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Pogo Cafe

Penny Blood — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 07:58:27 +0000

Now Pogo Café is a full on no frills vegan cafe and is where I come when I don’t want to feel like I’m in London. It’s the sort of cafe you’d find somewhere uber-liberal like Eugene, Oregon. On the other hand you could find it extremely irritating if you were the type to take all that anti-establishment crap seriously. They go to town with the shredded carrot, but it’s all so satisfyingly healthy and cheap. You’re unlikely to stumble across it unless of course you are unfortunate enough to live near by or you’re a street level drug dealer or one of 5 kids to a white trash single mom. What I’m saying is, this is a dodgy street, where delinquents walk down the middle of the road refusing to move for cars and where kids half my size look like they’re gonna kill me just because I don’t wear jewellery from Argos.

www.pogocafe.co.uk

76 Clarence Road, London E5 8HB
020 8533 1214
Wednesday – Saturday 12.30pm – 9pm Sunday 11am – 9pm

Dandy in the Underworld

Penny Blood — Wed, 12 May 2010 15:40:39 +0000

On a narrow cobbled street in the heart of Soho lies a row of rickety old Georgian houses, each one a testimony to what Soho once was, ugly, dangerous and debauched, not the shiny glass box it is today. Having walked up and down this street a million times over the past 10 years, it was one house in particular that always caught my attention, the one with the plaque provocatively stating, “this is not a brothel, there are no prostitutes here”. This is the home to Sebastian Horsley. Best described as a modern day Quentin Crisp, a self-proclaimed dandy and the embodiment of decadence and I don’t just say that for poetic effect, he really lives his life like a character in a novel. Or a porn star’s autobiography.

Sebastian has created something of a reputation for himself. An artist, writer, drug addict, sex columnist, pimp, prostitute, national treasure. He has been described as all these things but asks only that we make up our mind so he knows how to dress. His book, ‘Dandy in the Underworld’ made us take notice. An autobiography on someone not yet famous? He was as surprised by its success as he should be, “I didn’t see my little book getting out of Britain, Ok England, Ok London, Ok Soho, Ok Meard Street, Ok 7 Meard Street, Ok my flat, Ok my bedroom, Ok my lavatory.”

He welcomes me at the door dressed in a long velvet dress coat, cravat and black velvet top hat, custom made, extra tall. He’s friendly but a little nervous, strangers walking into his inner sanctum. I feel lucky. When a stylist requested to shoot Kate Moss in his flat, he agreed. However this was before realising by ‘shoot’ they meant photograph. At this point Sebastian merely responded with, “I don’t want f****** Kate Moss in my studio thank you very much, to me her looks and her greed are both ugly. Tell her this pretty boy will allow them for £10,000 and I’ll throw in a ‘good morning’ for that price. I won’t, however, get out of bed”.

He pads around the room for a moment, slightly unsure what to do or really why I’m here. “So when are you going to run this interview? Is it anything to do with the play? Oh it is? I have to change then, I have a different outfit planned for anything to do with the play”. He retreats to his bedroom, “Sorry I can’t offer you a cup of tea, only a cigarette or a glass of milk, would you like a glass of milk? I ordered a glass of milk in a bar the other day, they thought that was strange. People think I’m trying to be like Alex from A Clockwork Orange. What they don’t realise is that it’s because my father was a milkman. Anyway I won’t be a minute”.

I hover, not quite sure if I should sit or look around. His living room, a shrine to ‘His Royal Lowness’ is covered with press clippings, newspaper articles, posters and advertising paraphernalia including a full sized cardboard cut-out of himself, a souvenir from his moment as muse to Rei Kawakubo, designer for Comme des Garçons. Above the fireplace a stunning display of human skulls mounted in a bespoke and finely carved unit, flanked on ether side by shelves of hard back books on many a great author, poet and artist. And the silver nails used for his crucifixion in the Maldives in 2007 (yes, he crucified himself as some kind of extreme publicity stunt, which I don’t ask him about because what would I have to say on that? “Um… that’s a weird thing to do?”), proudly framed on the wall.

