The French House is Soho’s most infamous pub. It is the London watering spot where an exiled de Gaulle supposedly wrote his call to arms, “À Tous les Français,” and where Dylan Thomas accidentally forgot the manuscript of Under Milk Wood. Dig around on the Internet and you’ll find a clip from Bastille Day, 1989, when the French House’s then landlord, Gaston Berlemont, retired after 37 years at the helm, and all of Soho came to celebrate his mustachioed tenure, including a swaying, drooling Francis Bacon, demonically drunk just shy of his 80th birthday.
Historically, I’ve found the pub’s insistence on serving beer in half-pints a little trying, and their regular clientele somewhat performative, but I’ve recently become friendly with the manager, Hilary Heath, and it’s a nice place to stand—no one really gets to sit—to drink jammy glasses of the house pinot noir at $9. Today, the pub is more rammed than usual, as it’s the start, and finish, for a very peculiar race.
