After more than 18 years, we closed Milk & Honey, our late-night drinking den in Soho, for the final time on Saturday. Death by curfew.
I can still remember everything about the first time I wandered into Milk & Honey in New York at the end of a very long night 20 years ago. I was writing a Manhattan cocktail safari for Esquire magazine and Dale DeGroff, America’s most celebrated bartender, was my guide. After 14 cocktails in seven bars we were the last men standing and Dale took me to the Lower East Side to meet Sasha Petraske, the stalwart owner of a tiny late-night joint that was the size of a railway carriage and called Milk & Honey.
A year later, Sasha and I opened a London branch which changed everything. I have never tired of the place. I’ve opened more than 40 bars, clubs and restaurants in five countries and visited many thousands more but I’ve never been anywhere for a drink that is better than the Red Room at Milk & Honey. I popped in on Friday and it was just wonderful.
During the pandemic we made adjustments — we had a smaller team (six instead of 15) and reduced hours (open three days, not six, and until 1am not 3am) — and were back open, up and running and loving it. It was different but buzzing like brand new.
Soho has been dead these past six months but we were part of it coming back to life. The streets were quiet but we were doing okay and it felt like we’d make it.
And then this curfew killed us. With last orders around 9.15pm, even opening an hour or so earlier won’t help. After 18 years, we are done. Milk & Honey London, the first recorded case of a bar dying of curfew.
