Golden Square: the quiet corner of Soho and where to eat

Golden Square is the quiet one. It sits at the western edge of Soho, a short step east of Regent Street, with Brewer Street a small block to the south. It is a mainly hard-surfaced garden square with a few mature trees and raised borders, ringed by classical office buildings. Today the buildings are home to many media, advertising and PR companies. Go on a weekday lunchtime for the office crowd on the benches, or early evening when it empties out and you can hear the statue think.

From Gelding Close to gentry

The ground was grazing land known as Gelding Close, and a notice board in the square says the name Golden probably derives from Gelding. Charles II approved building in 1673, after Christopher Wren, as Surveyor General, raised objections about unlicensed development, drainage and water supply. The notice board names the speculators John Emlyn and Isaac Symball.

According to Lookup London, the square first appeared in 1675, on Crown land leased by Sir William Pulteney, MP for Westminster, and was completed in 1707. The plans in the National Archives bear Wren's signature, but it is unclear whether he designed the square or only approved it, so the safest word is possibly Wren.

The first residents were gentry: a duchess, a bishop, army officers, a duke and several peers, among them the first Viscount Bolingbroke, a favourite of Queen Anne. It became a political and ambassadorial district. Number 23, built in 1684, was home to the Portuguese Ambassador from 1724 to 1747, and numbers 23 and 24 later housed the Bavarian Ambassador until 1788. There is a plaque at number 23. A 1720 description, quoted on the notice board, called it “a very handsome place railed round and gravelled with many very good houses inhabited by gentry”.

The Catholic church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory was destroyed in the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots of 1780 and rebuilt in 1788. It is still a Catholic church.

The statue and Mr Dickens

At the centre stands a Portland stone statue of George II, Grade II listed. Sources differ on the sculptor and the date, so say around the 1720s. Wikipedia says it came from Cannons House, and Lookup London says it was carved for the Duke of Chandos, a former resident, and moved here in 1753. The notice board adds that it is said to represent Charles II, which is a nice bit of doubt to carry around the railings.

By the 1750s the fashionable addresses had moved west to the Burlington estates. By 1839 Dickens could use the square in Nicholas Nickleby as the setting for Ralph Nickleby's gloomy house, with a “little wilderness of shrubs” watched over by a “mournful statue”. Stand by the statue at dusk and the description still fits, with the shrubs now tidier.

Where to eat nearby

The square itself is more for sitting than for supper, but three tables are within a minute or two of it.

Bébé Bob, 37 Golden Square

The spin-off of Bob Bob Ricard, with an Art Deco look and rotisserie chicken with caviar at the centre of the menu. Harden's dates it to September 2023, in the space once held by Folie. Order the chicken and caviar, and book ahead through the group's reservations page. Go for an early evening table when the square outside is calm.

Bob Bob Ricard, Upper James Street

Just south of the square, off Regent Street, this is an all-booth dining room, with Michelin listing it as Traditional British and Classic French. Its interiors take inspiration from the Orient Express, and Hot Dinners notes the “press for Champagne” buttons. Take a booth and press the button.

Bancone, Lower James Street

A fresh pasta restaurant with dining bars, an open kitchen and an ancient olive tree, just south of the square. Hot Dinners covered its 2019 opening as the second Bancone, after Covent Garden. A Tripadvisor reviewer recommends the silk handkerchiefs with walnut butter and confit egg yolk, so order those, and take a seat at the bar.

Getting there

Piccadilly Circus is the closest tube, roughly 250 metres south-south-west of the square. Enter from Brewer Street or the streets off Regent Street, and take a slow lap before you eat.