So Over SoHo

Once upon a time, SoHo was the thinking man’s Lan Kwai Fong. If LKF was for tourists, flight crews and international school kids, the bars and restaurants of SoHo were purer dens of gentler iniquity. SoHo people were five years older and at least two years wiser. They wanted a good drink without the yelling, the tottering and the smashed glasses rolling downhill. SoHo was the “good” Lan Kwai, and if you spent time there you were—at the very least—not a total disgrace.

 

These days? Not so much. That holy trinity of streets—Staunton, Elgin, Peel—has thrown aside its cool. It’s a trinity of mediocrity now. Average food for over-average prices? SoHo’s got you covered. A pint of beer starting at $80? Welcome, friend. Stay until your credit card is maxed out, in approximately three drinks’ time.

 

“A lot of my regular customers all have this complaint: why doesn’t Peel Street look like Peel Street anymore? Why doesn’t SoHo look like SoHo anymore?” says Joyce Peng of jazz bar Peel Fresco (49 Peel St., Central, 2540-2046). “In any city, ‘SoHo’ means cool, artistic. There are galleries, tea houses, movie theaters. Before, SoHo had a lot of local industries: printing houses, metal places, warehouses, shoe repairers. But now it’s more like a second Lan Kwai Fong.” Too much of the bad and not enough of the good; SoHo has turned into a strip of restaurants which blend easily into each other, punctuated with the occasional, always empty, boutique.