects together the work of photographer John Deakin, has been revealed as featuring a famous transvestite. Thanks to CIA facial recognition software, a picture entitled ‘Unknown Woman’, far left, appears to be Deakin’s friend Francis Bacon in drag. Whether or not the mysterious moobs are Bacon’s own or the result of overpainting techniques has yet to be settled. Stay seedy, Soho. notmayor@ricepaper.london

Tincan, a pop-up restaurant which only served tinned fish, is to return to Soho this summer following the success of its initial four-month run. The design-led project, conceived and realised by architects AL_A, opened its last can at its Upper James Street location just before Christmas – but it’s now been announced that it will be re-opening in the summer at a yet-tobe-disclosed Soho address, ahead of a September 2015 residency in New York. AL_A’s founder Amanda Levete described the response to Tincan, including a four-star review from Sunday Times critic AA Gill, as ‘amazing’. “We have probably got more press coverage for this project than we have ever got for a building. People in the restaurant busi-

ness can’t believe this tiny little place has attracted so much attention.” Tincan was inspired by Sol e Pesca, a fishing tackle shop turned canned seafood restaurant in Lisbon where AL_A is currently building the city’s new EDP Foundation Cultural Centre. However, Tincan became known as much for its design as for its food. For this, their first restaurant project, Levete and her three fellow directors at AL_A (below right) designed everything themselves including the lights, furniture and, most importantly, the black Corian wall displays for the cans. “We wanted to really elevate their status – to make them an object of desire.” The initial Tincan menu listed some 26 different types of seafood includ-

ing its bestseller, Icelandic cod’s liver (“the foie gras of the sea,” according to Levete) and other specialities, mainly Portuguese and Spanish, such as squid served in its own ink, tuna belly and white anchovies. Prices ran from £7 up to £45 for Finnish caviar. Levete admits that there was initial scepticism to a kitchen-free restaurant serving tinned fish but, she says, ‘once people tasted the fish, they were sold’. Tincan is the first restaurant in the UK to sell only tinned seafood. In New York, however, it will face stiff competition from Maiden Lane, a year-old wine bar and restaurant in the East Village that shares a similar obsession with canned fish. May the best tin win. tincanlondon.com / @tincanlondon

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PEDAL PUSHERS

words chris maillard

photography dan burn-forti

startup

One of the newest arrivals on Berwick Street is Soho Bikes – a combination of bicycle shop, workshop and café. We went to talk commuting and coffee with the business’s big wheels

ou can find many things in Soho. Freshlybaked focaccia, crotchless knickers, an obscure Velvet Underground album? No problem. But despite streets full of two-wheeled commuters, it’s long been lacking a decent local bike shop (despite a brief cameo from short-lived hipster heaven Tokyo Fixed Gear). No more, though. Soho Bikes opened in Summer to offer new bikes and bits, a well-equipped workshop to keep the wheels turning, and a small but rather cool café. Rather oddly, considering Soho’s lack of Alpine peaks, among their stock is a fine range of mountain bikes. That’s due to the fact that coowner Nick Hawker is an ex-mountain bike journalist, and a long-time friend of mountain bike racing champion turned TV commentator Rob Warner, who’s now a partner in the shop. Nick explains: “People seem to do perfectly well selling yachts or skis in central London. It’s not so much being close to the activity as being close to the people who want to do it. In the greater

Expert Advice: Buying A Bike

London area there are eight million people, so you’re not short of customers. Plenty of mountain bikers live and work in London but ride their mountain bikes out of London.” But of course the everyday bike market is a vital one for Soho Bikes, though cycle sport has become popular among weekend Wigginses too. “Round here,” says Nick, “we cater more for the commuter market, the riding to work market. We also sell quite a few bikes that can take the knocks and bumps of London roads, but are sporty enough to ride at the weekend.” Selling and mending bikes makes perfect sense. But why a café? “If you go into one of the big bike shops, you walk in and you’re immediately greeted with a wall of products. Here, with our coffee shop and ground floor workshop you’ll see a couple of friendly faces as you walk in. Particularly if you’re new to cycling and less confident, that’s important.”

“The biggest mistake is not being honest about what you’re going to use it for. A carbon fibre road racer’s a great bike, but it might not be the best thing for your everyday commute. On the other hand, you can’t go too badly wrong. If it makes you happy, ride it. It’s an expression of yourself, after all. If you look in our workshop at the moment, there’s a complete mix of bikes, all of which people are happily using to ride to work on. There’s no right or wrong way to do it.”

Opposite: Nick Hawker (standing) and one of his Soho Bikes partners Matty Trinquart; above, the busy workshop, the welcoming window and the small but cosy café

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THE NEW BREED

words chris sullivan

fashion

Soho has been renowned for seriously stylish menswear ever since Carnaby Street clothed mods in sharp ’60s suits. Now there’s a brand new set of boutiques for the discerning male

“ F

or me Soho is one of the last bastions of real London that has its own unique character,” chirps Welshman Fraser Moss, who opened his no-nonsense gentleman’s outfitters YMC on Poland Street in 2009. “Opening here was the best thing we ever did – it’s seconds from the generic High Street bullshit of Oxford Street, but it’s like a little oasis of creativity full of proper characters. It’s perfect for us.” And it would seem that many other hep cat menswear brands agree. Of late we’ve seen Paul Smith open a store in Brewer Street and Swedish casual clothiers Our Legacy introduce a flagship store in Silver Place, while Gallic minimalists APC are opening in Lexington Street – long-time home to Maharishi. And if that’s not enough, there’s Folk on Great Windmill Street and Weekend Offender on D’Arblay Street, while Berwick Street houses Universal Works, Percival, Underground, Nudie Jeans and Oliver Spencer and on adjoining Peter Street is high-end New York skate wear store Supreme. If you stretch Soho’s boundaries a little there’s also Agent Provocateur founder Joe Corre, son of Vivienne Westwood, who has launched Jack

Sheppard 1724 on Charing Cross Road, It’s a formidable list of edgy independents by any measure. Of course Soho is no stranger to men’s tailoring. Since the1800s it housed Savile Row’s outworkers and after the Russian pogroms of 1881 became home to hundreds of Jewish tailors and fabric merchants, living amongst the prostitutes, bohemians, artists, writers, libertines, homosexuals, dandies and drunkards who had been there since the late 18th century and to a certain extent still populate the district today. “Soho still has a little bit of that reputation left so the people who come here are looking for something a bit more edgy,” explains tailor / designer Mark Powell, who first opened a readyto-wear store in Archer Street in 1985 and now occupies a similar establishment in Marshall Street. “The big leap in Soho menswear came in 1957 though, when John Stephens opened his shop on Carnaby Street, which was then a little backstreet. He set the tone for the flamboyant menswear that Soho, and specifically Carnaby Street, became known for all over the world.” During the sixties Soho stores such as Stephens’ Mod Male, Domino Male and Gear Street alongside Austin’s on Shaftesbury Avenue, Cecil Gee, John Michael Ingram’s Sportique, Tom Salt’s Gear and the Gold Brothers’ Lord John attracted a new breed of youngsters – mods – who loved sharp threads, speed and dancing to black music, so flocked to the area for both cutting-edge mufti and nefarious nights out.

