Soho clubs

Soho’s world-famous G-A-Y Bar has everything you’d expect: cheap drink offers, a young crowd and plenty of Britney. The G-A-Y night at Heaven gets the celebrity cameos, but this popular bar is still a shrine to queer pop idols, with nightly drinks promos every time they play a video from the current diva du jour. There’s also a women’s bar in the basement, called (delightfully) Girls Go Down – popular with flirty, studenty lesbians, loathed by most older women. G-A-Y bar’s plush late-night sibling, G-A-Y Late, is round the corner at 5 Goslett Yard.

Shockingly, this Soho basement bar is London’s only exclusively lesbian venue, and it takes this responsibility seriously. Run by the team behind Ku Bar, SHE has a comparable flair for laying on entertainment: as well as club nights, it regularly offers comedy, cabaret, karaoke and quiz evenings. Open Box, a monthly drag king talent contest hosted by scene heroes Adam All and Apple Derrières, is definitely worth popping in your Google Calendar.

Simon Hammerstein hit the scandalous jackpot with his New York club when it opened in 2007, combining flagrantly outrageous shows with high-rolling clientele and tales of behind-the-scenes controversy. Early in 2011, he opened the London branch on the site of the old Raymond Revue Bar to tabloid squawking. So what can you expect? For a start, you won't get in unless you have very deep pockets (table reservations are several thousand pounds) and/or know someone. If you do make it in, you'll see they've remodelled the place a treat, in a decadent-chocolate-box kind of way that seems to be to the taste of the mostly young, bouji clientele. The show is of a high technical standard, with mostly exclusive acts compered by mischievous MC Raven O. Some, especially the skills-based turns, are very strong; others tend to the titillating or have more production values than originality. The stand-out is the extraordinary Rose Wood, a transgendered performer whose pieces – generally heavy on nudity, violence and bodily fluids – aroused spluttering tabloid outrage but in fact bespeak a sophisticated, funny and deeply humane engagement with the context of the Box and the world beyond. 

This glitzy cocktail lounge and DJ bar, spread over two floors, isn’t a designated LGBT venue, but because of its location and laissez-faire ambience, anyone on the LGBT spectrum should feel right at home. The glam ground-floor bar attracts a fashion-conscious crowd, who sip cocktails among chandeliers, zebra-print banquettes and Venetian mirrors. A few ‘strays’ and dolled-up gal pals add colour. The large basement club and performance space hosts weekday cabaret and gets busy with the gay party crowd over the weekend.