When Soho was the centre of the coffee world in the mid-1950s

When Soho was the centre of the coffee world in the mid-1950s
 
Gaggia coffee machines revolutionised society in the 1950s with Soho in London leading the way as the birthplace of British espresso culture.

This year marks 75 since the first Gaggia coffee machines arrived in the UK and Gaggia UK has unearthed news stories and adverts from that time capturing the excitement behind the new craze.

The place that’s widely accepted as starting it all was the Moka Bar in Frith Street. This was somewhere teenagers too young for pubs could gather and is thought by some to have prompted the youth culture explosion that soon changed social life in Britain forever.

In those early days a few were begrudging coffee fans such as the author John Sutherland, who recalls: “The Gaggia machine, a great burbling, wheezing, spluttering monster would excrete some bitter caffeinated essence. It would be swamped with steamed-milk foam and dusted with chocolate to form its ‘cappuccino’ hood. Glass cups and brown sugar (lots of it) were de rigueur.  Frankly, 50s espresso was no taste thrill but it felt smart as hell.”

Well, Gaggia’s certainly a taste thrill these days with a wide range of state-of-the-art machines ideal for use in people’s own homes.

Journalist Frank Jackson wrote in the 1950s: “The honour of being the very first espresso bar in London is proudly, fiercely and appropriately claimed by Soho’s Moka in Frith Street. They certainly started something.

“Ever since, espresso bars have mushroomed up in all the more cosmopolitan districts of the Smoke.

“The espresso bars have brought back to London a leisurely sociability which was in danger of being lost. You can sit as long as you like over your cup of coffee without being chivvied.

“Out of those weird machines like huge, gleaming table radios with knobs on comes a good, strong brew which Continental visitors can recognise as coffee.”

Frank sure had a way with words with his descriptions of the folk you’d meet at Moka and the nearby Bar Italia which is still going strong today.

He added: “At the Moka you can brush up on your Italian as you try, rather desperately, to eavesdrop on voluble conversations which seem to bear small relation to the neat systems of the grammar books.

“Further north up Frith Street is Bar Italia whose customers are also mainly Italian, but more proletarian. There’s a jukebox to help the unbuttoned atmosphere.”

He then talks about The Marrakesh in Rupert Street that he says is “one of Soho’s classier joints and, in the evening after the show, is a favoured haunt of the gay young things.

“Small and friendly is Times Square in Newport Court. There you can often hear muscle boys gravely discussing the finder points of their lats and pecs.”

Gaggia coffee had taken off so much that Gaggia even had a showroom at its own Gaggia House at 10 Dean Street in Soho.

Fellow journalist Elwyn Jones saw coffee as an art form.

“All have decors that have been deliberately designed and which are consistently stimulating and alive,” he wrote. “They are, as it were, three dimensional stage backdrops with the people and the food and the coffee real, not faked.

“The bright lights of the coffee machine dominate them.”
So, for the sake of nostalgia, here’s a list of the 20-plus bars in Soho that served coffee from Gaggia espresso machines in those bygone days of the mid-50s.
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San Marco, Lexington Street
La Ronde, Poland Street
The Gargoyle Club, Meard Street
The Mandrake Club, Meard Street
The Marrakesh, Rupert Street
The Tahiti Club, Shaftesbury Avenue,
The K&K, Macclesfield Street
The Can Can, Hanway Street
The Moulin Rouge, Hanway Street
Moka Bar, Frith Street
Pinocchio, Frith Street
Times Square, Newport Court
The Kaleidoscope, Gerrard Street,
La Fiesta, Gerrard Street,
The Chapingo, Peter Street,
Orlando’s, Old Compton Street
The Two I’s, Old Compton Street
Prego, Old Compton Street
The Moka-ris, Dean Street,
Court Snack Bar, Dean Street
Daniellis, Dean Street
Number 93, Dean Street
The Fresserie, Berwick Street
Sabrina, Wardour Street
Café Britannique, Wardour Street
Capitelli, Beak Street