I work around the corner from Old Compton Street and am partial to a Friday portion of fish and chips from the fabulous Poppies restaurant on that street. Poppies, a welcome addition to the neighbourhood, is a relative newcomer. It occupies two old premises, one of which, no. 59 Old Compton Street, used to be the famous 2i’s coffee bar that was the very place that a young Cliff Richard was discovered in the 1950’s. Holy ground indeed, pop pickers.
Old Compton Street has changed quite a lot since the 1950’s. It is now, perhaps, the most celebrated thoroughfare of Gay London, with numerous bars, shops and coffee houses aimed primarily at a gay clientele. One place that Cliff might recognise, were he to take a sentimental journey around his old haunts is the italian deli at no. 61 Old Compton Street, I Camisa & Son. The Camisa family has run delis in Soho since the 1920’s and would surely have been a name that Cliff would have known. According to their website, I Camisa & Son provided – and continues to provide to this day – “a real inimitable taste and feel of Italy, especially that of a local Italian ‘salumeria’ or ‘generi alimentari”.
I can swear to that. I joined the queue of Italians lined up outside I Camisa & Son on a cold wet morning just before Christmas. Inside the shop was warm and smelt of cheese and hams and coffee and spices. Heavenly. The customers took their time, making a ritual of choosing their delicacies from behind the glass counter, which the industrious staff then wrapped up in waxed paper with a theatrical flourish while listening for the next selection. Each of the customers left laden with plastic bags straining under the weight of their contents and a panattone or two in gaudy cardboard wrapping.
The first Camisa deli was originally across the road from the current sshop. It was opened at no 66 Old Compton Street by two Italian brothers, Ennio and Isidoro Camisa, fresh off the boat from the old country, in 1929. Soho was a gathering place for Italian immigrants at the time – it still is in many respects – and several shops and cafes sprang up to cater for them and to provide a taste of the exotic south to other Londoners. The prospects of the Camisa brothers rose with the tide.
The Second World War changed everything as the UK and Italy entered it on different sides. Italians living in the United Kingdom were detained in camps across the country. The Camisa brothers were no exception and as a consequence their first shop was forced to close its doors.
Undaunted, the brothers returned to Soho after the war and opened a new shop, this time on Berwick Street. They worked together at those premises through the 1950’s until deciding to part ways at the beginning of the following decade. Ennio stayed put at 3a Berwick Street whilst Isidoro opened his own store at no 61 Old Compton Streetwhere the deli still stands today. So although Cliff Richard would have recognised the name Camisa, the current shop post-dates his time at the 2i’s.
The two shops became rivals. The Photographers Gallery did a project on food shopping in Soho and interviewed Claudio Mussi who bought from I Camisa & Sons in the 1960’s and 1970’s and eventually took over the business with a partner as he remembers in this extract from the project shows:
“The original Camisa was open soon after the war in Berwick Street – the two brothers, Enio and Isadoro. They had a shop before the war. And during the war they were interned on the Isle of Man, being Italians and Italy being at war with England. So when I started at the Piccadilly Restaurant in 1961, Camisa in Berwick Street was already well-established. And then in ‘61 the two brothers separated. One stayed in Berwick Street and the other one opened this one, this Camisa in Old Compton Street where we are now, opened here in 1961.
And I remember the two brothers were competing with each other for the few restaurants that used to buy. One brother used to come, bring a sample of ravioli to a restaurant, and then the other brother used to come and bring a sample of his ravioli [laughter] – you know, to get the business.
And then in ‘78 the boss of Camisa told me that he wanted to sell the shop, I looked for a partner, found Gabrielle. He knew the business because he was working in a delicatessen before, at the bottom of the street, a delicatessen that is no longer there, number 8 Old Compton Street, Parmigiani. He was a master at his job. He was the best. I said “There is the shop, up for grabs, what do you think? You become a working partner.” And we bought it.
When we first came, first thing Gabrielle did, he took the door away. Because it was a glass door and it used to open and shut, shut in the face of people. Kids used to get trapped, with their hands, especially on Saturday with a queue, it was terrible to have a door. So the first thing they did, after a month, they took the door away, and we haven’t had a door since.”
The Berwick Street shop is long closed but the business continues online and looks to be a rather splendid purveyor of high class Italian food. They have several photos from the early days of the Camisa’s in Soho on their site. I hope they don’t mind me sharing them:
My photos of the current Camisa shop at 61 Old Compron Street:
