Chinatown, London

Pinoli's Italian Restaurant was an Italian restaurant owned by Carlo Pinoli at 17 Wardour Street in what was then the Little Italy area of London's Soho district, with another frontage on Rupert Street. It was founded in the 1890s.Pinoli's was known for good food at low prices, and was popular with celebrities, journalists and politicians.The Magic Circle was founded in Pinoli's in 1905. There is now a blue plaque to celebrate the occasion.Pinoli became a British citizen in 1906, and died in 1927. He is buried in Brompton Cemetery. Pinoli's closed in 1949.The location of Pinoli's restaurant is now part of London's Chinatown. The name 'Pinoli' is still visible at the top of the building frontage in Wardour Street.

The Swiss Centre was a popular tourist attraction on the edge of Coventry Street, London, at its junction with Leicester Square. The 14 storey building was both a showcase for Switzerland and its products, and a trade and commercial centre that featured a Swiss bank, tourist office, a chocolate and souvenir shop, a Swissair ticket office, a cafe and several Swiss themed restaurants which were located in the basement.It was designed by David Aberdeen and built by John Laing & Son and Token Construction Company Limited between 1963 and 1966, to include a podium above the shops located at street level, and an 11 storey tower block with office floors, residential spaces, a penthouse, a viewing gallery and a plant room.Over the years the connection with Switzerland faded out: several shops remained vacant, and British souvenir stalls took over the commercial spaces from the late nineties. The building did not fit its purpose anymore nor with the new intended design for an improved pedestrian square. The chimes were last played on 21 September 2007, and the Centre was finally demolished in 2008. Two totem columns, one displaying the Helvetic cantons insignia, and the other a large carillon clock composed of 23 bells, were preserved in the western section of the square that was finally renamed Swiss Court, in order to retain an element of Swiss heritage.The glockenspiel, redesigned and restored by the clockmakers Smith of Derby was returned in November 2011, three years after the building's demolition.At the time of the building's demolition, it was intended that a hotel would be constructed on the site. The site (bordered by Lisle Street, Leicester Street, Swiss Court and Wardour Street) was redeveloped and now contains M&M's World in the location on Leicester Square and was opened in June 2011. The W Hotel, with its entrance on Wardour Street, takes up the north part of the site and upper levels.

Mont Blanc Restaurant is a former restaurant in London where leading writers including Hilaire Belloc, G. K. Chesterton, Joseph Conrad and John Galsworthy met regularly in the early years of the 20th century.

Lee Ho Fook was a Chinese restaurant located in Chinatown, London at 15–16 Gerrard Street. It was previously located at 4 Macclesfield Street. In 1974, it became the first Chinese restaurant in the United Kingdom to be awarded a Michelin Star. The restaurant was referenced in the lyrics of 1978 song "Werewolves of London" by Warren Zevon.Lee Ho Fook closed in 2008, being replaced by another restaurant called Golden Harvest. That was then replaced by Dumplings' Legend, which specialises in soup-filled dumplings.

The Brain was a house and techno music venue in Soho, London. It was located on the former premises of the Apollo Club on 11 Wardour Street. The Brain was founded in 1989 by Sean McLusky and Mark 'Wigan' Williams. Several now famous DJs and producers played at the club, including Norman Cook, Orbital, Leftfield, Billy Nasty, Goldie, Moby, Graeme Park, The Shamen, Mixmaster Morris, Ariel, Andrew Weatherall, and A Guy Called Gerald. At the time there was little actual live performance on the techno scene (this would change later with the advent of raves). The Brain encouraged live sets and P.As at a time when only mainstream house music used vocals on tracks. The club is also famous for the eclectic crowd it attracted, including the likes of; Boy George, Gilles Peterson, Bobby Gillespie, Chemical Brothers, Rankin (photographer) and Jefferson Hack founders of Dazed & Confused (magazine), Paul Oakenfold, John Galliano, Rifat Ozbek, Gavin Rossdale from Bush (British band), sommelier Jamie Drummond, artists Olly and Suzi, Trip City (novel) author Trevor Miller, Tim Simenon, Neneh Cherry, Mark Moore, George Michael, The Farm, Happy Mondays, The Stone Roses, Robert Elms, editor of The Face Sheryl Garrett, founder of Loaded (magazine) James Brown, Jonathan Pocock, Michael Sale, Simon Woodruff and Ozwald Boateng. Global celebrities like Christy Turlington, Brigitte Nielsen, and Matt Dillon were also spotted inside the venue.Sean McLusky went on to set up (the now defunct) Brainiak Records with Tim Fielding releasing music by such early UK electronic heroes as Ultramarine and Pete Lazonby, as well as legendary compilation albums Live at the Brain - Volumes One and Two, B-Sides and The Best of Brainiak. In the early and mid-1990s Sean McLusky masterminded various seminal London clubs and venues including; Love Ranch at Maximus with Mark Wigan, Club UK, The Scala (club) in King's Cross, and the multi-faceted Sonic Mook Experiment. In 1994 Tim Fielding co-founded Mr C's London nightclub The End.

Home was a music venue and nightclub located at 1 Leicester Square in central London. Resident DJ, Paul Oakenfold, played the main room on the third floor. Bar managed by Joseph Loveland and Steven Schroder. It was closed by Westminster Council in late March 2001 due to alleged evidence of open drug-dealing occurring within the club despite its famously tough door checks. The club went into receivership shortly after it was closed. It was part of the Home nightclub chain owned by Big Beats, including the clubs in Sydney and London, as well as the Homelands outdoor festivals. The decline of the club started earlier however due to Westminster council denying the club a 6am licence.

