Bar Italia – Frith Street
Where the gay bikers parked
Bar Italia has been at 22 Frith Street since 1949, when Lou and Caterina Polledri opened it; their grandchildren run it now. Open 22 hours a day, it is one of the great Soho institutions – a long narrow room, a Gaggia machine, football on the television and a clientele that has always included everyone.
It is not a gay bar and never was. But on weekend mornings through the 1980s and 90s, London’s gay biker community gathered outside on their Harleys and Triumphs – the leather-jacket crowd who made this corner a meeting point for coffee before the day began. On a Saturday morning the bikes would arrive, the bar would fill with noise, and Soho would be exactly what it always was: a place where everyone fitted.