The City of Quebec, Marylebone

The Quebec first opened in the run-up to World War II. At the height of The Blitz (so, I'm reliably informed), "Hello sailor!" was a common greeting at this ancient queer beer bar, as one strand of London society cemented the Special Relationship with America - whose off-duty Marines and GIs had more to offer than chewing gum and silk stockings. Back in the day,  'gay' was an adjective restricted to describing the jaunty Jacqmar silk scarf Mrs. Miniver wore to jolly up her make-do-and-mend frock, fashioned from a pair of brown curtains. It looked like curtains too for The Quebec - threatened with a future as another faceless fast food joint - until owners Greene King stepped in and saved the old girl, splashing a six-figure sum on a make over that drags the Quebec's tired decor into the 21st Century (just).
 At a time when gay bars are going down faster than a fluffer on Sean Cody's porn star penis, it's a welcome reprieve for (Nelly) 'the elephant's graveyard' - as I've oft heard the place referred to on account of its core punters' seniority. Marvel, as mouthy slappers such as Lola Lasagne, Baga Chipz or Vanity Von Glow strut their stuff onstage. Still got it? Shake a leg to Dolly, Dusty, Donna and Madonna in the Quebec's downstairs disco, open until 3am at weekends. When I say 'shake a leg', I'm reminded of an evening - circa Kylie, Mel and Kim - when a forlorn Glaswegian pal asked me to escort him there. That's 'escort' as in chaperone; I don't accept Amex. Recently dumped (again), he was out on a bender, hoping to be under one before the night was through. A crinkly screamer hobbled over to chat up chuckee chum who, on a there-but-for-the- grace-of-God basis, decided to humour the poor thing. Motioning downwards, the gummy old queen piped up with “My strap-on is giving me gip. You won't mind if I take it off?” ...and duly does, propping  his prosthetic lower left limb up against our table. Chuckee (mortified): “Nae mair drink for you, hen! You’re fuckin' legless." By the time I took my leave of them, they looked mighty cosy but, to this day, Chuckee swears he did not fuck Legless. 
At the new old Quebec, butch it up with draught TT Landlord or try dolly cocktails shaken by 'Delicious Dave'' (pictured, below) - cheap by West End standards (the drinks, not Dave!)
 "You'll love the Dainty Damsel" (a Sipsmith damson vodka Bellini) maintains a bright-eyed staffer, mistaking me for TOWIE's Bobby Norris or Gok Wan ("Liberace, more like!" - Editor). She also reckons I'll like the "really good Prosecco." At £48 quid a pop, I should hope so. "Show me!" I say. She points to a bottle of Bollinger. OMG! Vada the dizzy polone! That's polari, by the way. "Polari?" you say. Ask Biggins, Barrymore, a retired Romford riah zhoosher, or some other gnarly ol' Nancy!

12 Old Quebec Street W1H 7AF  www.facebook.com/CityOfQuebec

Photo: Greene King / Louise Jolley

The Light Lounge, Soho

Andy Mil at hit Soho cellar, Cocktail Trading Company, has created the list for this new 'boutique cocktail bar', 'hidden' (that'll be upstairs past the greeter) in a dog-legged room that was previously home to the flat (as in ambience) Champagne Lounge at Ku, the gay bar below still going strong despite Grindr obviating the need for cruising Toms to trawl bars. A pineapple and  almond (rum) martini and a tequila coconut and caraway sour pass muster. I'd have gone for Highlander - here, twisted by adding  cherry liqueur - but its advertised base puts me off: himbo-billboard-for-hire Davy Beckham's limply disappointing Haig Club is to scotch what Hendrick's is to gin. Price-wise, £11.50 feels ambitious for violets are Bblue (a twisted aviation) and vodka, prosecco peach and raspberry fizz. Tiffany blue high stools juxtaposed with a jet bar is a classic Art Deco-inspired combo but other elements - crystal bead curtain chandeliers, 70s silvery glam rock portraits of Marlene Dietrich and David Bowie, and another particularly lurid abstract wall-hanging are all a bit too Corrie's Carla Connor goes catalogue shopping to my tastes. Drinks are by and large on-the-London-money but, set to soul and disco, The Light Lounge somehow feels light years away from how Soho drinks now - more Craig David in a Brum hotel lounge circa Dido, Whitney and Britney.

