Published: 6 October, 2011
by SEBASTIAN TAYLOR

JAZZ, blues and funk are back on the menu at the Floridita supper club on Wardour Street, Soho, complementing the club’s salsa, samba and tango fare – and challenging the Ronnie Scott’s/Pizza Express duopoly in Soho in the process.

The club stands on the site of the legendary Marquee Club that hosted residencies in the late 1960s by the likes of Alexis Korner, Chris Barber, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd and in later years by punk, heavy metal and rock revival groups.

“We opened Floridita seven years ago to showcase bands and acts brought over from Cuba and Latin America for weekly residencies,” says Max Rhodes, general manager of D&D London.

“Now, we want to widen the music appeal, adding jazz, funk and soul, but still keeping Latin American and Cuban.

“Although we’re not seeking to emulate the original Marquee Club, we do think there’s room for more jazz and soul in Soho.”

That surmise could well be right as Floridita is larger, brighter and more classy than its two Soho rivals and has a dance floor area which the others don’t.

The club’s new music programme got off to a flying start with a high-octane performance by multi Grammy Award-winner, Cuban jazz pianist Chucho Valdes, playing with his high-energy seven-piece band.

Future bookings include smokey-voiced jazz singer Cousin Alice, swing-jump band Blue Harlem and pianist-vocalist Liane Carroll.

Although the Floridita is named after the historic Havana bar, it doesn’t have much resemblance to the Floridita frequented by Hemmingway and Ezra Pound.

For a start, the Soho venue doesn’t have a life-size bronze statue of Hemmingway – only a photo.

But it does have the same frozen mojitos and daiquiris so enjoyed by Hemmingway and generations of visitors to the Havana bar.