Moments later he comes back, dressed head to toe in red. It’s even the same shade of red just different textures. I love men who take an unusually close interest in their appearance. Like Sebastian says, men, once they know they are beautiful, are far more besotted with their looks than women ever are. “You’re not taking a full length picture are you? I’m not wearing shoes”, (although his socks are indeed a matching red). When asked to lift his chin as his top hat is casting a shadow over his face he has a momentary reservation, “Do I look fat? At my age, I’m looking for mercy not honesty.”

As he offers me a seat he enquires after the small scar on my top lip, “How did you get that? It’s very glamorous, I love it. We must put our scars to work for us. They are the best things we have because they’re proof of something.” I sit listening to him, trying not to be distracted by the fact I’ve forgotten to hit record on my dictaphone, I can’t bring myself to interrupt him, he doesn’t speak like normal people. He thinks things over. And over some more. Then reduces it down to one succinct and quippy sentence which sums up, albeit totally trivialising the subject. He talks in aphorisms, one strung perfectly after the other, “It’s better to be quotable than honest. I don’t speak I quote. I am a fraud. I have cobbled together my personality from hundreds of little bits. I am simultaneously the most genuine and the most artificial person you will ever meet. I am a controversial figure: people either dislike me or hate me.”

So I’m here primarily to ask Sebastian questions about London, where he likes to go, where he eats, drinks, writes, that kind of thing. The questionnaire I submitted to him prior to our meeting was angling for a bit of name-dropping but I got no such thing. When I ask where he is happiest in London, I should have expected the answer I received, “Soho. Soho is a whore with syphilis, her knickers pulled down, her face abandoned; a mess too revolting to complete. Living in Soho is like coming all the time.” Most people just say, “hmm I don’t know, the park?” “So you’re going to ask me a lot of questions I’m not going to answer, what is my fantasy high street? No. Fantasy high street is a contradiction in terms, like witty woman, happy marriage or young poet. These shops all sell the greatest disadvantage of them all: hope.”

I keeping going determined to shed some light on where Sebastian spends his time. There has to be somewhere he goes when he’s not entertaining prostitutes in his flat. “It used to be suicide or the Ritz. I hate private clubs, Blacks is too quaint and the Groucho is just people showing off their cufflinks, I’ve been banned anyway. The Colony was great, full of artists, writers and other losers, I felt at home there. I don’t really like to eat out and I take no pleasure from food. Eating is so undignified, I find watching someone eat utterly disgusting. My perfect place is my flat on Meard Street. It is a lighthouse for losers. They get off at Dover and make their way over. I won’t leave Soho. If I get an invitation from Notting Hill it will go straight in the bin. I like the Stockpot on Old Compton Street, I’ll go there with a good book, and Bruno’s on Wardour Street. I’m there every night, the food looks disgusting, like someone has already eaten it and my favourite The Lorelei on Bateman Street, it’s positively Polish and every dish tastes the same so it doesn’t matter what you order.

“Are we nearly done now my dear? I’m afraid I have an appointment at 3pm.” Off the record Sebastian is running his home as a brothel. Apparently it’s to make the mortgage, however I believe he just likes to be around something depraved, since he has an uncanny knack of making the worst things appear glorious and romantic, just read his book. “I’ve always wanted to be a pimp, but really I’m just a madam, cleaning the sheets and fluffing the pillows.”

Before I leave I ask to look around. In his bedroom I find an ornately carved wooden bed, next to it a loaded gun sitting atop an elaborate wooden box. He explains that before his last STD test the nurse asked him if he had had unprotected sex, “Never. There is always a gun by my bedside”. He shows me the spot a crazed prostitute took a shot at him and where the bullet hit the wall. The room is bathed in a soft orange glow with large gilt framed pieces of red velvet on the walls. His closet is full to bursting with his tailor made suits, top hats and adornments. S H is the real thing, a genuine dandy, charming and humble and impeccably presented, “a respectable appearance makes people more interested in your soul”. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t agree. The kitchen looks more or less as you would expect a kitchen to look, although there are a set of human bones on the counter and the shelves are filled with books. There’s not a saucepan or plate in sight, only a mug with the handle broken off saying ‘world’s greatest dad’, unlikely as Sebastian has openly stated in the past that “The worst sexually transmitted disease of them all is children. The only place a dandy would push a pram is into the Thames.” The bathroom is immaculate with nothing but Chanel products. I can’t imagine Sebastian taking part in something as mundane and everyday as taking a shower. It’s more likely he has kittens lick him clean with milk.

