Inspiration

Things to do in Soho

The iconic London neighbourhood has a multitude of different faces, from its seedy, nefarious history to its recent reputation as a foodie hub. Here, Henry Eliot and Matt Lloyd-Rose, authors of Curiocity: An Alternative A-Z of London, take us on a whistle-stop tour through Soho's best hangouts
Things to do in Soho London

It is said that Soho takes its name from an old hunting cry, used to spur harrier dogs. ‘So Ho!’ became associated with the area in the 17th century, either because its streets were once hunting fields or because it was notorious for thieves and footpads, and a loud cry was a useful way of sounding out strangers in the dark. The iconic name has since been borrowed by cities around the world: SoHo in New York is the area South of Houston Street, Buenos Aires has ‘Palermo Soho’ and there are similar districts in Hong Kong, Hobart in Tasmania and Tampa. In London, Soho is bordered on the north by Oxford Street, the west by Regent Street, the south by Leicester Square and the east by Charing Cross Road. It is a place of projections – a square mile that means different things to different people. A haunt for sex workers, a bohemian hangout, a gastronome’s playground, a media hub, a retail district and a jazz hotspot. Here are a few different ways to approach this beloved neighbourhood in London.

  • For an immersive introduction to Soho dive in for a full 24 hours start with espressos and croissants from Maison...
    Peanut Butter Vibes Photography

    So Go Go – Eating and drinking your way around Soho

    For an immersive introduction to Soho, dive in for a full 24 hours: start with espressos and croissants from Maison Bertaux on Greek Street, London’s oldest patisserie; then relax with a few lengths of the pool of Marshall Street Leisure Centre, gazing up at the duck-egg-blue, barrel-vaulted ceiling. Spend the morning rifling the extensive range of comics, zines and graphic novels at Gosh! on Berwick Street before a spot of lunch at Polpetto. The afternoon is easily whiled away on the bench outside Milkbar on Bateman Street, sipping a Bongo with bon-soy milk, before the watershed moment when the Star Café on Great Chapel Street turns from an Italian greasy spoon into the Star at Night gin cellar, home to the London Gin Club. After cocktails, rub elbows with politicos at the Gay Hussar on Greek Street, or spend the evening pressing the ‘Champagne button’ at Bob Bob Ricard on Upper James Street. Round off the night with more coffee at Bar Italia on Frith Street and a late-night gelato from Lick, on Greek Street,then settle down to woozy small-hours riffs at Ronnie Scott’s Late Late Show.

    More of the best restaurants in Soho and the best bars in Soho.

  • So Hoe – Frisky business in Soho

    Soho, of course, is most famous for the neon strip lights that illuminate its seedy underbelly. In the 18th century, the legendary lover Giacomo Casanova was so frustrated by the caprices of a certain Soho courtesan that he taught a parrot to say ‘Miss Charpillon is more of a whore than her mother’ and put it on sale at the Royal Exchange. More recently, the dandy Sebastian Horsley said that ‘living in Soho is like coming all the time’. He frequented prostitutes for years and even prostituted himself for a time. ‘I saw it as a kind of sex rebate,’ he said, ‘having paid for sex all my life.’ Visit his former address at 7 Meard Street: a sign beneath the knocker reads, ‘This is not a brothel. There are no prostitutes at this address.’ Look up and you can still see his collection of human skulls through a first-floor window. Try your own titillation in lingerie boutique Coco de Mer on Monmouth Street: all the changing cubicles have peepholes.

  • Matthew Buck

    So Where? Getting lost in Soho’s maze

    Soho’s grid-like street system is deceptive: there are alleys and dead-ends, and navigation can be difficult. Explorers should search for London’s Pole of Inaccessibility, the point furthest from the boundaries of Greater London: you will find it on Tyler’s Court, a slim cut-through between Berwick and Wardour Street. Another extreme address is Little Compton Street, a lost thoroughfare that runs below street level. You can glimpse its subterranean street sign by looking through the grille in the middle of Charing Cross Road, opposite Old Compton Street. If you’re very lucky, you’ll discover the entrance to London Below, revealed in Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere: look for Orme Passage off Hanway Place, and slip down a manhole.

  • So Show – The transformation of red-lights Soho

    Soho is a tourist destination, and even the famous red lights have started to be commodified. There are still real sex shops and gentlemen’s shows, but some have now become heritage landmarks and hip pastiches. The Raymond Revuebar façade has been reinstated on Walker’s Court, a monument to the one-time ‘World Centre of Erotic Entertainment’, and a brightly lit sex shop at 9 Old Compton Street turns out to be a front for La Bodega Negra, a Mexican restaurant serving ‘street, beach and free style’ food. Soho is a palimpsest of surfaces, and underneath the brightness lie darker stories. A nondescript door on Marshall Street is home to the Samaritans, lending a sympathetic ear to tales of suffering from across the city.

