David

London’s Chinatown culinary history traces over 240 years of Chinese food culture in the city. It begins with the first Chinese seafarers settling in Limehouse in the 1780s, moves through the post-war Cantonese restaurant boom in Soho’s Gerrard Street, and arrives at today’s diverse regional cuisine renaissance across Aldgate, Holborn, and beyond. The hidden culinary … Read more

Aro Korol is a Polish-born British filmmaker best known for directing the award-winning feature documentary Battle of Soho (2017), which examines the impact of gentrification on one of London’s most culturally significant neighborhoods. The film earned a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and won recognition at the Hollywood Independent Documentary Awards. As a director, producer, … Read more

Denmark Street is called London’s Tin Pan Alley because it housed dozens of music publishers and songwriters from the 1920s onward, making it the British equivalent of New York’s famous music publishing district. The nickname stuck because the street echoed with pianos and the relentless clatter of song plugging, just like its American counterpart on … Read more

In the heart of London’s West End, a quiet cultural catastrophe has been unfolding for over a decade. Pubs that hosted generations of artists have shuttered. Drag venues that gave a home to marginalized communities have been demolished. Independent shops have been replaced by chains that could exist anywhere in the world. This is the … Read more

The Colony Room Club was a private members’ drinking club at 41 Dean Street, Soho, London, founded by Muriel Belcher in 1948. For 60 years, it served as a sanctuary for bohemians, artists, and creatives, becoming one of Soho’s most notorious and culturally significant drinking dens before closing in 2008. Picture a single room on … Read more

Walk down Denmark Street today, tucked between Charing Cross Road and St Giles High Street in the shadow of the Crossrail development, and you might miss the ghosts. But they are everywhere. The Rolling Stones recorded their debut album at number 4. David Bowie rehearsed in a tiny room above a guitar shop. The Sex … Read more

Battle of Soho is a 2017 independent documentary film directed by Aro Korol that chronicles the gentrification of London’s iconic Soho district. The film documents the closure of legendary venues like Madame Jojo’s, the displacement of the LGBT and drag communities, and the resistance movement fighting to preserve one of the world’s most culturally significant … Read more

It is 7:45 on a Tuesday evening and Frith Street smells like garlic butter, charcoal-grilled lamb, and fresh croissants all at once. A couple is arguing (happily) outside Barrafina about whether to queue or try their luck at Bao. A kitchen porter on a smoke break nods at the delivery rider next to him. Somewhere … Read more

If you walked through Soho on a Friday night in 1965, you would have heard something remarkable. Bass lines bled through club doors on Wardour Street. Guitar amps crackled from basement rooms on Oxford Street. American-imported blues records spun in coffee bars on Old Compton Street. The entire neighborhood, barely a square mile, hummed with … Read more

Every city has a soul. It lives in the corner deli where the owner knows your order by heart. It echoes through the music pouring out of a basement club at 2 AM. It sits in the decades-old laundromat, the family-owned bookstore, the murals painted by local kids on brick walls. But what happens to … Read more