Vittles (Vittles)

Good morning and welcome to the first in a new series of quarterly conversations between Vittles Restaurants editors, Adam Coghlan and Jonathan Nunn. Every three months or so we’re going to talk about what and where we’ve been eating, the best meals we’ve enjoyed, things that are annoying us, exciting us, and what we’ve observed in the London restaurant…

Good morning and welcome to the second in a series of quarterly conversations between Vittles Restaurants editors, Adam Coghlan and Jonathan Nunn. You can find the first episode here.

This month we discuss the biggest story in food media in 2024 - the resignation of Pete Wells from the most powerful job in restaurant criticism for health reasons - and h…

Vittles Quarterly: The Peasant Food Remontada

Good morning and welcome back to our series of quarterly conversations between Vittles Restaurants editors, Adam Coghlan and Jonathan Nunn. You can find the first episode here and the second episode here.

On this episode, for our end of year review, we’re joined by Hester van He…

The Lost Food of Soho is a one-episode podcast by Lucy Dearlove. You can listen to it for free on Substack, on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, which are now hosting all back-issues of the Vittles podcast.

You can buy prints of today’s map, created by the artists Anna Hodgson and Harry Darby exclusively for Vittles.

A reminder, too, that we’ve released prints ahead of the publication of issue 1 of Vittles magazine, which you can shop here.

Cast of The Lost Food of Soho

Hilary Armstrong – writer, worked in Andrew Edmunds Marcus Harris – DJ/promoterRussell Davies – creator of eggbaconchipsandbeansJeremy Lee – chef proprietor of Quo VadisChristine Yau – former owner of Y MingDarren Coffield – artist and author of Tales From The Colony Room: Soho’s Lost BohemiaIain Sinclair – authorPolly – sex work and organiser with SWARMMegan Macedo – writer and former Sister Ray employee

There are many versions of Soho. ‘Italian caffs and delis Soho’. ‘Private members club Soho’. ‘Jazz bar Soho’. ‘Blitz Club Soho’. ‘Terence Conran Soho’. ‘Film industry Soho’. ‘Music industry Soho’. ‘Paul Raymond Soho’. All existing separately but simultaneously: sometimes overlapping, sometimes built on the rubble of each other.

We often talk about an ‘Old Soho’ of the mind – sometimes entirely of the imagination. Usually the qualification for a person or an establishment being worthy of the description ‘Old Soho’ is for it to be no longer with us, but there are some exceptions: Trisha’s, Bruno’s, The Admiral Duncan, Ronnie Scott’s, Algerian Coffee Stores, Bar Italia, Andrew Edmunds. Then there is a ‘New Soho’, mainly made up of restaurants. These two places, taking up the same physical space, are often pitted against each other, but I have little nostalgia for Old Soho. As the historian Dan Cruickshank puts it in his book Soho: A Street Guide to Soho's History, Architecture and People: ‘from the debris of death and destruction has sprung new life, often strange and exotic.’

But even allowing for nostalgia, you can’t avoid that Soho has experienced huge, irredeemable losses. Many of them restaurants. Many of them since 2000. The Stockpot, Alastair Little, Ed’s Easy Diner, Dionysus, the New Piccadilly, Y Ming. Then there are the many unheralded takeaways and late night restaurants serving the area around Tottenham Court Road, Oxford Street and the northern streets of Soho during the early 2000s before various factors, Crossrail included, physically decimated the night time economy. 

These are the places I want to celebrate in The Lost Food of Soho. Soho is constantly shifting and evolving, and I wanted to draw a line in the sand for the period during the 2000s in which I got to know it, which often feels overlooked. ‘My’ Soho now feels like it qualifies as Old Soho too. Millennial Soho — just like its patrons — had one foot in the past and one eye on the future, whether it liked it or not. In a strange way, it has changed the way Londoners eat. Lucy Dearlove

Places named in The Lost Food of Soho, in order of mention:

Dionysus, The Astoria, The French House, Metro Cinema, The Palomar, Burger King, The Stockpot, Ed’s Easy Diner, Wimpy, Presto, Zed Cafe, Burger and Beyond, Patty and Bun, The Breakfast Club, Cheat Meals, The Admiral Duncan, Comptons, Joe and the Juice, Andrew Edmunds, Maison Berteaux, Patisserie Valerie, Quo Vadis, Bifulco, Debono, I Camisa, Cheung Dam, Y Ming, Bar Italia, Ronnie Scott’s, Garlic and Shots, Alastair Little, Koya, Hoppers, Ciccone’s Pizza Bar, Wheeler’s, The Colony Room, Duck Soup, Bar Pollo, Soho House, Zilli’s, Cafe Boheme, The Gay Hussar, Bob Bob Ricard, Pizza Express, Sister Ray, Vital Ingredient, Tossed, Soderbergh, The Blue Posts, Berwick Street Market, Pizza Pilgrims, Bone Daddy, Supreme, Bar Bruno, The Intrepid Fox, Byron, Madame Jojos, Raymond Revue Bar, The Box, Rooms by the Hour, The New Piccadilly, The Devonshire.

Credits

Lucy Dearlove is an audio producer, sound designer and writer originally from North East England, now based in St. Leonards-on-Sea. Her food podcast, Lecker, is a two-time winner of the Fortnum & Mason Podcast of the Year Award.

The full Vittles masthead can be found here.