From the mid-1980s, Kettner’s restaurant in Soho was presided over by Peter Boizot as a place for debate and indulgence. The food might have been from the Pizza Express menu but the tablecloths were linen and the service exemplary. The champagne bar was exactly that, without being snobbishly exclusive. Eat cheap, drink and live well was his motto. On the walls hung Peter’s extraordinary collection of eccentric (if not always good) contemporary art. In the downstairs dining room a pianist offered show tunes and singers crooned. Peter saw it as an updated 18th-century coffee house – liberal in every sense of the word.
He held literary-cum-political lunches under the auspices of the short-lived New Democrat magazine, of which I was arts editor. In 1988 he allowed me to have the top room where the lunches were held for the launch of my first book of poems, then turfed us out at 10pm for what transpired to be Paddy Ashdown’s party for his election as leader of what became the Liberal Democrats. The poets, actors and artists (my lot) were soon back in the room with the MPs till the early hours.
Continue reading...