Bar Italia is an Italian café located on Frith Street in the

Soho SoHo, short for "South of Houston Street, Houston Street", is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, art installations such as The Wall ...

district of

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

Location and notable events

On 26 January 1926,

John Logie Baird John Logie Baird (; 13 August 188814 June 1946) was a Scottish inventor, electrical engineer, and innovator who demonstrated the world's first mechanical Mechanical television, television system on 26 January 1926. He went on to invent the fi ...

gave the first public demonstration of

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

at 22 Frith Street, the building where Bar Italia is located. The

blue plaque A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom, and certain other countries and territories, to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving a ...

above the front door commemorates this event. Bar Italia in its present form was opened as a café in 1949 by the Polledri family, and is still owned by Veronica and Anthony Polledri today.

In popular culture

Bar Italia inspired the song of the same name by the band Pulp, which is the last track of their 1995 album '' Different Class''. The song describes the cafe as "round the corner in Soho" and "where all the broken people go." In November 2010, it was announced that Dave Stewart and Ian La Frenais were writing a stage musical about the cafe which will be called Bar Italia. Stewart was quoted as saying, "This coffee shop is very small but what goes on in there is as big as the world." In July 2011, British artist Ed Gray unveiled a painting of Bar Italia featuring patrons

Rupert Everett Rupert James Hector Everett (; born 29 May 1959) is an English actor. He first came to public attention in 1981 when he was cast in Julian Mitchell's play and subsequent film '' Another Country'' (1984) as a gay pupil at an English public scho ...

and

John Hurt Sir John Vincent Hurt (22 January 1940 – 28 January 2017) was an English actor. Regarded as one of the finest actors of his time and known for the "most distinctive voice in Cinema of the United Kingdom, Britain", he was described by David Ly ...

. It now hangs in the cafe's window. In 2016 Carl Randall painted the portrait of Movie Producer Jeremy Thomas standing in front of Bar Italia, as part of the artist's 'London Portraits' series, where he asked various cultural figures to choose a place in London for the backdrop of their portraits. In an interview Thomas explained he chose Bar Italia for this portrait "because I like being there, I go there regularly, I feel comfortable there....theres a bohemianism in this place and its full of memories of mine since I was a lad". A print of the painting is hanging on the cafe's wall. Formed in 2019, the British alternative rock band Bar Italia named themselves after the café.

Awards

Bar Italia was awarded the 2010 London Lifestyle Award for London Coffee Shop of the Year.

References

Coffeehouses and cafés in London Restaurants in London Restaurants established in 1949 Soho, London 1949 establishments in England 1949 in London {{Restaurants in London