As he shows me out, I enquire how far through his next book he is, “well I’ve written the opening sentence” and to his art, “I’m working on abstract pieces right now, no paintbrushes, no paint, no canvas, I’m just thinking about it”. Someone shouts up at the window where Sebastian is sitting with his fluffy white lapdog, Tampon. The man is holding a sign saying “Horsley’s Air Sickness Bags” it appears random but I get the feeling this sort of thing happens all the time. It starts raining outside. “Is it raining?” he asks, “I thought it was applause…”

Thank you Tom Medwell for the lovely photographs.

Lorelei

Penny Blood — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 09:41:48 +0000

It was after talking to his Royal Lowness, King of Soho, Sebastian Horsley that I decided to try out the Lorelei as it’s one of Sebastian’s favourites. I’d walked past it countless times without it registering, mainly because it always looked closed and I never trust places in Soho that aren’t widely known. Well the Lorelei as it turns out is widely known (I’m just clueless, but not as clueless as you) and what a place it is. You couldn’t squeeze more character into it if you tried. Tiny with little Formica tables (since well before they were fashionable) and an epic mural of a mermaid on the wall it’s one of my greatest finds, let alone the fact it’s in Soho. It’s nice to be able to recommend somewhere that isn’t Busaba Eathai. The Lorelei hasn’t changed a stitch since it opened back in the 1940s (or thereabouts) and feels like walking into a back alley restaurant in Naples. It’s Italian with pretty much 2 things on the menu, omelettes and pizza. Both are good and cost about £6. My Greek company for the evening sums up the menu “I haven’t seen a dessert menu like this since I used to go on holiday to Cyprus as a kid, the only difference is this one is spelt correctly”. They appear to have various flavours of ice cream and sorbet but when we enquire as to what flavours the tiny little waitress just stabs her finger at the menu squawking “vanilla”, hmm anything else? Any sorbet? “VANILLA” ok ok we’ll take vanilla. Our smirk as she pulls a giant budget sized carton out the freezer quickly disappears as we soon realise the ice cream tastes wonderfully homemade. It’s the small things like the fact that there appears to only be one bottle of ketchup, one set of salt and pepper and one jar of sugar for the whole place so the tiny little Asian lady is constantly grabbing them for whoever asks, not to be returned so make sure you take as much as you need.

21 Bateman Street, London, W1D 3AL
020 7734 0954

Hackney Pearl

Penny Blood — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 07:54:57 +0000

Hackney Wick is clearly on the up and the Hackney Pearl is definitely a symbol of that. Oh don’t worry the area still looks like a deserted wasteland only fit for amateur fashion shoots, but salvaged Formica tables, school chairs and copies of the observer are a slap across the face reminder of where we’re at now over in the Wick. For quite a while people seemed reluctant to open any kind of business as the area was rife with gypsies who’d been kicked out of (sorry re-housed), Stratford. However so far so good as the Hackney Pearl looks to be attracting all the RIGHT KINDS of people. The staff here look like extras from (all and any) music video but are really friendly all the same. The food here is great and the carrot cake is off-the-scale delicious. It’s the kind of place where they cook muffins there and then and leave them on the counter as if your mum just made them, awww sweet, that just tickles me. The spacious interior is styled so perfectly it rivals any established café in London. I’m so proud of it being in my very own Hackney Wick.

http://thehackneypearl.com/

Hackney Pearl, 11 Prince Edward Road, Hackney Wick, London, E9 5LX
0208 510 3605
Tuesday – Saturday: 10am until 11pm Sunday: 10am until 6pm

Lucky Spot

Penny Blood — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 21:39:58 +0000

Ahhh just opened up my note book to write up Lucky Spot and out fell a great postcard I nicked from an art gallery, don’t you love that, when you nick something, stash it away stealthily and then forget about it, only to discover it again later…. I am debating deleting this as I sound like one of those people who buy a can of beans from a shop and ask for a spoon with it.

