I
t's Friday night in one of London's most anarchic
basement bars. In the DJ booth, St Tropez
house-music icon Ollie Humphreys takes advantage
of a sound system that's louder than the Big Bang,
while waifs from fashion campaigns you walk past every
day wave for the barman's attention. Mark Ronson and Kate
Moss sit sipping drinks in the corner. Hipsters, musicians,
writers, fashion designers and actors – everyone in Ray-
Bans and skinny jeans – has come tonight for one thing
alone: to savour the atmosphere.
This isn't Shoreditch, in East London – considered the
go-to enclave for Britain's coolest and most creative
crowds for almost a decade now – this club is called Punk
(
punksoho.co.uk
)
and it's in the heart of London's West End.
What began as a whisper has now risen to a clamour:
Soho is cool again. After almost half a century as the city's
hippest neighbourhood, beginning with the Swinging
Sixties, the square mile between Oxford Street, Regent
Street, Leicester Square and Charing Cross Road had
become somewhat square itself by the dawn of the new
millennium – a tired collection of chain bars and neon-
lit store fronts. Then, a few years ago, a corner appeared
to be turning. What started with Punk, has built to an
inescapable momentum. Venture there of an evening now
and you'll find some of the city's most innovative new
nightspots and most fabulous places to eat.
SOHO
STORY
WORDS
BENWILSON
01:
American
saxophonist
Lucky Thompson
outside London's
first jazz club,
Ronnie Scott‘s,
in 1962
02:
Zoot Money
and his Big Roll
Band, with future
Police guitarist
Andy Summers,
on New Year's
Day 1964
01
It began in the Swinging Sixties, when Soho became the
most talked-about district in town, and now it‘s taking back
the title of London‘s coolest neighbourhood
PHOTOS GETTY
0 6 8
L O N D O N