And one might say that today’s new breed of Soho menswear merchants attracts a new breed of contemporary mods, whose persuasions are not so different from their ’60s counterparts, while the clothing on sale certainly employs a similar downto-earth yet pristine mod ethic. Thus Soho is now the natural habitat for both customer and vendor. “For me Soho is London,” says Weekend Offender proprietor Sam Jones. “ We thought the East End was too obviously trendy and pretentious whereas Soho just isn’t and has this great history of interesting people who are more real and more themselves. It’s a proper community of misfits so we fitted right in.”

Far left: YMC’s minimal display. Above (from left): APC’s classic cool; Folk’s interior; Paul Smith’s Soho shop; industrial chic from YMC. Right: Folk’s distinctive look

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Cathedral of Coffee The Algerian Coffee Stores is a legendary, long-lived Soho institution â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a fabulously ramshackle one thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s survived two world wars and umpteen other upheavals to serve coffee fanatics all over the globe, and at home, with their favourite brew

words THOMAS BLYTHE

photogr aphy James Bowden

classic

It's all about the beans. And all the other elements that go into creating the perfect coffee combination of taste, strength and bitterness. 127 years of experience helps, of course

lgerian Coffee Stores opened in 1887; named by the founder, a Mr. Hassan, after the country of his birth. And the shop as it stood then stands today largely unchanged. Hassan originally opened it as more of a delicatessen, selling a range of tea and coffee but also wines and a large selection of ports, whereas today it focuses solely on beans and leaves – over 80 blends of coffee and 120 varieties of tea. Marissa James, the current owner and manager of the shop, shifts over a ton of roasted beans a week both to her Soho regulars and customers around the world. On what can be a hectic stretch of Soho there’s something pleasing and soothing about watching the staff studiously parcelling up kilos of beans to be shipped to java addicts globally. Entering the shop, which remains structurally unchanged despite the air raids of the Second World War or more recently the horrific bombing of the neighbouring Admiral Duncan pub in 1988, really is like stepping back into Dickensian times. Like the best bits of London, there’s seemingly not a right angle in the place. Richard Beatty – Soho resident and co-owner of Polpo – is a regular. “It’s more like an oldfashioned apothecary’s than a coffee shop, with its old oak cabinets, wonky shelves and endless jars of beans and leaves being decanted into bags.”

Marissa, whose grandfather bought the shop in 1948, loves it for its time-locked character. “Nothing’s really been modernised since then, there’s no heating and we’ve still got an outdoor toilet out the back,” she giggles, while mentioning that they do actually have running water. “But that’s why people love it,” she says, “you can’t change it. It’s old, somewhat falling apart, but if we changed everything – shiny new floors, replaced the battered old counter, shelves that things didn’t fall off... people would complain. You walk in and 1887 is in the fabric of the shop.” I could choose any number of more modern coffee shops for my morning fix on the way to work in Dean Street, but that involves your name being scrawled on a cup, thumping beats and inspirational messages on blackboards. I’d much sooner time travel in the caffeinated Tardis at No. 52 Old Compton Street, where grinders hum, brown paper parcels pile up and latte art, almond milk and AeroPresses are entirely unheard of. And a good cup of jump-starting coffee can be yours for just a quid.

In-house highlights House Blends: Bespoke coffee blends, some of which were created over 50 years ago. Mixed to their own specifications and very popular. The Fiat Cremino: Majani, one of the oldest Italian chocolatiers, created the Fiat Cremino, cubes of layered chocolate blended with almonds and hazelnuts, in 1911 to celebrate the launch of the then-new Fiat Tipo 4 Automobile.

Algerian Coffee Stores, 52 Old Compton St Telephone: 020 7437 2480 www.algcoffee.co.uk

Havannets: From Havanna, an Argentinian confectioner, these pyramids of white or milk chocolate are filled with dulce de leche on a sweet crumbly base.

The bright red shopfront is a Soho fixture, with its window display always dangling right on the edge of cluttered chaos

Alfajores: A sort of cake sandwich, again from Argentina and made to a classic recipe and coated in sugar crumb meringue. Ibricks: Stovetop pots for Turkish or Greek Coffee (see picture above), intricately designed and made in Russia.

“If we changed everything – shiny new floors, replaced the battered old counter, shelves that things didn’t fall off... people would complain”

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soho exclusives

We’ve pounded the pavements, window shopped until we dropped and saw double and this is what we found

raw recruits

JaMoN JaMoN

Curious about being tied up and tickled? Ever wondered if a little sting might be your thing? Sex & Mischief’s beginners’ S&M set comes with a silky blindfold, comfy fur-lined cuffs and a vinyl whip. Scantily-clad woman not included.

This acorn-fed little piggy is cured for 45 months in Pedroches in Andalucia. You’ll find it hanging in Enrique Thomas, who have recently opened their first jamoneria outside of Spain on Wardour Street, where more modest whole jamon start at £90. However, with only 30 produced each year, the Glamuros is one of the world’s rarest jamons and priced accordingly.

Intro to S&M Kit: £15 Soho Original Bookshop 12 Brewer Street sohobooks.co.uk

takiNG the pisco

Glamuros Ham: £850 Enrique Thomas 132 Wardour Street enriquethomas.com

This premium Peruvian pisco, the ultimate in South American brandy, is exclusive to Gerry’s (who carry two other Peruvian piscos and a pair from Chile). It comes in a splendid limited edition ceramic bottle which smiles on one side and sneers on the other – the latter most likely the morning after a pisco sour too many. Pisco Sol Deica Limited: £34.50 Gerry’s, 69 Old Compton Street gerrys.co.uk

treNdy air soles YMC have again collaborated with Northamptonshire’s Solovair (the original patent holder for DM’s famed air-cushioned sole) for their SS15 footwear collection. Alongside some handsome tassel loafers and zip chukka boots, these silver ladies’ Mary Janes caught our eye. YMC Solovair Mary Janes: £225 YMC, 11 Poland Street youmustcreate.com

NippoN GriNd We went to cool startup cycle boutique and coffee shop Soho Bikes (see pp10 -11) in search of state-of-the-art cycling kit but instead fell in love with this small but perfectly formed Japanese coffee grinder. Beloved by baristas for packing ceramic burrs, which deliver a more

consistent grind than metal blades, into its highly compact form (it will fit inside an AeroPress) it’s fully serviceable and should last a lifetime. Porlex Mini: £41.99 Soho Bikes, 26 Berwick Street sohobikes.co.uk

Shopping

CreD SNapper

the art of DiSCo

Fresh from Lomography comes the Kickstarter-funded model they’re claiming is the best instant camera yet. Currently only available in their Soho store, this smart and smart-looking little number has retro styling, a built-in flash and produces sharp credit card-sized (3”x 2”) snaps. Films cost £16.90 for 20 shots.

This volume from Soul Jazz Records on the history of disco cover art (below) is a fantastically exhaustive study of disco-era cover designs from the ’70s to the mid’80s, with over 2,000 records making it into the 3.6kg volume. Early birds will also receive the gift of an exclusive 12” disco single featuring Superfunk and Sexy Lady.

