Bar Italia

The Polledri family opened Bar Italia in 1949 and the third generation — Antonio, Luigi and Veronica — pulls the shots today, in a room where the Gaggia gleams, the Rocky Marciano photographs have seniority, and the blue plaque above the door notes that John Logie Baird demonstrated television for the first time in this building in 1926. It opens at seven in the morning and closes at four the next one, which has made it the last respectable act of every Soho night for three-quarters of a century; Pulp closed an album with its name, and the espresso, in proper china, remains the argument. A second counter opened at the Outernet in January 2025, disclosed — the original neither notices nor cares.