The reason I’m here is by pure chance. I’m looking for a church and it’s supposed to be on this street. I’m already late but I pass by this little café/restaurant, which immediately grabs my attention. I take a quick peak inside and realise I’ve found a hidden gem. It’s a bit medieval, a bit Austrian ski village, a bit Italian and a bit grannies living room. And it’s in Mayfair of all places, minutes from Selfridges and the American Embassy. It’s opposite Starbucks which sadly has many more customers (that is of course why I write this blog, to highlight child poverty, the war in Darfur and the growth of chain coffee shops)* . It’s the fact Lucky Spot is so out of place that makes it so special. I just don’t give Mayfair enough credit. There is only one other person here, a young man who’s staring at me, he must think I’m attractive, on the other hand I’ve just noticed I’ve got crumbs and raspberry jam on my face from breakfast. Seriously how long has that been there?

*sorry this sentence is so try-hard and not funny.

14 North Audley Street, London W1K 6WE
020 7493 0277

Balham Bowling Club

Penny Blood — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 14:00:19 +0000

It may be way down south, miles from anywhere but the Balham Bowling Club is the best pub ever. It’s pouring with rain and I had to cut an epic breakfast at Little Georgia with Morgs short as the night before I had the stupid idea that Sunday lunch at the B.B.C was a good idea even though it meant trekking down from Bethnal Green in monumentally shit weather. And just as I get there I get a call saying that they are all still at home eating gluten free pancakes, that’s bloody great. So out of 8 people I’m the only one here, what a loser! Not to worry though this place is just great, there’s nowhere quite like it. It’s decorated in a theme somewhere between an old school and a sports club, like a set from the History Boys with gaudy furniture and tapestries, basically one giant junk shop neatly arranged. There are billiard tables and Chesterfield couches and big rooms with lots of nooks and crannies to sit in. Only thing is it’s not very cosy but at least it’s not crowded.

7 Ramsden Road London, SW12 8QX
020 86734700
Monday – Saturday 9am-6pm

Cafe Picasso

Penny Blood — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:53:43 +0000

A Chelsea institution and a perfect place for celebrity spotting. Every walk of life comes here from supermodels to actors to tourists, to rich locals and down and outs. It’s a pretty standard London cafe, a bit dowdy but charming as it hasn’t changed since the sixties with the usual stodgy caff food. A few years back whilst doing an internship at Storm Model agency up the road I used to frequent Café Picasso to get soggy chips for one of the bookers who I downright couldn’t stand and therefore resented this job above all else. Model bookers are generally VILE BEASTS who I would gladly knock off the face of the earth with the long arm of the lords mighty wrath. I would love to be one though. Likely as not you will see Bob Geldoff here too, he was always a bit of a fixture as I used to work next door at (I’m embarrassed to say) Prime Time Video (which in my defense was cool in those days) and I don’t think a day passed when I didn’t see him there. His wife’s a bitch by the way. And he never returns his videos on time.

http://www.dinos-restaurants.co.uk/picasso.htm

127 King’s Road, Chelsea, London
020 7352 4921
Monday – Saturday 8am-11pm Sunday 8.30am-11pm

Fika

Penny Blood — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 16:28:11 +0000

A night out with Drage is one of my favourite ways to spend an evening. He’s the perfect male, just effeminate enough to not only cite but tell the difference between good jeans and lesbian jeans, yet you wouldn’t catch him standing in front of a mirror, feet turned slightly inwards pulling at the corners of his t-shirt stating “I’m getting fat”. Drage is far from fat but wouldn’t care a whole deal if he were. He ordered the gnocchi. Fika is such a perfect little restaurant (aside from the near dealbreaking fact that I can see part of the kitchen due to the lack of a concealing door). It’s small and cosy prompting Drage to point out that “it’s all very relaxed, I don’t feel tense at all” as he purposely strokes the astro turf cut-out of a stag drinking a cup of tea stuck on the wall. The food is Swedish – some of it fairly typical: meatballs, reindeer salami, that kind of thing – and delicious. They do great hamburgers and a vegetable and bean grilled umm….mush thing, I don’t know quite how to describe it. It was great though, it’s all real comfort food. I thought, or was scared even, that everything would be pickled: pickled this, pickled that but actually pickled was barely even on the menu. Although it wouldn’t be Swedish without pickled herring. It’s a bit like a little Swedish cabin with wood planks on the walls and a simple yet chic theme involving astro turf. It’s like a comfortable film, in fact it’s the “Small Time Crooks’ of restaurants. It’s definitely a favourite. They never did close the bloody kitchen door though.