Disco: An Encylopaedic Guide to the Cover Art of Disco: £30 Sounds of the Universe, 7 Broadwick Street soundsoftheuniverse.com

Lomo’instant Sanremo Edition: £109 Lomography 3 Newburgh Street lomography.com

olD Skool Cartoonist and hip-hop fanatic Ed piskor gets straight-up biblical in his bio of harlem’s hall of fame, penning the lineage of the B-boy in this ‘who-shot-who’ from 1975-1982. Soho’s number one for anything comic, oh gosh!, exclusively stock this timeline of cool which is sure to add life to the wackest of walls. Hip Hop Family Tree: £20 Oh Gosh!, 1 Berwick Street goshlondon.com

PhotograPhy: the Packshot factory

Soho SuperStar A decade on from working together on their iconic military shell-toe Superstar, Adidas Consortium and Soho’s Footpatrol have gone tonal again with a collaboration on these terracotta croc embossed leather and suedestriped take on a classic. We love the cream midsoles, the plated

aglets (lace ends to you) and the ‘2005’ and ‘2015’ embroidered on the heel tabs of each foot. Adidas Consortium x Footpatrol Superstar 80s ‘10th Anniversary’: £120 Footpatrol, 80 Berwick Street footpatrol.co.uk

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Soho Tales

Many people love Soho, for many reasons. So we asked a set of writers for theirs. Faye Maschler enjoyed life-changing lunches; John Lanchester drank with the literary lions. Will Self found himself at the death of bohemia, while Kate Spicer sat at the court of the cocktail king. A young Tom Parker Bowles bought lukewarm Chinese beer. And Katie Glass found a perfectly imperfect bar

s o h o ta l e s

Soho’s Colony Room regulars, including founder Muriel Belcher, fashion designer Thea Porter, barman (later proprietor) Ian Board, artist Francis Bacon, chef-restaurateur Robert Carrier, society florist Lady Rose McLaren, ex-journalist Tom Driberg MP, designer and ex-spy Isabel Lambert, jazz singer Annie Ross and sculptor Hubert Dalwood. Photograph reprinted from the excellent book ‘The Colony Room Club 1948 – 2008: A History of Bohemian Soho’ by Sophie Parkin / thecolonyroom.com

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1 960s

1 970s

L’Escargot Bienvenu

The Pillars of Hercules

My first properly paid job was as a copywriter at the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson in Berkeley Square. If you know ‘Mad Men’ it was that era, but I didn’t rise from the secretarial ranks like Peggy. Instead I took a copy test, which involved tasks like ‘write a birthday card from one egg to another’. Even then - in the late 1960s I suspected that sallies like “the yolk’s on me” wouldn’t score highly. I was offered a job and ended up sharing an office with three chaps, one of whom was Dylan Thomas’s son Llewellyn. Interesting people worked in advertising then and an encouraging atmosphere prevailed of honour among thieves. In our large room, every morning was devoted to discussing which client might be inveigled into paying for lunch and where would be a good place to go. How do I put this modestly? At the age of about 22 I was remarkably pretty. Offers of lunch also came from people inside the agency, so Robert, an account director, and I would from time to time go to L’Escargot Bienvenu (as it was then called) in Soho. Originally established in 1927 at 48 Greek Street by M. Georges Gaudin, when Robert and I went there it was owned by a chap called Phillip Monnickendam, who may or may not have continued farming snails in the basement as Gaudin had done. I am not sure I ate snails, or the other speciality, frogs’ legs, but I remember the scorched cream silk hankies weighted down in the corners by snail shells which hung over light bulbs above the tables, eau-de-nil paintwork, darned tablecloths and carpets that had seen better days – as had the crotchety French waiters. I think ‘faded gentility’ was the phrase that The Good Food Guide used approvingly at the time. I am sure we ate dishes like oeuf mayonnaise, filets d’hareng pommes a l’huile, pate maison, tete de veau vinaigrette, truite meuniere, entrecote sauce Béarnaise, escalope de veau Viennoise, marrons glace and coupe Nesselrode – mostly also available at other local French stalwarts like Chez Victor, Chez Solange and Mon Plaisir - but what really enticed was the Alsace wines from Roesle in Colmar and Dopff and Hugel in Riquewihr. A wine neophyte then, it didn’t take me long to be seduced by the well-defined grape varieties, their flowers and spice. Those were lovely lunches – doubtless contributing to the enthusiasm for restaurants I still maintain over 45 years later – lessons in the civility of sharing food, drink and conversation that had nothing to do with work. Monnickendam’s reign came to an end when L’Escargot was condemned by the health inspector of Westminster City Council on 44 counts. But I am still alive, as is my ex-colleague Robert Fearnley-Whittingstall, who happily went on to produce Hugh.

In the 1970s the London literary world had an HQ, and it had a capo. The HQ was in Soho. More specifically, it was in Greek Street; more specifically still, it was in a Greek Street pub, The Pillars of Hercules. The name is a kind of joke; in classical mythology, the pillars of Hercules represented the limits of the known world. Here, the pillars represent the edge of Soho. The pub’s ground floor features an archway through which you can walk to Charing Cross Road, down Manette Street, named after a character in ‘A Tale of Two Cities’. (It’s one of the only roads in London named after a fictional character, an honour awarded because Dickens refers to the pub and its archway.) In 1979 Clive James published a collection called ‘At The Pillars of Hercules’, riffing on that classical allusion and also on the fact that the Pillars was the de facto office of the dominant literary magazine of the day, The New Review. The magazine’s nominal office was in fact next door, but most of the real business seemed to be done in the pub, because that’s where the editor, Ian Hamilton, preferred to be. Ian was the boss of literary-journalistic London, not because he was the editor of the best magazine (though he was) and not because he was the sharpest literary critic of a very sharp crowd (though he was) or because he was one of the best poets alive (though he was that too) or because of his air of toughness and purpose (though he had those things as well) but because of his unusual moral authority. He was unmistakeably someone who lived his values, and whose values were all about writing. He was cool and cynical and realistic and worldly – which meant his commitment to art was all the more impressive. I’ve never had such a strong feeling of being at the centre of anywhere as I did having a drink in the Pillars with Ian in 1987, not too long after arriving in London. The pub wasn’t exactly rough, but it wasn’t smooth either. Ian was, then and on every other occasion I saw him there, standing at the bar drinking either a pint or shorts (wine only in restaurants). He was a well-known face by then, thanks to his work presenting TV book programmes, but he saw that as secondary to his real work as a writer and poet. In Ian McEwan’s novel Sweet Tooth a main character has a drink with Ian Hamilton in the Pillars. “When I said I’d have a glass of lemonade he appeared to wince.” The scene was so true to life that reading it was like meeting a ghost. Closing time was earlier in those days. On nights out in Soho I’d leave the pub at 11 and walk back to my flat in King’s Cross, and be more or less sober by the time I got home. If I had to sum up my feelings they would have been something like this: London! Poetry! Small magazines! Coolness! Writing! Soho!

