Drink on the Tube... in underground air raid shelter transformed into 1940s-themed bar Cahoots

Club bosses Charlie Gilkes and Duncan Stirling have replaced their Soho venue Disco with a post-World War Two Tube station-themed bar, complete with carriages, bunk beds and sandbags leftover from the Blitz
Blitz spirits: club bosses Charlie Gilkes and Duncan Stirling in Cahoots
Rod Kitson26 February 2015

Londoners will be able to drink on the Tube for the first time since the booze ban after an underground venue used as an air raid shelter was turned into a 1940s-themed bar.

Cahoots is the latest concept by club bosses Charlie Gilkes and Duncan Stirling, owners of the Bunga Bunga bar and the Margaret Thatcher-inspired Maggie’s nightclub.

The site, in the Kingly Court redevelopment off Carnaby Street, was formerly the pair’s Disco club, but is now a post-World War Two ‘Tube station’ complete with carriages, bunk beds and sandbags leftover from the Blitz.

Cahoots, which opens on Thursday March 5, will serve Dig for Victory-style cocktails with ingredients including beetroot, potato and peas, as well as ration book staples powdered milk and treacle.

Mr Stirling, 33, told the Standard: “The venue has a long history of being a nightclub. The former owner said it was used as an air raid shelter in the war and told us a German pilot shot down over London was brought here for one last night on the town before being thrown in the slammer.

“Our concept is: it’s 1946, London is being rebuilt after the Blitz. A group of scoundrels stumble across a disused Tube station used as an air raid shelter and start organising underground parties to try and rebuild the spirit of London.”

The bar's creators are also behind the Bunga Bunga club and Maggie's

The Inception group duo insisted the conversion was not due to failings at Disco, which they said is moving to another Soho site.

Gilkes, 30, added: “When we bought the site two years ago it was a pretty dead area with just retail – since then it has been redeveloped into a food court and there are queues at every restaurant.

“The area was more in need of a bar than a nightclub that would only trade three nights a week. This fits in much better.”

The west London-based pair also revealed they are taking over the Angel & Crown on St Martin’s Lane in Covent Garden, to turn into Fogg’s Tavern, a spin-off of their Mr Fogg’s club in Mayfair, to add to the capital’s “resurgent” bar scene.

“There is a real resurgence and trend for late-night bars at the moment,” Mr Gilkes said. “When we first started out six years ago New York was leading the bar scene, now I think London leads the way, and that’s very exciting.”

They also sought advice from the London Transport Museum for the details at Cahoots, and bought items from a “bloke on the Isle of Man who has made a career of selling old bits of Tube trains and stations”.

“He’s probably on holiday now, having sold us all the gear he has sold us,” Mr Stirling joked. “If there’s ever a Tube strike on, ours will be open.”

Gilkes, who reportedly once dated Pippa Middleton and had Prince Harry as a guest at his wedding, said: “Looking at it now it is almost believable that it is a Tube stop, and we might get the odd tourist coming down there trying to find their way back to the hotel thinking it is real.”

He bemoaned a “lack of talent” in the industry, and added: “Definitely too much money can stymie creativity. The recession generated more creativity. People had to think carefully about how to spend money – we did.

“The trouble with throwing money at things is that you get the same designers doing everything. You get a generic look. The same design companies doing everything.

“There’s a real trend in our industry of imitation. People see a bar that’s successful and they copy that old bar. There can be a slight lack of talent.”

Latest bar reviews

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Cahoots, Kingly Court, W1, opens on Thu Mar 5, cahoots-london.com

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