In July 2006, when Italy landed their fourth World Cup by beating France on penalties in Germany, Bar Italia was the place to be for any Italian living in London.
Thousands of Italy fans crammed along Frith Street in Soho to revel in the national team’s success, a first world title since 1982.
Since it was opened in 1949 by Caterina and Lou Polledri, a couple from Piacenza in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, Bar Italia has served as a meeting point and flavour of home for Italians based in England’s capital.
In its early years, the bar — famed for its coffee served from the first Gaggia machine in London — acted as a hub for Italian waiters working in the area. It has remained a place for Italians but caters to Soho’s many tourists and creatives. Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney and the late David Bowie are among the celebrities to have walked through the door.
Brothers Antony and Luigi, the grandsons of Lou and Caterina and the children of Nino and Vera, are now in charge of the 75-year-old institution. They run it alongside Little Italy, the restaurant next door.
People celebrate Pride outside Bar Italia (Caoimhe O’Neill/The Athletic)
This Saturday was their busiest day of the year as an empowered and giddy crowd celebrating Pride gathered on Frith Street in Soho, the beating heart of London’s LGBTQ+ community.
To add to the bustle at Bar Italia, Italy are playing in a European Championship knockout tie against Switzerland at 5pm, with a place in the last eight up for grabs. The game is being screened on television at the back of the narrow bar.
“This place is amazing,” Loredana Sirna, a 27-year-old Italian native who has spent the past year managing the bar, tells The Athletic. “It’s crazy actually. It’s always full of people and every day is different.
“It’s like home to a lot of Italians. We have a lot of regulars who come here. It’s a big family. We all look after each other and we all really enjoy working here.”
Rafael Esposito, a pub manager from Brighton, has travelled to Bar Italia from the south coast. It is a pilgrimage he has been making for 30 years. Born to an Italian father and English mother, Esposito grew up in England but feels Neapolitan.
His friend, Paul Harrington, a local carpenter, feels the same. His grandparents hailed from near Parma in northern Italy. Their southern English accents do a good job of hiding their Italian hearts.
They met here over 20 years ago and have been watching Italy games together at Bar Italia ever since. They say the place has not changed much. The terrazzo flooring is original and was laid by a family uncle. Mirrored walls help bring light and space. Old photos of Bar Italia, Italian sporting memorabilia and framed newspaper cuttings take up most of the wall space.
Paul Harrington and Rafael Esposito watched the game in Bar Italia (Caoimhe O’Neill/The Athletic)
A large poster of legendary 1950s Italian-American boxer Rocky Marciano acts as the centrepiece. A pair of Marciano’s gloves, gifted by the boxer himself after the kindness shown to him by Caterina and Lou during his visits to London, is another focal point above trays of fresh cannoli.
Esposito and Harrington don’t feel optimistic about Luciano Spalletti’s team making it into the quarter-finals. They think Mattia Zaccagni’s goal against Croatia in the 1-1 draw (which earned Italy qualification from Group B in the final seconds) was a lifeline, but say it covered up the cracks.
That is not to say they didn’t enjoy bouncing around Bar Italia last Monday when the goal was scored in the eighth minute of stoppage time.
Kick-off in Berlin is now just a few minutes away and in the centre of London, they have gone early with the national anthem, which starts to buzz out of the speakers.
Italy native Allesandra Cenci moved to London when she was 18. Bar Italia was the place Allesandra and her friends would pile into after late nights partying in Soho to sober up with coffee and breakfast. The 45-year-old, who is from just outside Naples, says the bar used to be open 24 hours a day but now closes at 5am and opens back up at 7am.
“This place feels like us,” Cenci says. “This has always been the heart, they always kept that special feeling of being back home. If you are born in Italy then you would come here to feel connected.”
Among Cenci’s friends is Roberto Zicconi, a Sardinian food and wine supplier. He arrives just as the players begin to perform another passionate rendition of the national anthem. Cenci and Zicconi, who sing it as loudly as they can, met at a Catholic mass in St. Peter’s Italian Church on Clerkenwell Road near Farringdon. And as the lights are turned off, the TV on the back wall becomes an altar-like point of focus. The Azzurri are about to be worshipped and prayed for.
As more of their friends arrive, Zicconi makes it his objective to buy The Athletic a beer as Cenci invites me to a Catholic procession for Our Lady of Mount Carmel on July 21. “You are in our house,” Zicconi says. The group talk quickly in their own language and every so often Cenci translates the conversation so as not to exclude me.
In the first 20 minutes, the only thing to make noise about as the air slowly disappears and the humidity rises is a cross from Roma midfielder Bryan Cristante, which goes out for a corner. Gianluigi Donnarumma’s save in the 24th minute to deny Breel Embolo feels foreboding but was greeted with a shout of “bravo” by Serena Sobbetti, a 33-year-old from Sicily.
Rocky Marciano’s gloves above the bar (Caoimhe O’Neill/The Athletic)
The London-based teacher spent the day watching the Pride parade with friends before heading to Bar Italia alone. She soon strikes up a chat with Gaia Rossi, a 47-year-old from Arcore near Milan. The two women talk as Italy fail to thrill.
They are deep in conversation yet barely take their eyes off the screen. When Switzerland take the lead in the 37th minute through Remo Freuler, there is a collective groan of “noooooo”.
“We haven’t started playing,” Sobbetti says. “We deserve it and maybe now we’re going to wake up.” The number of espressos being served at the bar by barista Jay Ali during half-time suggests everyone in here is trying to wake up, too.
Esposito says it is exactly what he was expecting to happen. “But you always have hope,” he says, rallying himself. Out on Frith Street, the Pride party is in full flow, there is joy and euphoria — a contrast to the atmosphere in Bar Italia.
Dorian Kuci is standing at the doorway. It is the first time he has been standing still in over an hour. The 41-year-old Albanian, whose mother’s side of the family are Italian, has worked at Bar Italia for 22 years. He can remember the bar being shut down by police when Italy won the World Cup in 2006 due to the thousands of fans who gathered outside. “That did not stop the party,” he says.
One thing that stops today’s party is Switzerland’s second goal. It takes 27 seconds into the second half for Ruben Vargas to score. There was not much air left in Bar Italia, but that curved finish sucked the last of the oxygen out with it.
“We deserve to lose because we are not playing well,” Ilaria Ardau, a native of Sardinia, says sipping an Aperol spritz from a plastic cup. Ardau was in the area celebrating Pride with her Italian friends Denis Roselli and Carlotta Filippi. If they regret taking a break from the party to watch Italy, it doesn’t show as they share a bag of San Carlo crisps and arch their necks to watch until the end.
The mood inside Bar Italia is the opposite of proud. Being 1-0 down felt manageable, but 2-0 so soon into the second half feels terminal.
The crowded bar ahead of Italy’s game kicking off (Caoimhe O’Neill/The Athletic)
“You came to watch on the wrong day,” Cenci tells me.
There has been little to cheer and by the 86th minute, it’s getting no better. It is at that point Cenci and her friends head towards the fresh air on Frith Street, where the party is only just starting. They aren’t alone in leaving as the final minutes run down. Juventus forward Federico Chiesa almost empties the bar after he runs down the wing before looping back on himself in the first of two stoppage-time minutes.
“That was one of the worst performances in my lifetime,” Esposito says. Harrington backs him up, saying it might be the worst game he has ever watched.
As fans in blue replica shirts leave shaking their heads at each other as they pass, the lights come on and it feels like kicking out time at the club. For holders Italy at the Euros it is, but Bar Italia will buzz on.
(Top photos: Caoimhe O’Neill/The Athletic)