— Fay Maschler

— John Lanchester

Below left: Ms Maschler, who was indeed remarkably pretty at 22, and her lunch rendezvous. Below right: Louche literary HQ The Pillars of Hercules

“Those were lovely lunches – lessons in the civility of sharing food, drink and conversation”

soho ta l e s

1 980s The Colony Room — Will Self

L'escargot: Getty; Pillars of hercules: Alex segre/Rex; Colony Room Interior: Rex; All other colony room images courtesy of Sophie Parkin

Soho, 1980: A cold winter, condensation smeared thick – Christmas cake icing – on the hummock forms of Hillman Hunters and VW Beetles. My new friend Ben had a job as a barman at a private drinking club above an Italian restaurant on Dean Street. I knew nothing about private drinking clubs and not much about Soho either, apart from a couple of trips to Lisle Street to eat at Poon’s Wind-Dried Duck restaurant. Up the creaking switchback stairs, over an awkward half-landing, in through a swing door inadequately covered with green baize, and then the oxymoronic welcome: “Look what the c-nt’s dragged in.” I make no apology for this: the c-word was used in the C-club as every conceivable part of speech: nounally, verbally, adjectivally, as prefix and suffix – on frequent occasions I heard Ian Board, the club’s famously abrasive proprietor, employ it as a pronoun. The atmosphere in the long dusty room was compounded of two parts alcohol to one of camp savagery; the carpet was soaked with beer and wine, and crunchy with the shards of broken dreams. The Colony Room and several similar establishments in the immediate area had been opened to cater for a very particular niche market: Boulevardiers and roués who couldn’t last out the three hours between when the pubs shut after lunch, and when they reopened at 5.30. This was a drinking club for serious drinkers – and there they all still were, the sacred monsters of Soho who had made the quarter swing in the 1960s: The writer Dan Farson, the photo-

Below: T he Colony Room’s lurid green interior décor Bottom: Artist Francis Bacon with founder Muriel Belcher

grapher John Deakin, the actor Tom Baker, and the club’s most celebrated member, standing at the corner of the bar looking furtive in a tightly belted black plastic raincoat: the painter Francis Bacon. Up until that afternoon I didn’t think I’d had a sheltered upbringing, but the sheer louche wickedness of the atmosphere in the Colony Room caught me off guard; these were people who made no pretence of being sweet, but were tart, acerbic and bitter – indeed, while plenty of the members were straight, the prevailing personal style was so floridly camp that as a 17-year-old I thought I’d tumbled down a bunny hole into Sodom. Ian Board’s nose was by 1980 already networked by ruptured veins and steadily acquiring a ruddy hue. He stood by the ornate tinplate cash register, cigarette clamped between meanly pursed lips, eyes hidden between round-framed dark glasses, and casting his c-nts on the choppy waters of sociability. “Come on you c-nts,” he spat, “Barry’s opening a new sex shop round the corner, let’s go and celebrate. Francis, you’ll pay for the ’poo.” Shampoo was champagne in Colony Room slang, and Bacon was – I learned soon enough – often called upon to administer it. We formed up into a rag-tag crocodile and limped the hundred-and-fifty yards down Dean Street and up Old Compton Street. In the sex shop we propped ourselves against shelves stacked with VHS and Betamax videotapes of fat German men doing unspeakable things to plump Polish girls. The ’poo frothed in our plastic tumblers – the bubbles popped, each one a world coming to an end. Francis Bacon’s weirdly tinted hair (it was rumoured he did it himself with shoe polish) shone in the stark light. 34 years later Ian Board is dead, my friend Ben is dead, Francis Bacon is dead, and the Colony Room is gone. Only I and the sex shop remain, and sooner or later one of us will have to go.

“The atmosphere in the long dusty room was compounded of two parts alcohol to one of camp savagery”

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1 990s Nick Strangeway reminded me that there was also a first floor with a horseshoe-shaped bar and something called food. Strangeway was a student at the Courtauld Institute, which incidentally, was next to my equally barely-attended institution, King’s College. He worked at Fred’s under Dick Bradsell, the man some people credit with single-handedly reviving cocktail culture not just in London, but all over the world. Regardless of his fame, Dick’s still in Soho, behind the Pink Chihuahua bar at El Camion now. Over the last 30 years he has worked in many Soho drinking institutions, some of them now passed into myth: The Colony Rooms, The Atlantic, Soho Brasserie and Zanzibar in Covent Garden. The drinks that he invented at Fred’s – including the vodka espresso and the Bramble – are actual, no journalistic hyperbole here, modern classics. One afternoon I met the impresario at an empty Fred’s. We had some drinks and he said, “Follow me”. First we went to his flat where he stripped me down to my underwear and dressed me in a pinstripe suit. Then he took me to a shop and told the assistant to give me a pair of Adidas shell-toe trainers, before taking me back to Freds to carry on drinking – satisfied, I guess, that I looked less like a student and more like the female company that a Soho legend in his own nocturnal imagination should keep. Later, we climbed out of a skylight and strolled and clambered across the roofs of Soho, stopping to smoke the odd Marlboro Light and peer down at the activities in the seedy streets below. The stools at Fred’s were not the only things that were high, and that street-level education that rather dominated my first two years at University, in combination with the more age-appropriate, but equally free of sensible bedtimes activity found on the more ostensibly madder but far more wholesome rave scene, was to see my academic career suffer pretty badly. Fred’s closed in the mid-’90s, by which time all the sweet stuffing had been knocked out of me. My London apprenticeship was done.

Fred’s

— Kate Spicer Soho exists on two levels for me. There’s the empirical actual place of now, and there’s the metaphysical and remembered Soho of the late ’80s. As I do a purposeful stride down Dean Street to a meeting or push the heavy door of Quo Vadis for a wholesome oneglass lunch I am trailed by the ghosts of 1989, when I was little more than a child at 19. Places like the The Groucho, The French House and Kettner’s Champagne Bar were the scenes of my wide-eyed and willing corruption by a rotating cast of unsavoury thirty-something males. There was a comedian, a nightclub impresario, a cartoonist, a record producer, and a supporting cast of younger dilettante students and trust fund loafers, as smart as they were indolent and lazy. And then there was an actual crook – our last, er, date ended with his court appearance at Marylebone Magistrates, around nine am, after a strong tea and a bacon sandwich. He went in and never came out again. Soho people were not especially welcoming. The level of conversation was sharp enough to mute me into awed silence. Every now and again a female reared her spiteful head and spat something barbed in my direction. In the Groucho Club I’d gaze from afar at journalists that I worshipped getting shit-faced – Julie Burchill, Suzanne Moore, Jeffrey Bernard, Molly Parkin… Instead of reading Kant and Heidegger and going to jolly beery student parties, my late teens turned into my twenties in a haze of high barstools and Stolichnaya which, before the Berlin Wall came down, was exceptionally exotic. At Fred’s, next to Private Eye on Carlisle Street, I remember drinking grapefruit juice and some white spirit cocktail called a Greyhound or a Salty Dog... but this could have been later, in the ’90s. My memories are more visceral than accurate. Fred’s was a long room mostly taken up with a wooden bar and, of course, high stools. No-one can remember if the walls were dark blue or green, but it had a faintly industrial vibe. The stairs were metal and some of the structural engineering was exposed. There was a basement too, where a heavily refreshed DJ, Fat Tony (always thin, but now clean), sweated nightly over records made of vinyl. Fred’s junior bartender, now an international drinks impresario,

Below: Fred’s – a modestlooking bar from which many great cocktails came. The woodcut flyer is rather sweet too