1 Newport Place WC2H 7JR 7734 8329 thelightloungelondon.com 

Bar Titania, Soho

Will this latest gay/ straight friendly concept prove to be a winner at a hostile site that, in fairly rapid succession, has seen off numerous passing fancies,  among them Geisha, Piano Lounge and Longshots? Let's just say, I wish the owners luck but won't be betting my best Turnbull and Asser double cuff on it. Like the FTSE's miners, gay bars' stock is low these days. I blame social media. Like Video Killed The Radio Stars, Grindr and Gaydar killed the gay bars. Let's face it; If a thrusting blade aims to cop off, why hang around in bars hawking his harris when he can show it online and have hot top - 10 Inches/ cut/ into uniform, red, yellow and Paris Hilton - Hector from Honduras's cock up his tail in less time than it takes a barman to make a Carol Channing cocktail? Hoping to strike it lucky on the gay bar scene, Titania's vision is a mere cosmetic rehash of what  went before.  Conspiring against them is the space's tricky layout - a narrow bar in a narrow corridor serving a claustrophobic windowless box-room beyond and, upstairs, a vast lounge detached from any downstairs buzz....should there ever be any. Overseen by the Shakespearian Queen herself -  imagined in a mural that I can't imagine anyone is about to tear down, banking on auctioning it, like a Banksy, for six figures - here's a gauche mix of lumpen furniture, clichéd feature floral wallpaper/ chandelier combo and, in that airy upstairs cream space, bland cream seating groups, cream candles and display table units (in cream) in which copies of Boyz and Pride await your perusal. What was the design brief, I wonder? A gay Guildford GUM clinic's reception room? If the interior is not your bag, you can groove along to Barbara Bush's disco ditties -no, not Dubya's mummy; a bloke from Battersea sporting fake titties, I'm told. If Babs is not your bag, enjoy your £6.95 cosmo or caipirinha - or a bottle of Ayala (£45) if you're a piss elegant poseur - in Titania's ‘beautiful outside  space with relaxed seating, candlelight and stunning plants' - aka a dreary covered patio overlooking fume-choked, charmless Charing Cross Road. I'm confused. Weren't gay bars once the most cutting-edge joints in town? Or was that - like Rock Hudson's image as
 as a straight stud muffin -  a load of old bollocks too? As it is, another old closet case springs to mind here, currently being admirably played in cinemas by Michael Douglas. And if you reckon Titiania's Liberace-lite pose will pull in the punters in their gazillions, then you  might be 'away with the fairies' as my grandmother used to say.  

75 Charing Cross Road WC2H 0NE www.facebook.com/pages/Bar-Titania/476857759053491

KCz ( formerly SofaKingCool), Soho

‘Have you tried Sofa King Cool?’ asks a pal. I’m affronted. Do I look like I'm in the market for a leatherette three-piece suite and matching pouffe from some DFS-clone off the North Circular? Sofa King Cool - say it quickly if, like me, you’re a bit slow on the uptake - is Soho's 'modern newest gay concept venue', it transpires. It promises a ‘cosy setting for wanna-be-lovers to fawn over each other’ and a ‘trendy retro feel.’ That'll be 1990 revisited, when, If easyJet did VIP lounges, I imagine they’d have looked like this. All orange, black and shiny with ‘high poseur tables’, stylistically, it's a bit ‘gay’... in the Peckham patois sense of the word. All shiny sculpted cheekbones and matching hair, does our retro-tastic bartender moonlight in a New Kids on the Block tribute band when not making margaritas, I wonder? Served with £4-a-pop bites -  calamari with spicy mayo, fish goujons with chilli mayo and food last deemed 'fancy' when Simon Mayo was still a rookie DJ - ‘professionally prepared cocktails’ include Manhattan, Million Dollar Mojito (£8) and Lavender Martini. Sex on the Beach, also appears: the déclassé Benidorm binge-drinker’s favourite might help lubricate Leroy, a junior crimper at suburban salon Curl Up and Dye - the ‘wanna-be-lover’ some dodgy sugar daddy aims to have his wicked way with, rating him ‘sofa king horny.’ 

