A short, shadowed lane off Regent Street, a building raised in 1916, and the club where Swinging London kept its secret. This is the history of the address behind the quiet door.
Architects Trehearne & Norman raise the block that stands today on a fragment of old Swallow Street: the short, shadowed lane that survived when Nash carved Regent Street through the West End. The little street keeps discreet, well-fed company: Bentley's opens its oyster bar the same year, Veeraswamy follows in 1926. Swallow Street becomes the kind of address you are told about, not the kind you find.
the city forgot it. the curious kept finding it.
On 22 June 1966, the doors of No. 9 open on Sibylla’s, Swinging London’s best-kept secret. Named after socialite Sibylla Edmonstone, financed by Sir William Pigott-Brown with George Harrison holding ten per cent, its interiors by David Mlinaric, designed, in his words, with “a feeling of under-decoration.”
At the launch party: the Beatles, fresh from finishing Revolver, the Rolling Stones, Michael Caine, Julie Christie, David Bailey, Mary Quant. On its small stage in the seasons that followed: Jokers Wild with David Gilmour, Robert Plant & the Band of Joy, Family, Amen Corner, and The Iveys before they became Badfinger. Alan Freeman played “Yellow Submarine” to this room before the world heard it.
sibylla’s never advertised. you heard about it from someone who had been.
The room wakes again. Behind the same quiet door, bisou continues what this address has always done: gather people close and give them something worth listening to.
you’ll know it when you find it.