“Instead of reading Kant and Heidegger and going to jolly beery student parties, my late teens turned into my twenties in a haze of high barstools and Stolichnaya”

soho tales

2000s

2010s

Loon Fung

The Crobar

As supermarkets go, it definitely veered towards the exotic. Sure, there were token tomatoes and cucumbers. But one glance, one quick whiff, proved that this was a long way from Sainsbury’s. The fruits for a start – great spiky monsters, as menacing and monolithic as they were scarily stinky; beauties with Barbie pink skins, hewn open to reveal dalmatian-toned pulp; small, rough-skinned orbs with the most heavenly of scents. The vegetables were equally otherworldly. Long gourds, bright green and gnarled, bags of alabaster water chestnuts, greenery in every guise, plus vast bushels of exotic herbs, handfuls of chillies and ginger by the ton. I had never seen anything like this in deepest Wiltshire. I was transfixed yet, as an errant 15-year-old playing truant from a school trip, I had more pressing matters on my mind. The produce of Loon Fung was one thing. But we were after something far more illicit. Having escaped from our school ‘Expedition Day’ on the South Bank and scuttled over the river, we had made it to Soho. After the inevitable fracas in a dingy clip joint, where we had been relived of our prized fivers by some simian thug and been forced to cough up an astronomical fee for flat, sickly ‘Champagne’, we emerged, blinking and petrified. We were gagging for a snifter but may as well have had ‘underage’ tattooed across our foreheads. Until one London-raised sophisticate by the name of Henry Mainwaring (he’s still a mate to this day), came up with a cunning plan. “Chinatown,” he crowed. “They have different laws to the rest of London. And in China, EVERYONE’S allowed to booze.” So armed with this entirely errant information, we followed him to Gerrard Street and rushed into Loon Fung, the first place we saw, passing all that fruit and veg, and bottles of soy, and cheap, lightweight woks, and bamboo steamers, and sacks of rice, until we found what we were after. Beer. Chinese, and cheap. We selected our oldest-looking friend, and watched from behind rows of black bean sauce. The cashier looked up for a split second, narrowed her eyes and paused. “You 18?” He went as red as the bottles of nearby chilli oil. “Ummm, yar,” he squeaked and spluttered. She shrugged and took his cash. We almost fainted with delight. Warm beer never tasted so good. And so, in this most immature and incongruous of circumstances, started a relationship with Loon Fung that has lasted to this day. The contents of my basket may now be rather more culinary. But from rather suspect beginnings, this is one love that will never die.

I love Soho for its bars. Grimy, seedy, sticky, overcrowded, always weird, always wrong. There’s not one amongst them I’ve not been sick in, been snogged in or offered a job in that never materialised in the morning. And not one I’d soberly elect to drink at. They’re perfectly awful, but that’s why I love them. Where to start? Maybe The Groucho, which projects an aura of cool but between the carpet and the Twiglets is more like your gran’s house, if she suddenly sat Noel Gallagher in the front room but told you under no circumstances to approach him. Or Gerry’s, where old luvvies tell the same hammy stories thrice weekly. Or The French House, where pseudointellectuals compare notes on the book they’re not writing this week. Or venture onto the Old Compton Street strip into G-A-Y late, where the music’s been pilfered from a Butlin’s disco, and the crowd’s the same; underage teenage boys and dads who’ve snuck out. Or The Village Underground, because who doesn’t like a ceiling of suicidal Barbies? Or The Spanish Bar, that no one knows the real name of. (Are we still even in Soho? Who cares by this time of night). Don’t misunderstand though, it’s their wrongness that makes me love all these places. They reflect whatever mistakes I’m making that night. And the worse the bars get, the more I am enamoured of them. There is a freedom in crapness; unpretentious is cool. Hence my favourite Soho bar, by far, is The Crobar. Even the name is wrong-right. I hate everything about it. I loved it on sight. I love the music, which I can’t stand: a mash-up of mental playing tinnily from a jukebox always so over-stacked you’ve no chance of getting close to a song you actually want to hear played. I love the layout; a non-negotiable bottleneck, which sucks you in from the pavement jostling you past the bar hitting everyone queueing in the face, before spewing you out into the inadequate dance floor where antisocial tat-covered metal heads who hate dancing stand watching one girl dressed like a cheerleader in a Nirvana video, going mental to Pantera. The Crobar is just a place stripped of the pretensions that make bars dull. It’s not somewhere with celebrity founders, bohemian history, niche clientele or a stylised image. It’s not somewhere that at 6pm on a Saturday night I’d ever say “You know where I fancy going…”, but by 1am on a Sunday morning you realise for all those reasons it’s the best bar in Soho, and falling into it feels like falling home.

Fred's: Courtesy Fred Taylor; Loon Fung: Rex; Cro Bar: courtesy cro bar

— Tom Parker Bowles

— Katie Glass

Loon Fung supermarket (below left) is an institution. Some in The Crobar (below right) may well belong in one...

“I love Soho for its bars... there’s not one amongst them I’ve not been sick in, been snogged in or offered a job in that never materialised in the morning”

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St r e et Life:

Berwick Street

All eyes are on Berwick Street, Sohoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s grubby but great marketplace, as property developers and Westminster council try to modernise it. But can they smarten it up without losing its soul? We stroll down there to find out

Words: Tim Glynne-Jones

Contemporary Photography: James Bowden

August 1970, and Berwick Street Market is bustling. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mostly fruit and veg at this end, with several stalls selling then-exotic Mediterranean produce like garlic and peppers

street life

PHOTOGRAPH: Epics/Getty

rice paper

f one road alone encapsulates the character and tradition of Soho past and present, it has to be Berwick Street. Running from the top of Walker’s Court and its neon-lit attractions up to the tourist traps of Oxford Street, this 300-year-old thoroughfare is renowned for its market, its rag trade, its record shops and its restaurants. The lifeblood of Soho courses along Berwick Street, a cosmopolitan, creative, characterful and cutting-edge conduit that keeps Soho’s heart beating night and day. From its earliest days the street attracted a multi-cultural mix, notably French Huguenots, Greeks and Italians, who all brought their own culinary traditions to the area. In 1880 the first tomatoes in London were sold from a stall in Berwick Street, with the first grapefruit following 10 years later. In the early 20th century, Jewish immigrants brought the rag trade to Berwick Street, servicing both fashion seekers and the costumiers of the West End theatres. And in the latter part of the century it became the Mecca for record collectors, known as ‘The Golden Mile of Vinyl’ for its multitude of independent record shops, the largest concentration in London. But for the last 10 years, Berwick Street has been the subject of fierce debate about its renovation. Ed Jones, CEO of development company PMB Holdings, points out that some of the buildings are “tired” and that Hopkins Street, which services the shops at the lower end of the street, has become “a magnet for drug use and prostitution”. While there is no doubt that parts of Berwick Street would benefit from a shot in the arm – an unfortunate choice

Berwick Street from Woolf to Wonderwall Virginia Woolf called it “the Street of Silk Stockings” and wrote that “the stir and colour and cheapness pleased me to the depths of my soul”.

