Soho is so gilded nowadays that even drug addicts look down on it. The wasteland without must match the wasteland within. That is harmony. Soho is not a wasteland now: it is no longer that interesting. It is, rather, a shopping district with restaurants and hotels: whimsical, trivial, overpriced. People say it is our youth we lament when we moan about Soho, not the filthy streets we lay in and were fond of, but I am not sure if this is true. Every great city needs a district for wanking and sobs. But this is not it, not anymore. The gateway under the grand hotel by Piccadilly is now an Ugg shop and I have not seen an Orthodox Jew leap into a sex shop with a great, subversive skip — he was vaulting through cultures, after all — for years. Those days are over. They were priced out. The district is fretted with colours, and they do not belong here.
Tanya Gold
The best Greek salad I’ve ever tasted: INO Gastrobar reviewed
issue 11 December 2021
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