  • So De Trop – Soho’s quirky rituals

    Not all is lost, however: Soho is still full of eccentricities. If you’re a waiter, for instance, and you work in Soho, grab a tray, a napkin, a bottle of champagne and a glass, and queue up outside the French House on Dean Street in July; otherwise, line up on the pavement to watch the annual Waiters’ Race. Contestants must glide swiftly, but with a steady hand, around the streets, raising money for the Soho Waiters Benevolent Fund. Along the way, they will pass the golden snail on the railings outside L’Escargot on Greek Street, a replica wooden Underground escalator in Cahoots on Kingly Court and the legendary Seven Noses of Soho protruding from various walls, the latter supposedly bring everlasting fame and fortune to anyone who can find them all. (Start looking on Dean Street, which has three.)

  • So Wow! Soho’s inventive spirits

    Soho is a place for dreamers and visionaries. The poet and painter William Blake was terrified, aged four, to see God’s face pressed up against his bedroom window on the corner of Marshall and Broadwick Street. The spot is now occupied by William Blake House, and the foyer contains artistic visions inspired by Blake. Nearby, the scientist Henry Cavendish identified hydrogen in 1766, realising his ‘inflammable air’ must be an elemental constituent of water. Toast his memory on the site of his laboratory with a glass of tap water in Costa on Great Marlborough Street. Quo Vadis on Dean Street is an appropriate place to read Das Kapital over a Russian Standard vodka martini. Marx wrote his iconic book while living as a political exile in this building in the 1850s. He called it ‘an old hovel’ so dirty ‘that to sit down becomes a thoroughly dangerous business’. Customers can ask to see his rooms.

  • Matthew Buck

    So Long Ago – Going back in time

    Sometimes you can glimpse Soho’s vibrant past, as in Tisbury Court, where a faded, mustachioed valet still advertises dress coats from six shillings and tuppence, though you’ll need to use your imagination to catch the strains of Bert Jansch and Nick Drake at Les Cousins basement folk club, for instance, now a cocktail bar on Greek Street, or to hear the crash as JohnJoseph Merlin, inventor of the roller-skate, demonstrates his radical footwear at a party in Carlisle House and careers into a plate-glass mirror. You can resurrect the past by taking part in a memorial ceremony: join the John Snow Society and ritually remove and replace a pump handle on Broadwick Street to commemorate scientist John Snow’s development of germ theory in the transmission of cholera.

  • So Who? On the trail of famous Soho residents

    ‘The Spirit of Soho’ is a mural on the corner of Broadwick and Carnaby Street representing the people of Soho. A huge figure of St Anne, whose parish church is on Dean Street, is dressed in a map of the area, her petticoats revealing portraits of various former inhabitants, including Mozart, Dylan Thomas and the trumpeter George Melly. The mural includes an automaton clock: the 18th-century singer Teresa Cornelys used to wink at Casanova, and Karl Marx drank from a can of coke, but the mechanism is broken. The wall of Bibimbap Sohoon Greek Street captures the contemporary spirit of Soho: dine there and your Polaroid will join their own wall of portraits. Actual Soho spirits can also be purchased from Gerry’s on Old Compton Street, purveyors of fine wines and comprehensive international liqueurs. As well as St Anne, the area’s other tutelary spirit is Eros, the winged god of erotic love balancing above Piccadilly Circus; his pert posterior marks the district’s southernmost point. The foppish sculptor Sir Alfred Gilbert intended his nude boy to portray Anteros, the god of reflective and mature love, but Londoners immediately named the landmark after the friskier deity.

  • Matthew Buck

    And So? Utopian visions for Soho

    And so what does the future hold for Soho? In 1954, the architect Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe revealed an ambitious scheme to demolish and cover Soho with a massive glass atrium, with six triangular housing blocks bursting through the ceiling, glass-bottomed aerial canals and a vast open-air swimming pool suspended above Berwick Street Market. ‘From below the bathers will appear like fish,’ he fantasised. A more reliable vision may be obtained from Jacob von Hogflume, the 19th-century inventor of time travel, and future Soho resident. A blue plaque used to mark the house in Golden Square where he ‘lived in 2189’, but it has since disappeared. Some people say Jacob is a hoax – only time will tell.

    Keep scrolling for more pictures of Soho.

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  • Ronnie Scott’s

  • Connor Macleod

    Outside Polpetto, a Venetian restaurant

  • A bartender mixes drinks at Quo Vadis

  • A cosy seating nook at Quo Vadis, Soho

  • Marzipan figs at Maison Bertaux, Soho

  • Peanut Butter Vibes Photography

    The exterior of Milk Bar

  • Maison Bertaux, Soho

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