Perhaps it was a similar

sentiment that prompted Oasis to shoot the cover of their 1995 album ‘(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?’ in Berwick Street, and for fellow Mancunian Ian Brown to spend the last two minutes of the video for his 2001 single ‘F.E.A.R’ cycling backwards through the market.

of phrase perhaps – there is one question that inspires fear amongst the locals: Will new development result in homogenous commercialism and throw all the eclectic bits that Soho regulars love about Berwick Street into the skip? Not so, according to Jones, whose company is responsible for the redevelopment of 90-104 Berwick Street, the 1960s building at the southern end, which also includes the retro-brutalist residential tower block of Kemp House. “There will be no high street names,” he insists, “no Costa Coffees. It’s not going to lose its character.” PMB will strip the building back to its frame and rebuild it as a thoroughly modern piece of architecture accommodating retail and residential units, including affordable housing, two large roof gardens, and a hotel. They claim that it will bring “light and life” to Hopkins Street and also provide new popup electricity outlets and fresh water for Berwick Street’s stalls. Jones does recognise the need to retain the street’s air of independence. “It might make it more valuable if it had lots of high street names in it, but there’s a bigger picture. My gut instinct is that however hi-tech we become, a lot of people still like to go to a shop or a market stall and buy from small or specialist retailers.” In response to concerns that Berwick Street Market might go the way of other traditional markets that have been ‘cleaned up’ to appeal to a more affluent but less authentic clientele, Jones points out that similar local experiments have been tried and failed, and concludes, rather encouragingly, “I don’t think that is Soho and I hope it never is.”

Below: A 1968 view of the fruit and veg stalls plus one of the ubiquitous Wimpy bars – the Starbucks of its era? Far left: Another ’60s shot showing the Blue Posts; the classic traders’ pub remains much the same today

PHOTOGRAPHS: Mary Evans Picture Library; Popperfoto/Getty. FACING page: Heritage Images/Getty; REX/Phillip Jackson/Associated Newspapers

s t r e e t l if e

Dancers, Drummers, Zombies Given its proximity to Theatreland and the hub of what used to be known as ‘the record industry’, coupled with its easy access to fashion, food and sex, it’s no surprise that Berwick Street has long been a popular haunt for stars of the entertainment world.

The street’s most famous child was the

actress, singer and dancer Jessie Matthews, a major star of stage and screen in the interwar years. Matthews, the daughter of a fruit and veg seller, was born in a flat behind a butcher’s shop at 94 Berwick Street and learnt to dance in a room above The Blue Posts pub.

As Matthews was rising to fame, writer

Virginia Woolf was taking regular strolls down from Bloomsbury to buy stockings from the market. In 1932, as Woolf was turning 50, two infamous Berwick Street residents were born: columnist Jeffrey Bernard and drummer Raye du Val, who in 1959 set an ear-splitting world record for non-stop drumming of 100 hours, 1 minute and 15 seconds. Meanwhile, Bernard was befriending the likes of Dylan Thomas and

Peter O’Toole, another Berwick Street resident,

1687 – W ork begins on the creation

who would later play him in Keith Waterhouse’s

of Berwick Street, which is completed by 1703.

play ‘Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell’.

Market Milestones

More recently, movie-makers Simon Pegg

and Edgar Wright took up residence above the

1738 – A tavern is established at the

Maharani Soho Indian restaurant to write their

northern end of the street, on the site that is now The Green Man pub.

comedy-horror zombie film ‘Shaun of the Dead’.

1778 – Street vendors begin trading

on the site of what will become Berwick Street Market.

1892 – Berwick Street Market receives official recognition.

1918 – Following World War I, Berwick Street becomes an established centre of the rag trade.

1903 – W. Sitch & Co, established in 1770 and the oldest retailer in Soho, moves to its current location at 48 Berwick Street.

“ Will new development throw all the eclectic bits that Soho regulars love about Berwick Street into the skip?”

1932 – Solomon Borovick establishes Borovick Fabrics, the second oldest retailer in Soho, at 16 Berwick Street.

1960 – Construction begins on Kemp

House, home to Jeffrey Bernard among others.

1980s – Berwick Street becomes a

Mecca for record collectors.

2012 – Westminster Council awards Above left: Awnings were all the rage on the market in the ’50s. Left: Fratelli Camisa’s Berwick Street shop in 1977 – they’re still going strong at their Old Compton Street deli

planning permission for the redevelopment of 90 - 104 Berwick Street to PMB Holdings.

2015 – Scheduled completion of Berwick Street Market renovation.

ric e pap e r

A r m i n ‘Sw e e t y’ Loetscher Owner, St. Moritz, Wardour Street Words: Joe Warwick Photography: Dan Burn-Forti

I’m about to turn 77. I first came to Soho in 1959, when I was

21, to work for Madame Marie Floris. She had a very famous bakery just off Wardour Street, which is now flats. Where the vintage poster shop now is on Brewer Street, her husband had a chocolate shop called Mr Floris.

The ’70s and ’80s were the best time at the club.

We had the Bay City Rollers, AC⁄ DC, Deep Purple, Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran – all of them. Lemmy from Motörhead was always here. The American rockers and groupies went to the Rainbow when they were in LA and the St Moritz when they were in London.

I came to London from Switzerland to learn English.

I’m still learning.

Joe Strummer of The Clash was in The 101ers when I first met him. He used to play in the club. He wrote a song

In 1960 we opened as a Swiss club. To begin with the crowd

about me called “Sweety of the St. Moritz”.

was a lot of language students and Swiss, French, German and Swedish au pair girls. The girls were popular and the crowd gradually became a lot more mixed.

All these big companies have come into Soho now.

They called me ‘Sweety’ because I gave the girls cakes.

I used to play the accordion. I still get it out on special

Not many people know my real name’s Armin. I opened the restaurant in 1974. We did some food in the

occasions like Swiss National Day. I recently had to turn down a gig to play it at a travel show in Las Vegas because we were short-staffed.

club – cervelat, bratwurst, fondue – and it seemed like a good idea to expand. I wanted to keep the food Swiss but it wasn’t easy. There were times when the club kept the restaurant going.

Soho used to have a waiters race, which came back last July. The guy that won cheated, though. He didn’t have

We were saved by several TV food programmes on fondue and then everyone started getting a fondue set

Before it was all small family restaurants.

everything on his tray at the end. I wasn’t happy.

and started coming.

The other day I had some Americans in and they said: “We came here 30 years ago and the food is still the same.”

When the Marquee club opened on Wardour Street all the rockers started coming. They closed at 11pm and we were licensed until 3am. You had to be a member to get in, which meant filling in a form on the door.

St. Moritz restaurant and club, 159 - 161 Wardour Street 0207 734 3324; www.stmoritz-restaurant.co.uk , www.stmoritzclub.co.uk

The menu hasn’t changed that much since we opened 40 years ago.

