It is totally unimaginable that my career would have gone the way it did without the influence of Soho with its food shops, markets and restaurants. Through them the writings of Elizabeth David and Jane Grigson could become a reality a quarter century ago; only in Soho, a little slice of Europe in the middle of London, could all the ingredients be regularly found. I worked in the area for some 30 years, most of them as a chef, and it was in Soho, just over 20 years ago, that my life’s ambition was realised when my eponymous restaurant, Alastair Little;opened in FrithStreet.

Soho is the food capital of Britain and has been so for over 100 years, a fact demonstrated by the influx in those 20 years after me of some of the best young chefs, among them Marco Pierre White and Richard Corrigan, to name buttwo. Ifeltproudtobetheoldman of the area, if this was the sort of company it attracted. What Soho is n o t these days, though, is a great place to shop for food; with the exception of Lina Stores and Camisa, there is virtually nothing left of a once thriving industry. The butchers have all gone, Berwick Street is threatened, and some of Chinatown’s bustling and anarchic shops have recently been closed.

Soho's relationship w i t h food developed over the centuries, through the many peoples w h o sought sanctuary in Soho. Chief among them were the Huguenots, who flooded the area in the late 179‘ century with crafts‐ m e n and cooks. The last included anumber of pastry-cooks (and there are French patissiers in Soho still), as well as butchers, The Swiss formed a major community too (thus the Swiss and Helve‘cia public houses, both once in O l d Compton Street), w i t h Germans and Italians arriving in the 18605, many of them cooks and waiters. A later influx of Jews led to the formation of the largest Jewish community outside eastern Europe, and there were until recently a number of delicatessens, kosher butchers and kosher restaurants inSoho.

Because of its mean streets and its 'foreign-ness’, Soho had been regarded with some suspicion by most respect‐ able people. They say that it wasn’t until a gentleman of note who, on eating garlic, peppers and tomatoes in Kettner’s in the late 18805, enthusiasti‐ cally wrote up his Italian experience for The Times, that Soho was introduced to a much wider audience than hitherto. The growth of Shaftesbury Avenue and its theatres in that same decade brought the braver members of the theatre audiences into Soho for late supper in the many cheap ’Continental' restaurants opened by recent immigrants, because by n o w Soho was really getting into its stride asthe centre of London’s catering industry. For ’Continental’ we can read Italian, because it was at this time that these talented immigrants started to compete w i t h the French for control of the restaurant business (although they lived elsewhere, in Clerkenwell).

Many other Italian restaurants opened in the first half of the 20th century, and the staying power of some was remark‐ able. Bianchi's, now sadly closed, was where Logie Baird invented television, and where the most famous maitre d' in London, Elena Salvoni, encouraged a whole generation of young writers, publishers, artists and film-makers. Others were Bar Italia, Romano Santi, La Colombina d'Oro (the latter twogone), and Kettnei’s. The French equivalents were L’Epicure (now no more), Au Jardin des Gourmets and indeed L'Escargot, where I was to cook foratime. Thislatteropenedaround 1923, and its delicacy, not surprisingly, wassnails. Apparentlyinthoseearly days, in this one restaurant, it was not unusual for customers to eat their way through about 9,000 snails each month of the season...
Food businesses such as delicatessens, butchers and patisseries had been as long-lasting. Maison Bertaux opened in 1871, Parmigiano clocked up 80 years in Soho before it had to close, and Randall 8: Aubin, the first charcuterie in Eng‐ land, opened in 1906 (and had the dubi‐ ous distinction of importing the first quiche lorraine). It is n o w a popular brasserie. A n d it w a s around 1914 that the Dell Lugo family opened their pasta factory on Gerrard Street, where they remained until the 19605 when they moved out of what was rapidly becom‐ ing a Chinese ghetto. However, they only relocated to King's Cross when they had, with typical Italian flexibility, mastered the manufacture of Chinese noodles.

The Italians and French pretty much had the area sewn up until 1960, when a new wave of immigration into the area created Chinatown. The original Chinese settlements were near the docks in Limehouse, catering to stranded Cantonese seamen, but the growing popularity of Chinese’ food coupled with an expanding and still isolated community made the develop‐ ment of somewhere like Gerrard Street inevitable. Other immigrant communi‐ ties to affect the Soho food map in the last 40 years include those from the Indian sub-continent and Thailand, and the Japanese with their burgeoning presence on Brewer Street.

Perhaps the most significant invasion of the area in the last few years is by the British. More restaurants owned, cooked in and r u n by them have opened in the last few years than any other group, especially if you include the astonishing expansion of bars and pavement cafes (not all of them gay). As an old-timer I look askance at the penetration of the area by brewery‐ owned chains and the mega restau‐ rants, thinking that the area's ethos and history does not sit well with the corpo‐ rate world. In more realistic moments I recognise an inevitability about this, but remain convinced that it will be them w h o have to adapt to the magic of the place. Soho has shown its staying power many times over 300 years and it can assimilate or reject newcomers with ease. Iconfidentlyexpectittocontinue to do so.

ALASTAIR LITTLE

(Adapted from Soho Cooking, Ebury Press, 1999)