London (Fodor's 2012) - Fodor's [36]
Madame Jo Jo’s (8–10 Brewer St. | W1F OSE | 020/7734–3040 | www.madamejojos.com) has been around for nearly 50 years, with a range of popular club nights. The club’s Kitsch Cabaret, which can be booked online, is so popular (with straights as well as gays) that it’s booked up weeks in advance.
A BRIEF HISTORY
Almost as soon as a 17th-century housing development covered what had been a royal park and hunting ground, Soho earned a reputation for entertainment, bohemianism, and cosmopolitan tolerance. When the authorities introduced zero tolerance of soliciting in 1991 (the most recent of several attempts to end Soho’s sex trade), they cracked down on an old neighborhood tradition that still resurfaces from time to time.
Successive waves of refugees, from French Huguenots in the 1680s followed by Germans, Russians, Poles, Greeks, Italians, and Chinese, settled and brought their ethnic cuisines with them. So when dining out became fashionable after World War I, Soho was the natural place for restaurants to flourish.
In the 1950s and ‘60s, Soho was London’s main artists’ quarter and the place to find the top jazz clubs and art galleries. Among the luminaries who have made their home here are landscape painter John Constable; Casanova; Canaletto, the great painter of Venice; William Blake; and Karl Marx.
Present-day Covent Garden took shape in the 1630s, when Inigo Jones turned what had been agricultural land into Britain’s first planned public square. After the Great Fire of 1666, it became the site of England’s largest fruit-and-vegetable market (the flower market arrived in the 19th century). This, along with the district’s many theaters and taverns, gave the area a somewhat dubious reputation, and after the produce market relocated in 1973, the surviving buildings were scheduled for demolition. A local campaign saved them, and the restored market opened in 1980.
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Courtauld Institute Gallery.
One of London’s most beloved art collections, the Courtauld is to your left as you pass through the archway into the grounds of the beautifully restored, grand 18th-century classical Somerset House. Founded in 1931 by the textile magnate Samuel Courtauld to house his remarkable private collection, this is one of the world’s finest Impressionist and post-Impressionist galleries, with artists ranging from Bonnard to van Gogh. A déjà-vu moment with Cézanne, Degas, Seurat, or Monet awaits on every wall (Manet’s Bar at the Folies-Bergère is the star), with bonus post-Renaissance works thrown in. Botticelli, Brueghel, Tiepolo, and Rubens are also represented, thanks to the exquisite bequest of Count Antoine Seilern’s Princes Gate collection. German Renaissance paintings, bequeathed in 1947, include the colorful and delightfully wicked Adam and Eve by Lucas Cranach the Elder. There are also some bold and bright Fauvist paintings. Don’t miss the little café downstairs, which is a perfect place for a spot of tea. | Somerset House, Strand, Covent Garden | WC2R 0RN | 020/7848–2526 | www.courtauld.ac.uk | £5, free Mon. 10–2, except bank holidays | Daily 10–6; last admission 5:30 | Covent Garden, Holborn, Temple.
Covent Garden Piazza.
Once home to London’s main flower market, and former stomping ground of My Fair Lady’s Eliza Doolittle, the market building around which Covent Garden pivots is known as the Piazza. Inside, the shops are mostly higher-class clothing chains, plus several restaurants and cafés and knickknack stores that are good for gifts. One particular gem is Benjamin Pollock’s Toyshop at No. 44 in the market. Established in the 1880s, it sells delightful toy theaters. There’s the superior Apple Market for crafts on most days, too. On the south side of the Piazza, the indoor Jubilee Market, with its stalls of clothing, army-surplus gear, and more crafts and knickknacks, has a distinct flea-market feel. In summer it may seem that everyone you see around the Piazza (and the crowds are legion)