10th December 2007
Louder
That rating's two for the booze, five for the atmosphere, clientele.
The Intrepid Fox is a metal, goth, punk (real, not American boy band) and rock pub at the very core of London.
The actual booze on offer in this new locale is, as before in the Soho days, pretty uninspiring. You'd be missing the point though, if it was purely for the quality of alcohol that you were to attend. There is always more to a pub than the booze, and the booze is definitely not why people come here. And anyway, after a few in good company, it all becomes so much more palatable... The barstaff however are often a delight and very much an active part of the whole.
The iFox retains semi-legendary status amongst the rawk community but is often completely unknown outside of that, regardless of having been sat in the middle of London for decades. People have literally travelled thousands of miles to go to the iFox. True most of those were on holiday, but if they were metal/gofff/punk fans they KNEW of this place and made a bee-line for it. Girls from Brazil, Guys from Norway. The Intrepid Fox exudes a particular earthy splendour that has attracted its tribe from wherever they be, whomsoever they may be.
Friday and Saturday nights can be severely oversubscribed and, central London or not, it becomes a bit of a regulars-only thing. Though not strictly. But the door-staff used on these occasions have been known to be stupid enough to turn people away if they don't recognise them, or for 'not looking metal enough.' Which would mean I probably wouldn't get in on a Saturday night, regardless of infrequent but joyous attendance for half a decade now. the bar staff may recognise me but the bouncers wouldn't. It's a bit crap that the door policy should be style over content at the weekends. Daytimes mid-week however are less hectic and anyone is welcome. However there is an ironic dress code. No football colours (yay! anti-chav action!) and no ties. Well, not around one's neck anyway.
Named for the 18th century Whig member of Parliament Charles James Fox - a noted defender of liberal values and human rights and wearer of loud, unconventional clothing; a tad before his time - there was a pub of that name standing on the site of 97-99 wardour Street, Soho for over two hundred years. Then overnight, the blight of the post-Thatcher era fell upon this haven of rock history and stately debauchery; the property developers moved in...
Things looked bad. With less than a month's notice, the landlord, staff and regulars and supporters of the iFox were left flustered and angry, but not disheartened. Pat, the landlord wasn't going to let it go completely. The property, the original historic site, may have already been stolen out from under the feet of the cognoscenti in favour of ever-more yuppie flats in the ever-more sanitised and over-priced Soho, but that didn't mean the IDEAL of the iFox had to die as well. Within a few short months Pat and the core staff had acquired the license for the former Conservatory, a physically very different tri-level bar in St Giles High Street, under the shadow of Centre Point. Formerly a LGB bar, the central location and extra space made it ideal to encourage the old crowd back and to indeed bring in more casual trade. The larger size even meant there might be a chance of getting a seat of an evening...
It doesn't look the same from the outside. The old iFox was a definite dark-room pub. This is a glass, glass, and more glass-fronted bar externally (hence the old name). However inside, it's adopted the gravitas, ambience and soul of the original, as the clientele has slid right in, like a well-lubed rat up a drainpipe, with alacrity and eagerness. Bringing along the key decor and furnishings of the original helped; can't live without a ten-legged spider. Fittingly, it also boasts it's very own Hammer-House-Of-Horror church directly opposite; St Giles.
So if you like long hair, death-by-cleavage corsetry and stilettos (and that's just the blokes) accompanied by LOUD rawk music and a happily drunk heaving throng of metalheads and goth girls then look no further than the multi-floored crazed and contused iFox.
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(4/4 found this review helpful)
