Soho for wine lovers
The busy streets of Soho form the beating heart of London’s West End and are home to wine-focused venues that, like the area, do things a little differently
Fiona Beckett on the vinous heart of London’s West End
Alot of city centres have ended up looking rather too similar these days, so when you travel it’s nice to end up in places that are a bit different. In London, there are few places as distinctive as Soho. Bounded by Oxford Street, Shaftesbury Avenue and Regent Street, it’s the epicentre of London’s theatreland, restaurant industry and nightlife, and yet it still remains a lively residential neighbourhood, which adds to its particular character.
Wine has always been part of the scene here – ‘Old Soho used to mean drunks, basically,’ says restaurateur Andrew Edmunds – but what does the area have to offer the wine lover today? Quite a lot as it happens. This is where to go for wines that are hard to find and still (just about) affordable – and not just in private members’ clubs either (Soho is home to the famous
Groucho Club and Soho House).
Edmunds’ eponymous restaurant on Lexington Street is one of the longest-established venues since Soho began to be gentrified in the 1980s. It would be easy to overlook its modest entrance and dining room, but it serves appealingly simple food in the St John vein (the east London restaurant reputed for its simple, nose-to-tail fare, where Andrew Edmunds’ chef used to work), and a wine list you would cross London for.
Despite the number of gems on his list, which at the time of writing included four ChassagneMontrachets (‘a bit of an accident’), and Vieux Château Certan by both the half-bottle and magnum, Edmunds admits it’s harder than it was to find bargains. ‘Back in the 1980s, the difference in price between the nastiest supermarket wine at £3 and a serious bottle at £30 wasn’t that big. The same bottle could now be £4,000.’
‘We’ve been pulling in our horns when it comes to paying for hugely expensive wines. We used to have an allocation of Harlan [from California] but then found it was all consumed by one man who bought it because he could. He used to order two bottles and share it with the staff.’
You can also find a slice of old Soho at The French House on nearby Dean Street, which, despite some excellent cooking from Neil Borthwick, is notable for the low prices, rather than the quality, of its wines. But if you want to do a spot of people-watching or, better still, eavesdropping on some classic Soho gossip (as in, ‘He got sacked from the Criterion [Theatre] for being drunk. He was always a heavy drinker...’), then there isn’t a better place.
AN INSTITUTION REIMAGINED
From The French House, a short walk along lively Old Compton Street (home to legendary wines and spirits emporium Gerry’s) and into Greek Street takes you to the most notable newcomer in the area: Noble Rot Soho. The second restaurant in the Noble Rot stable (the original is in Lamb’s Conduit Street in nearby Bloomsbury) is in the building formerly occupied by the Gay Hussar, the fabled Hungarian hangout of left-wing politicans and journalists in the 1960s and ’70s. Proprietors Mark Andrew and Dan Keeling have remained faithful to the look and spirit of the original restaurant, thus avoiding upsetting the so-called Goulash Co-operative – the group of Hussar fans who attempted to buy the restaurant when it was put up for sale a couple of years ago.
‘We didn’t buy the lease to rip out all the furnishings,’ says Keeling firmly. They’ve kept all the wooden panelling and the original lamps, while the first-floor dining room has a triptych of murals by award-winning cartoonist Martin Rowson, depicting the great and the good of Soho over the past half-century.
With his music background (he was MD of Island Records), Keeling is the perfect ▶