“Joe Strummer of The Clash was in The 101ers when I first met him. He used to play in the club. He wrote a song about me called “Sweety of the St. Moritz”

PORTRAIT

PILSNER URQUELL

RICE PAPER

CZECH THIS OUT The world’s most popular style of beer is pilsner. It’s best served brewery-fresh - but what if you’re miles from a brewery? In the home of pilsner they’ve found a way to always pull the freshest pint words : joe warwick photography : laurie fletcher

“The DNA of Pilsner Urquell ( Urquell translates as ‘the original source’), is today found in nine out of ten beers”

The distinctive skyline of Prague (below left); and, opposite top, the equally distinctive ceiling of the rather grand restaurant of the Pilsner Urquell brewery in Plzen (also spelt as Pilsen – see top). The brewery, unusually, has its own cooperage. That’s a barrel-making workshop to you, staffed by some gents with very fine facial hair indeed

he average Czech consumes a world-beating 143 litres of beer every year. To put that figure into context, the next largest consumers of beer per capita, the Germans, only manage to guzzle 110 litres. The UK meanwhile, according to the same recent Euromonitor figures, puts away a comparatively sober 67 litres per person. Tradition (Czechs have been brewing, selling and drinking beer for over 1,000 years), price (beer costs less than bottled water), and availability (it’s absolutely everywhere) all play a part in that impressive statistic. But as anyone who’s ever had the pleasure of sampling beer in the Czech Republic will tell you, the quantity of Czech beer consumption is undoubtedly driven by the quality of Czech beer production and the care that is taken in serving it. The

incredibly high standard of Czech beer, or ‘tekutý chléb’ (liquid bread) as it’s nicknamed by the locals, is an understandable source of national pride. Although the Czech Republic does produce other styles of beer, it’s rightly famed as the birthplace of pilsner, the world’s first golden lager, and today the most widely-produced and most-consumed style of beer on the planet. The DNA of that original Czech pilsner, Pilsner Urquell (Urquell translates as ‘the original source’), is today found in nine out of ten beers in existence. Modern lager as you know it was born in the Czech Republic, or to be more precise, Bohemia. Pilsner takes its name from Plzen, the city in western Bohemia, 90km west of Prague, where it was first produced. Plzen began brewing beer in 1295 but until modern pilsner came along the

traditional Bohemian style of beer was top-fermented, so called because of the foam formed at the top of the wort – the liquid extracted from the mashing process. The resulting old-style Plzen brew was dark, heavy and inconsistent. So inconsistent that in 1838, so the legend of the Plzen beer revolt goes, the locals are said to have shown their displeasure by gathering in the town square and pouring 36 barrels of a particularly unpleasant batch of their local drop down the drain. Part of the problem was that there were too many different brewers, so there was no consistency in the beer’s production or pricing, and to add insult to injury beer was often stored for too long by greedy innkeepers and turned sour. In response to the local drinkers’ anger a plan

PILSNER URQUELL

RICE PAPER

THE TANK TECHNIQUE

Cool urban bar Lokál in Prague (top left) makes a feature of its beer, resting its bar top on the shiny stainless steel tanks. Copper tanks (top right) are more traditional-looking, though the beer is equally good, and goes perfectly with the ubiquitous circular pretzels (above left)

Great beer is about freshness. That’s why the beer you taste on a brewery tour will always be the best you’ve ever tasted. A trip to Plzen to visit the home of Pilsner Urquell comes with a chance to sample the wonderfully fresh and clean-tasting unpasteurised beer fermenting in the nine km of tunnels beneath where it’s brewed. But how can you capture that brewery-fresh taste beyond the brewery? The answer is the tankovna (tank pub), an innovation that was until recently only found in the Czech Republic Most beer is pasteurised before export in order to kill any bacteria, but this dulls its natural flavour. Without pasteurisation, though, beer quickly goes stale – so the solution, which first appeared in pubs across Prague, was to serve unpasteurised beer straight from lined tanks, with many pubs and bars making a design feature of the stylish copper or stainless steel vessels. Holding ten hectolitres (that’s 1,000 litres or just under 1,800 pints) and chilled to between 8 and 10ºC, the beer is squirted from its tank via a high-pressure air compressor to make sure that it gets to your glass as fresh-tasting as the moment it was brewed. Beyond Prague’s tankovna, tanks of unpasteurised Pilnser Urquell, fresh from the brewery, can now be found in a few selected establishments in other major European cities – including London. Try it here: The Duck + Rice 90 Berwick Street, W1F 0QB, theduckandrice.com The White Horse 1- 3 Parsons Green, SW6 4UL, whitehorsesw6.com Strongroom Bar & Kitchen 120 -124 Curtain Road, EC2A 3SQ, strongroombar.com The Draft House 14 - 15 Seething Lane, EC3N 4AX, drafthouse.co.uk

This is where the magic happens. Beer made in the Plzen brewery’s copper vats (top) is stored in a huge network of underground tunnels (left)

“Unpasteurised beer... is wonderfully fresh and clean-tasting, but how could you capture the taste of brewery-fresh beer without having to venture underground?” was put forward in 1839 to build a new state-of-the-art brewery, run by the city, which would set new standards in quality and consistency. Designed by a young architect by the name of Martin Stelzer, the Bürgerbrauerei (citizen’s brewery) produced its first beer in 1842. It more than lived up to the beer-loving citizens’ hopes, and is now considered by many to be the birthplace of modern brewing. The city employed a Bavarian brewer by the name of Josep Groll, who had been experimenting with recipes for a new style of bottom-fermented beer at his father’s brewery in Vilshofen in Lower

Bavaria. A Bavarian invention, bottom-fermented beer could be stored for longer by making use of cold-fermented yeasts. These yeasts required the fermentation tanks to be kept at a very low temperature; between four and nine degrees Celsius. This happened naturally in winter but in order to keep the beer fresh all year round it had to be stored (lagered) in caves and cellars, chilled in summer by huge blocks of ice cut from frozen lakes. Bohemia, luckily, had a similar climate to Bavaria and to make the cooling process simpler the new brewery was built with its cellar formed from a network of well-insulated, easy-to-cool tunnels.

PILSNER URQUELL

RICE PAPER

This rather jolly gentleman with the jug is decanting some freshly brewed, unpasteurised beer for the delight of brewery visitors. And there it is, below right – lovely. Meanwhile, that thing that looks like a city map turns out to be a plan of the network of tunnels under the brewery. Handy should you get lost while hunting for another pilsner or two

“Pilsner beer, first served on 11 November 1842, was golden and clear in colour, crisp and clean in flavour – and an immediate hit”

Groll combined these cold-fermented yeasts with the remarkably soft Bohemian water, very pale malts (which, first used in pale ales, came from England and were made possible by the coke-fired kilns of the Industrial Revolution) and Saaz hops, a noble variety from the Žatec region of Bohemia. A hugely popular crop today, it now accounts for more than two-thirds of the Czech Republic’s total hop production. The resulting pilsner beer, the very first draughts of which were served in Plzen at the Zum Goldenen Anker, Zur Weißen Rose and Hanes public houses on 11 November 1842, was golden and clear in colour, crisp and clean in flavour – and an immediate hit. By 1853 it was available in 35 pubs across Prague. By 1856 it had arrived in Vienna, and by 1862 they were supping it in Paris. With improved transport it quickly spread throughout Europe, and the pilsner style was soon widely imitated. The Pilsner Urquell trademark was registered in 1898, the brewery that still produces it today taking its name in 1994. And as the hip bars of Prague are proving, the popularity of the Pilsner style is as strong as ever. While the Czech city’s more traditional establishments are still full of mature beer connoisseurs approvingly smacking their lips over the local brew’s consistency, younger drinkers are flocking to sample the fresh taste of tank beer. As for the pioneering Josep Groll, although he was to go down in history as one of the most influential brewers of all time, his three-year contract with the Plzen brewery expired in 1845 and he returned to Bavaria to inherit his father’s brewery. He died in 1887, aged 74; appropriately enough passing away at his local pub in Vilshofen, with a beer in his hand. A rather tasty pilsner, we hope.