Gooseberry Sound Studios, also known as just Gooseberry Studios, were recording studios at 19 Gerrard Street, Chinatown, London, located in a cellar underneath a dental practice.The studio was owned by Peter Houghton and was known in its early days for its particularly cheap rates. This affordability made it popular with reggae artists and punk bands wanting to make cheap demos.

Gerrard Street（Chinese: 爵祿街; pinyin: Juélù Jiē）is a street in the West End of London, in the Chinatown area. The street was built between 1677 and 1685 and originally named Gerrard Street after the military leader Charles Gerard, 1st Earl of Macclesfield who owned the land and used it as a training area. It was developed by the physician Nicholas Barbon. By the mid-18th century, it was known more for its coffee houses and taverns than as a place of residence.

The Flamingo Club was a jazz nightclub in Soho, London, between 1952 and 1969. It was located at 33–37 Wardour Street from 1957 onwards and played an important role in the development of British rhythm and blues and modern jazz. During the 1960s, the Flamingo was one of the first clubs to employ fully amplified stage sound and used sound systems provided by ska musicians from the Caribbean. The club had a wide social appeal and was a favourite haunt for musicians, including The Who.No 37 Wardour Street was previously the address of the Shim Sham Club, which opened in 1935 and was known as "London's miniature Harlem".

Leicester House was a large aristocratic townhouse in Westminster, London, to the north of where Leicester Square now is. Built by the Earl of Leicester and completed in 1635, it was later occupied by Elizabeth Stuart, a former Queen of Bohemia, and by the Hanoverian Princess of Wales. From 1775 to 1788, the Leverian collection was on display in Leicester House. The house was sold and demolished in 1791.

De Hems is a café, pub and oyster-house in the Chinatown area of London just off Shaftesbury Avenue. It made its name purveying oysters and now sells beers from the Low countries such as Grolsch and Heineken with Dutch food such as bitterballen and frikandellen.It is on the site of the Horse & Dolphin coaching inn which was built in 1685 and had been owned by bare-knuckle boxer Bill 'The Black Terror' Richmond in the early 19th century. This was rebuilt in 1890 by the accomplished pub architects, Saville and Martin, for the publican, Mr Crimmen. It was renamed The Macclesfield, being in Macclesfield Street, and was soon leased by a retired Dutch sea captain called "Papa" De Hem who ran it as an oyster-house, charging a shilling and fourpence ha'penny for a serving. It was patronised by fin-de-siècle literati such as the poet Swinburne, who travelled 10 miles daily to eat oysters at the long marble bar, and George Sims who wrote a quatrain in praise: When oysters to September yield,and grace the grotto'd Macclesfield,I will be there, my dear De Hem,to wish you well and sample them.The rhyme alludes to the common proverb that it is only safe to eat oysters when there is an R in the name of the month — after the hot summer months from May to August. The grotto referred to was The Shell Room upstairs, created from the discarded oyster shells which decorated its walls — some 300,000 at their peak. Only a few now remain but the bar now claims to sell a similar number of pints of Oranjeboom each year. In the early 20th century, literary figures such as Clemence Dane continued to purchase the establishment's oysters, stout and champagne for their theatrical celebrations. In the 1920s, it became the hangout of gangsters too. When World War I started, patriotic Papa De Hem gave his staff £50 each to return to their threatened country. During World War II, after Holland actually fell to the German invasion, Dutch resistance exiles then met regularly at the pub which became their unofficial headquarters. Another patron at that time was the notorious spy, Kim Philby, who was friendly with the chef, who wore a tall white hat.In 1959, it was renamed De Hems in honour of the captain and then, in the 1960s, it became popular with music industry people such as Alan Price, Georgie Fame and Andrew Loog Oldham, manager of the Rolling Stones. At the turn of the new century, the venue hosted a comedy club — the Oranje Boom-Boom Cabaret — which included the debut of The Mighty Boosh.In the early 21st century, De Hems was popular as a place to celebrate and follow the successful Dutch football team. During the 2010 World Cup, hundreds of fans had to be turned away and manager Sian Blair had to hire a security staff of seven bouncers for the occasion. The upstairs and downstairs bars each accommodated a hundred cheerful revellers for these big matches.In July 2015, the venue began hosting a new comedy club, Linde Boom Boom Comedy Night,.

The statue of Charlie Chaplin in Leicester Square, London, is a work of 1979 by the sculptor John Doubleday. It portrays the actor, comedian and filmmaker in his best-known role, as The Tramp. A memorial to Chaplin in the city of his birth was proposed on 25 December 1977, soon after Chaplin's death, by Illtyd Harrington, the leader of the opposition in the Greater London Council. Initial plans for a memorial in the Elephant and Castle, in South London where Chaplin spent his early years, were dropped and instead Leicester Square, at the centre of London's entertainment district, became the preferred location for the work.The bronze statue was first unveiled on 16 April 1981 (the 92nd anniversary of Chaplin's birth) at its original site, on the south-western corner of the square, by the actor Sir Ralph Richardson. An inscription on the plinth read THE COMIC GENIUS/ WHO GAVE PLEASURE/ TO SO MANY. The following year a slightly modified version was erected in the Swiss town of Vevey, which had been Chaplin's home from 1952 until his death. Following a refurbishment of Leicester Square in 1989–1992, the statue was moved to a site north of the statue of William Shakespeare, the square's centrepiece.In a later refurbishment of 2010–2012 Chaplin's statue was removed altogether, together with busts of William Hogarth, John Hunter, Sir Isaac Newton and Sir Joshua Reynolds. The statue was installed in a nearby street, Leicester Place, in 2013. This was in order to prevent damage to the sculpture during improvement works. In 2016 it returned to Leicester Square and was re-unveiled on Chaplin's birthday.