Allied Breweries turned The Helvetia pub on Old Compton Street into the Soho Brasserie in 1984. The "Brazz" as it became known was a pioneer in offering small bites bar food alongside very affordable wines and cocktails. A popular meeting place for people working in advertising and publishing, one of its main attractions (besides the booze) was the food served up by chef Sue Miles. A central figure in London's "counter culture" movement in the 1960s she knew everyone, from the Beatles down, and was involved in such seminal events as the Albert Hall poetry reading of 1965 and the obscenity trial of Oz magazine of 1971. Later she turned her attention to restaurants - first at Food For Thought, a vegetarian restaurant in Covent Garden and then Didier in Little Venice. According to food writer Lindsay Bareham Sue Miles "was at the vanguard of the eighties restaurant revival, first at L’Escargot and later at Soho Brasserie, on the way nurturing or working with now familiar chefs Alastair Little, Rowley Leigh, Adam Robinson, Juliet Peston and Angela Dwyer." We think this menu is from the mid 1980s and is the first example in our collection of menu art designed on the then revolutionary Apple Macintosh which was launched in the UK in 1984. 

Courtesy Private Collection.