Jordan Page

London is a city renowned for its LGBTQ+ venues – whether you’re after a drag-fuelled Saturday night at Dalston Superstore or want to spend your Sunday mornings with a novel and cappuccino at The Common Press. And although more than half of the city’s queer venues closed between 2006 and 2022, new spaces continue to crop up, from Hackney’s new lesbian bar La Camionera to The Glory’s newest iteration, The Divine.   East London might be home to many of these new venues, but Soho – the historic heartbeat of London’s gay community – still offers an array of long-standing queer bars, pubs and venues. G-A-Y, Village Soho and the Duke Of Wellington are the first that spring to mind, but located on the corner of Frith Street and Old Compton Street sits something relatively unexpected. It’s a coffee shop, but not a queer-run independent. It’s an iconic gay landmark. It’s… a Caffè Nero? Customers of Nero, circa 2017Photograph: Afshin On first look, 43 Frith Street looks like any other Nero you’d find in the city: pre-packaged toasties sit in the fridge and remote-working customers are glued to their laptops, ignoring the cold dregs of their flat whites. Above the milk jugs, blue rolls and flavoured syrups cluttering the bar, there’s a faux chalkboard listing the latest summer specials. But the branch, which has called Soho its home since the ’90s, is so much more than the sum of its parts.   A place to be seen At any time of day (or night – it’s open until midnight on weekdays and as