Caffè Nero (Soho)

Sweetly positioned corner café (Italian = caffè) offering good and reliable espresso-based hot and cold coffee drinks, with a view. Nero is a big, nationwide chain whose Soho outlet – with its all-important proximity to catwalk-like Old Compton St – would have you thinking it was a gay business what with the mostly male clientele sipping drinks at tables on the pavement and enjoying one of the gayest views in London. Nero's Soho rival Costa, previously just a bean's throw away, closed down in 2014, taking many gay and cruising coffee drinkers by surprise. An August 2015 refurbishment played havoc with the decor, resulting in a kind of industrial Victoriana. For the record, the first Nero opened in 1997 (in South Kensington).