Glasshouse Street Demolition – A Piece of British-Chinese Heritage Lost in Central London

Posted: April 21st, 2021 | 5 Comments »

A significant, if little known, piece of British-Chinese heritage disappeared from the map recently in central London. I had noticed some time back, prior to the pandemic, that there had been rather a lot of major clearance on the junction of Shaftesbury Avenue and Denman Street. Walking across Piccadilly Circus this week i noticed that the entire triangular block bordered by Shaftesbury Avenue, Denman Street and the pedestrianised Glasshouse Street, which runs northwest off Piccadilly Circus has been cleared for a new development. This is part of the general (and sadly ongoing) gutting and destruction of Soho between Shaftesbury Avenue, Charing Cross Road, Regent Street and Oxford Street that has been continuing for some years now causing destruction and heritage loss as far as over Charing Cross Road in Denmark Street (once London’s Little Tokyo).

What might not be noticed in this mass clearance (to allow the property developers in to build God only knows what) is that the site of the West End’s first Chinese restaurant (arguably) has gone entirely and for good. The building that comprised 4-6 Glasshouse Street has been demolished. It first opened as a Chinese restaurant in 1909 as this article entitled LONDON’S CHINESE RESTAURANTS in The Queenslander newspaper from July 21^st 1932 indicates:

IF we start from the centre of the West-End of London, setting out from Piccadilly Circus, we can take in all the Chinese restaurants of the West-End within half an hour’s walk (writes Townley Searle in his book, “Strange News from China”). The Chinese Restaurant in Piccadilly Circus was one, if not the first, to open in their neighbourhood. It was started in 1909 by Mr. Chang Choy, and has continued for 22 years. The premises are, of cource, the most centrally situated of any, and consist of the upper floors of 4 Glasshouse Street. Each floor is decorated in approved Chinese style, in which the Chinese lantern predominates. The food is excellent, as it is in every Chinese restaurant, and if one knows “what to order” there can be no question of disappointment.

I’m afraid i do not have a picture of The Chinese Restaurant – though if anyone does please do get in touch! By the 1930s The Chinese Restaurant was next to several other “ethnic” restaurants including Doveed, a Jewish kosher establishment opened in 1937. The Chinese Restaurant attracted smart shoppers around Regent Street and Piccadilly with tables on the first floor that looked out onto the street and became places to see and be seen. The restaurant claimed to specialise in imperial banquet cuisine, but required at least half a day’s notice to dine and a deposit in advance to cover the purchase of the ingredients. Still, despite the bother, the 1937 edition of Where to Dine in London declared that, “Englishmen who have spent their lives in the East” appreciate the traditional menu. In his 1938 novel Murphy, Samuel Beckett, has his character Neary, an eccentric visiting London from Cork, eat in “…a Chinese restaurant on Glasshouse Street” which perhaps the writer himself knew?

Some time after WW2 The Chinese Restaurant morphed into the Cathay Chinese Restaurant – and that, courtesy of the London Picture Archive, we do have a picture of. Later still, and in it’s last incarnation, it became a cocktail bar called jewel, still using the first floor windows as great people watching seats. By this time its Chinese connection was long gone (except perhaps having a lychee martini on the menu). And now the entire building is gone and with it a key moment in the history of the Chinese in the West End…

---

---