23 Frith Street, W1D 4RR 7734 3268 https://www.facebook.com/pages/SofaKingCool/195734540558912 

Postscript: a mere three months after launching, it seems SofaKingCool has singularly failed to pull the Soho Cool. How else to explain its transformation, according to its female CEO, into a "womens only resteraunt (sic) and bar." She tells the Standard newspaper the new venture is to be 'a place .. by women for women...(but) not just for gay women. Networking is the main thing.”  Hmmm why am I thinking Candy Bar crossed with spendy dames-only members club Grace (yours to access for £5,500 pa) in Belgravia? This niche market is notoriously tricky to call. As a DJ in my 20s, I laughed in the face of a straight Northern male club owner who planned to cash in, launching 'Lez Dawson's' - a putative Pimlico gay club for big girls and their fanciers. The sisterhood was not amused: Lez's lasted two weeks. In December, the Canadian rugby-playing female CEO of NotSofaKingCool's replacement canvassed the Twitterati for suggestions as to what sort of bar/ restaurant 'da girls' might be currently hankering after. Given the CEO's idea of a 'yummy meal' (see pic right and at @KCGATES ) coupled with the new venue's  handle "KC'z", what modern wimmin want now, presumably, is something that sounds like a Doncaster dykes disko circa The Hitman and Her.

Post-postscript: 9.15 pm, a wet Thursday night in February 2013: an animated KC is out on Old Compton Street pressing 2-4-1 promo flyers on passers-by like a desperate Playa del Ingles tout. We take one and venture into her kingdom (queendom?). The place looks much the same as before only with even less punters. We leave. Where is the Sunshine Band when KC needs you most?

Post-post-postscript: March 2013. News reaches me that KC'z latest guise is to be as a restaurant called LABELS - which sounds more like a naff designer boutique in Burnley circa Hazell Dean. Apparently, one of its dishes is to be breaded mushrooms with garlic mayo. make that circa early Helen Shapiro....the sort of nice young girl KC'z older target audience might remember fondly. 

Piano, Soho (CLOSED see BAR TITANIA)

These Chinatown premises have seen off a succession of swish cocktail lounges and even swishier gay bars including Geisha, an ill-fated short-lived oriental cocktail lounge aimed at older chaps looking for a bit of Gok, as far as I could tell when I visited. But Kensington's High Street's original Piano's second fiddle seems to be hitting the right notes with a theatrical crowd drawn to its effervescent brand of camp show tunes at the old joanna. Say Hello Dolly to cocktails from £9.50. White lady, Moscow mule, Singapore sling and sidecar are suitably retro rinses for roisterous rat pack singalongs. Owner Bazz Norton is a jazz pianist and ex-cruise ship crooner whose bona sense of humour belongs in a 1960s smut-com featuring Sid James and Hattie Jacques - Carry On Tinkling, perhaps.  Hence, ‘Pianist Envy’ and champagne cocktail, Piano Pick-me-up - an open invitation to a skint chorus boy on the make? A limited selection of wines from £4.50 and champagne from £8.50 a glass are available but eats are restricted to crisps and nuts, unless you pre-order buffet bites for parties of 10 or more. Punters range from elfin boys to a fabulous dame I took to be Ethel Merman until I was informed the curtain had finally fallen on her act. Taking her old hit if My Friends Could See Me Now to extremes, maybe the old trouper had herself stuffed to be wheeled around town by adoring fans? The idiosyncratic Piano is a fun night out in a jazz hands/ John Barrowman kind of way. Prepare to make new friends meet fellow closet Judy Garland fans and razzle dazzle 'em.