CoM PeTITIon

Soho’s John Deakin was difficult, drunken, desperate – and a genius photographer. There’s now a superb book of his life and work, and you could win a copy

The Lure of Soho This issue’s cover image was taken by John Deakin, a Soho legend who during the 1950s and ’60s was an integral part of the scene that centred around the Colony Room on Dean Street. His images formed the basis of several important paintings by Francis Bacon, famously a member of the same harddrinking club, who, named as his next of kin, had to identify his body when he died in a Brighton hotel in 1972. “It was the last dirty trick he played on me,” said Bacon. Born in Bootle, of Irish descent, Deakin was a notoriously difficult character and despite his obvious talents, chronic alcoholism meant his career suffered. By 1954 he’d been sacked by Vogue. Twice. That he was given a second chance despite his highly erratic behaviour that may have included pawning his camera equipment for drink is a good indication of his brilliance. Although not recognised until after his death, Deakin is today considered one of Britain’s greatest post-war British photographers. His Soho images from the 1950s and 60s, accompanied by an informative text by Robin Muir that throws light on his life and work, have been published in hardback by Art/Books as ‘Under the Influence: John Deakin and the Lure of Soho’ (£29, artbookspublishing.co.uk). It includes Rice Paper’s cover image – ‘Unknown Girl in Café’ – vintage Soho street scenes and portraits of the painters Lucian Freud and Frank Auerbach. We have a copy to give away to the first Rice Paper reader to send us the correct response to the following question: Amongst many other Soho pubs, Deakin used to frequent The York Minster. What’s it called today? Please email answers to: editor@ricepaper.london

“Despite his obvious talents, chronic alcoholism meant his career suffered. By 1954 he’d been sacked by Vogue. Twice.”

Right: That’s the only Vogue cover Deakin shot, though he did other work for them before getting himself serially sacked

Left: One of Deakin’s frequent subjects and drinking partners, painter Francis Bacon. Below: more Bacon, with less meat

r i c e pa p e r

A pint with

Ma rti n r ow s o n

The vitriolic cartoonist, saviour of the Gay Hussar and Soho enthusiast joins us for beer, crisps and an entertaining rant Words: Joe Warwick

Photography: James Bowden

T H E L O CA L

artin Rowson would like to make a few changes. “I want the world to stop being run by avaricious psychopaths – or at least I want my kind of avaricious psychopath to be running it. I want Paul Raymond or David Sullivan or someone like them to be the main man in Soho,” he says, pausing to take a gulp from his Cornish Coaster – having passed on the strangely stale house bitter – at Greek Street’s Pillars of Hercules (see p26). Best known as an editorial cartoonist, whose brand of political satire currently graces the pages of The Daily Mirror, The Morning Star, The Independent and The Guardian, Rowson’s pub of choice is the Pillars of Hercules; mostly because it’s within staggering distance of his true Soho love, the classic Hungarian restaurant The Gay Hussar, where there’s a rogue’s gallery of his political caricatures on display. He’s a founding member of the restaurant’s ‘Goulash Co-operative’, founded – most probably over lunch – in December 2013 to save the establishment (see p7) which has long been famed as old Labour’s old school canteen and which once boasted literary giants like Jonathan Cape and TS Eliot as regulars. “Take the problems we’re having with the Gay Hussar,” he says. “The current landlord acquired the property off David Sullivan, when he divested himself of his Soho portfolio, and acquired it through a property company whose headquarters are in St Petersburg and are based offshore. It’s increasingly about people who see Soho as an investment opportunity. Soho’s not an investment opportunity, it’s a place where people work, play and live. “Our entire city is turning into an investment opportunity for avaricious psychopaths. Eighty-four

Martin’s work is brain-boilingly crammed with detail, verbiage and allusion; this is a Gay Hussar special

people own half the wealth of humanity. Why? Why did we let this happen? Why don’t we just kill them? We’re happy to kill people all over the world. We’re happy dropping bombs on children and yet we’ve got these 84 cunts owning half the fucking world and we can’t do anything about them…” We open up some posh crisps, ‘Anglesey Sea Salt’ flavour. He continues. “Everything is done according to the way that they want it done. There’s nothing for political parties to do any more because the market decides everything. It’s all run by brilliant businessmen who think they can run things

“Soho’s not an investment... it’s a place where people, work, play and live” so much better than they can be run by democratically elected politicians. Which is why you outsource everything. “We have reached perfection. We live in paradise. The country is being run by companies like G4S and Serco, who steal money from the Home Office by lying about the prisoners they’re tagging. They’re crooks and thieves. Our world is being run by crooks and thieves with the active collaboration of politicians. Why do we tolerate this? And now we’re going to piss away Soho…” We order another packet of the Pillars’ poncy crisps – ‘Burrow Hill Cider Vinegar &

Sea Salt’ flavour this time – and two more pints. “The nice thing about Soho is that you can’t remember the details of most of the time that you’ve spent in it,” he says, taking another swig of bitter to jog his memory. “But I do remember running down the streets around Soho Square in the ’70s with some friends of mine; we’d just been to the Marquee Club when it was on Wardour Street. It was when they’d just realised that they should stop serving beer in glasses because too many people were getting bottled. I remember shaking Wilko Johnson’s hand. “We went on to this speakeasy and Peter Perret (The Only Ones) was playing away to not very many people, presumably smacked out of his head. There was a bloke in a well-cut Mod mohair suit who had one leg. He had a primitive prosthetic leg of the sort that had been around for decades, the leg equivalent of NHS glasses. Following the principles of punk jewellery he’d taken the pink plastic off one side. So he had this Meccano leg ending in a plastic foot and he was pogoing. It was one of the most magnificent things I’d very seen in my life,” he says with a smile. “I was in awe of this demonstration of the triumph of the human spirit against adversity.” UKIP leader Nigel Farage has been making it into his cartoons a lot recently. “He’s great to draw,” he says, putting down his near-empty pint. “I always draw him as a snake, with UKIP stripes. The weird thing is that Farage loves them because he keeps buying the originals. Still, if I take UKIP’s money they can’t spend it on anything dangerous. They paid for my last holiday in Romania. Before I left I sent them an email and asked if I could bring 8,000 Romanians back for them to say thanks.” He smiles, picks up his glass and takes a final gulp before adding, “I think they got the joke.”

On the tab: 2 x Pints Cornish Coaster 2 x Pints Kingstone Press 1 x Packet Pipers Anglesey Sea Salt flavoured crisps 1 x Packet Pipers Burrow Hill Cider Vinegar & Sea Salt flavoured crisps

£ 22.00

The Pillars of Hercules 7 Greek Street, W1D 4DF

s o h o l o st Photography: Robert Taylor / rex

Carnaby Street, 1973

at the time of this photo, carnaby street is a few

years past its moment as hip hub of the Swinging ’60s. What had been an obscure side street with some sharp tailors is well on its way to becoming today’s pedestrianised retail zone. But many originals are still there, albeit bigger – like John Stephens, centre right, and Lord John, just visible above the central sign

(see p10 for more retro trouser lore). The Shakespeare’s Head pub, near right – est. 1735, apparently, though this building’s far more recent – survives today but the florist on the corner opposite wasn’t so lucky. Talking of lucky, would that dangling platform, top left, get through Health & Safety today? The smartly-uniformed street sweeper below is blissfully unaware.

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