I've very mixed feelings about Patisserie Valerie. I've known PV since at least the early 1970s when it was one branch in Old Compton Street in Soho, still run by the Frenchman who founded it and was ever-present behind the counter. The patisseries were put onto cake stands which were left on every table: you were expected to share tables, in best French tradition, and when you came to pay you told the staff how many cakes you'd consumed!! This arrangement existed for at least a decade, until (I guess) too much dishonesty saw the cakes removed from the tables. I do recollect hearing of a second branch being opened by the owner's brother somewhere not too far away in, perhaps, 1980 or so. The cream cakes were, in my opinion, without equal in London, although the nearby family-run Maison Bertaux would run them a close second. I was interviewed by the Soho Society for their newsletter in the 1980s and seem to remember claiming Patisserie Valerie was my favourite place in the universe, or somesuch! When the owner died, something went out of the business, although the patisserie was still excellent. To my mind, when it became a 'brand' with franchises etc, and particularly when Luke Johnson got involved, it was only a matter of time before the edifice came crashing down, hence my ambivalence.