75 Charing Cross Road WC2H 0NE 7287 7699 www.pianosoho.com 

Circa, Soho

There was a time - twixt Yazz and Yazoo - when every second new watering hole that opened was a gay bar. Now, such launches are as rare as a hair on a gym-buffed Kylie worshiper's waxed back sack and crack. Bucking the trend, is Circa whose presence in what was formerly Jrink - a name so naff, it deserved to go bust - I had missed. Note to self: must get out more - limiting it to six nights a week has left me so out of the fruit loop. Nailing the myth that 'benders' are innately more stylish than 'breeders' - terms borrowed from a gay hairdresser of my acquaintance, may I add, before the green ink brigade starts accusing me of homophobia - Circa's curious design is more Justin and Colin than David Collins. Was signing off on a mood board that apparently included 60’s discotheque, Downton Abbey, Miami Vice ‘style’ bar and folksy Greenwich Village tavern really such a good idea?  Circa's mish-mashy-meh interior echoes its diverse range of punters: PC slaves; S&M slaves in M&S suiting; slaves to fashion as dictated by mypartnerDavidFurnish, TOWIE Harry clones, caustic Lauren Harries tribute acts and Superdry guys fresh from the gym, pre-loading on shots  ahead of some action. Bar staff, friendly enough souls unlike at various rival gay holes I could mention (drop the attitude, girlfriend!) have possibly been picked more for their torsos than any ability to mix a top drawer Vieux Carré (cocktails are available). The boyz do their best, doling out draught Kro’, wines from £11 and bubbles from around £20 until 1 am - by which time, any sausage in serious need of some schlong, will have long since logged onto Gaydar - the reason gay bars seem to be losing their pulling power of yore, I suspect.
62 Frith St. W1 7734 6826 www.circasoho.com 

(find more reviews at www.squaremeal.co.uk)

New Bloomsbury Set, Fitzrovia

It’s a fallacy that all gay men are inherently stylish: Graham Norton; Gok Wan; David Furnish; cool? And, having marveled at their makeovers, what mentalist would let Justin and Colin loose on their living room? Are Glasgow’s MDF queens behind New Bloomsbury Set, London’s latest gay bar, I wonder? Owners Tom & Jerry (yes, really!) are old drinking partners (but not 'partner' partners, they tell me, should anyone fancy having a crack) who decided one night to open their own bar rather than subsidise somebody else's business, despite having no background in the industry. (Free tip: don't drink the profits, guys!) They claim its amateurish Victoriana/ 80s hi-tech/ 60’s repro randomness is the creation of a mate. Who knew Helen Keller was still alive? What does impress is the absence of the chippy gymbo attitude that mars some cruisy joints; NBS could be a by-word-of-mouth house party, the sort of impromptu evening where you end up thinking ‘Who are these people? How did I get here?’ And, given its suburban vibe, ‘Help! How do I get home from Uxbridge at 4 am?’ Without advertising, Tom, or is it Jerry, says early adopters have cottoned on via Facebook, adding ‘don’t tell anyone, but Wednesdays are “unofficial lesbian night”’ So, of course, I won’t. Drinks are fair at £3.50 for Budvar and £7.50 for a Bloomsbury Sidecar - a ginny twist on the original and the music is, well, like nothing you’ll find on my iPod. Feel-real hands-in-the-air shake-ya-disco-tits house and some Israeli punter doing covers of the Carpenters, as I recall it. The boys aspire to match Friendly Society, Soho’s most stylish gay bar owned and designed by...Michael and the divine Maria, a straight couple!

76 Marchmont Street WC1 7383 3084www.newbloomsburyset.co.uk