It looks like a shed I know.

http://www.fikalondon.com/

161A Brick Lane, London, E1 6SB
0207 613 2013

Monday – Thursday 12pm-11pm Friday 12pm-midnight
Saturday 10.30am-midnight Sunday 10.30am-10.30pm

Tiroler Hut

Penny Blood — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 11:26:44 +0000

Up to a point I would have to say this was one of my favourite restaurants for the sheer comedy value alone. The place is absurd. It’s Austrian for a start and I think that explains a lot*. For starters it’s down in the basement accessed by a doorway and some steep stairs, you’d totally miss it if you didn’t know it was there. It’s been around since the 1960’s and still appears to be a favourite of many. The Austrians I dined with said it was more Austrian than anything you’d find in Austria, with staff dressed in full Lederhosen and food being somewhat questionable but not bad if you like boiled bread and sausage….. and beer, huge stein-fulls of it. It’s like being in a ski chalet with low ceilings and small fake windows with fake snowscapes and deer antlers taking up every conceivable square inch. Little wooden tables and chequered table clothes with wine bottle candle holders encrusted with wax complete the ‘look’. I’d say it’s best to come with a group as it’s too loud to do a lot of talking due to the ‘performances’ of the owner playing 80’s pop music on his accordion, the random Japanese guy who apparently just ‘turns up’ every evening to serenade with Italian opera not to mention the cow bells the owner rings in accompaniment to the music. Just when you think you can continue with your conversation everyone has to stop and watch the stuffed goat sing songs from the sound of music – oh yes they play tunes from the sound of music a lot. All of this I can handle, and actually quite enjoy, the problem is the people who come here. There are the ‘just left the office’ types getting very drunk with annoying girls screaming and singing along to karaoke. On this occasion there was a huge party of Americans getting WAY to into it prompting the question “Why are Americans always so fucking enthusiastic?” Be aware though that they have a tendency to keep the drinks coming which although this could be conceived as a good thing, will give you a shock when the bill comes.

*For those that don’t know Austrians are weird.

P.S The food looks like that, I thought I should warn you.

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Walthamstow

Penny Blood — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:41:54 +0000

So Walthamstow is not somewhere you would usually find me, it’s ‘hold on to your bag country’ as my friend would put it, but I was lured over by the promise of popcorn, a 110″ ‘home cinema’ and the ‘The Good the Bad and the Ugly’ (we ended up watching Sex in the City the movie but whatever). However it turns out Walthamstow has a lot to offer, and locals are very proud of it. Apart from having multiples of every single chain shop that has ever been around, the kind of area that has 3 Argos’ within minutes of each other (they have a lot of Elizabeth Duke jewelry to supply) it has a few gems of it’s own starting with the Rio Cafe (see below). This place immediately made it to my top ten cafes. Walthamstow high street is one giant Pound Shop, there are literally hundreds of them, interspersed with carpet shops and greasy spoon cafes, (it’s also host to Europe’s longest market, selling the same crap all the shops sell). It feels like a high street of a decrepit old seaside resort.

Nestled amongst the rubbish though is one the quirkiest little cafes I have ever come across. Its an eclectic mix of 50’s Americana, Arabic music, delicious meze food and Moroccan and Polish locals sitting outside drinking espressos and smoking rollies with stained teeth and fingers. I was peeing myself with excitement over the place, it is one of my greatest finds to date.

And it just gets better, opposite they have a another cafe, equally quirky in a Parisian coffee bar meets Moroccan hookah lounge kind of way specialising in all kinds of coffee.

Both have adjoining out door seating areas which feel like a small palazzo in Rome not ‘Vomit-up-a-lamp-post-after-a-Tuesday-night-after-the-bingo”, which is what generally springs to mind seeing the area. Walthamstow also plays host to the one of the greatest pie and mash shops ‘L Manze’ which is probably the most beautiful, with its original store front and stunning art deco interior.

Walthamstow village is also really nice, with a few shops and places to eat, a local butcher and bakery, (well posh deli actually) that kind of thing and a cute little cafe I was pleasantly surprised by the place.