Ku, WC2

Situated beneath Hippodrome Mansions, this is a late 19th century pub, originally the White Bear – once a Charrington’s house – later the Clock House, then the Polar Bear; by the early 1980s it was the White Bear again, part of the Henekey’s ‘Steak Bar’ chain and since 2004, an ‘award winning’ 550-person capacity gay bar called KU, with a midnight Sunday opening, then 3.00am for the rest of the week. Unsurprisingly, none of the original interior remains, with an interesting colourful terrazzo bar top with mirrors and integrated TV display to the rear. The floor is also terrazzo, but less colourful, much pink lighting (see photo), neon and video walls to the rear, playing videos of some pop diva, disco lights, then quite conventional modern tables and tubular steel chairs. Customers were surprisingly mixed, some obviously gay with so-called ‘fag hags’ in tow, my buzz cut and Harrington singling me out for attention by a member of staff with a cheery ‘Hello darling. Are you being served?’. Geared more towards cocktails, predictably there’s no cask, with just a limited fizz selection, the pièce de résistance – it’s all relative – being Blue Moon (£3.68 a half), with obligatory lump of orange bobbing about. As mentioned, it is slightly strange to find a bar of this nature in Chinatown rather than the ‘gay village’ around Old Compton Street/Wardour Street; it’s not for me of course, but at this end of Soho, it plugs a hole in the market.

Facebook page of Ku - www.facebook.com

Official site of Ku - ku-bar.co.uk

Official site of Ku - ku-bar.co.uk

Facebook page of Ku - www.facebook.com

Award winning gay bar with two blokes in vests and shorts doing the serving. No real ale and standard kegs. Bit surprised to find this in the middle of Chinatown.

An extremely camp gay bar with no real ale and a hostile attitude to non-gay drinkers. I wouldn’t bend over backwards to come here.