West End churls

Cafe Monico, as if named by an illiterate playboy, is on Shaftesbury Avenue between The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and Les Mis, so if you want to be in an Asperger’s syndrome/-singing French revolutionary restaurant sandwich it is the café for you, and only for you. It is from Soho House, whose quest to make the whole of Britain a crèche-restaurant with table-tennis tables and photo booths for moronic remembrance goes on. There are more Soho House franchises now than Ivy franchises; even Chiswick has one. It is confusing, but if it upsets the media executive class, who must find new ponds to preen and fight in, I do not mind.

Except that Cafe Monico does not work. It aches for refinement but Shaftesbury Avenue is not refined, and Cafe Monico is not wondrous enough to look wondrously odd here; it lacks the charisma to set up shop in Soho and scream.