The FrenchHouse

Opened as the York Minster in 1891, run by the Belgian Berlemont family from 1914 to 1989 — de Gaulle drank here in exile, as did everyone Soho ever ruined or made — and kept since by Lesley Lewis, who marked thirty-six years as landlady in 2025. The rules are the point: beer and wine in halves only (except one charity day a year), no music, no television, no phones, conversation compulsory by default. CAMRA rates the interior two stars of very special national historic interest and records the operator, accurately, as independent; the surveyors were in as recently as this week. Soho's memory lives at 49 Dean Street and takes cash and cards.