Some 13 years after her death from alcohol poisoning, aged just 27, the first biopic of Amy Winehouse is here. Back to Black, named for the singer’s second and final album, arrives in cinemas on Friday April 12, amid a swirl of controversy — early clips have had fans divided, while others are wondering: where is the line between honouring a legacy and exploiting it?
The Winehouse story is one of pain and love, addiction and ambition, triumph and tragedy. It is one of bulimia, alcohol abuse, hard drugs. It is also one of a singular talent, a voice unlike any other, caustic wit, endless charm. Of making tiny jazz clubs feel like the most important stages in the world, and of making huge festival crowds feel as though it were her and them in some Soho basement. But it is also undoubtedly a story of London, especially Camden. Here’s where to discover Winehouse, off the record.
The pubs and bars
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Above all others, the Hawley Arms (2 Castlehaven Road, NW1 8QU, thehawleyarms.co.uk) is the pub most associated with Winehouse, who drank there both before and after she was famous — in fact, post 2006’s Back to Black, it became something of a refuge; when paparazzi stalked her flat in Prowse Place, it was the Hawley she was most often spotted escaping to. What had once been a tough-as-leather bikers’ bar in the Eighties and Nineties became in the early thousands what might be thought of as indie’s unofficial HQ. Pete Doherty drank there with Kate Moss, Razorlight played on the roof, Arctic Monkeys had pints there with Kaiser Chiefs, and Mighty Boosh-era Noel Fielding was a regular. Lock-ins were the norm, and the papers loved the place. It helped that MTV’s studio was a couple of moments away. But Winehouse was the star most closely tied to the place — in part because she was so often spotted behind the bar, pouring pints (at her own request). Winehouse is said to have drunk the Rickstasy here, something of a lethal milkshake — one part each of Southern Comfort, Baileys and banana liqueur to three parts vodka — but the pub has long refused to make it.
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Winehouse’s other big drinks were vodka, Jack Daniel’s and diet coke, and white wine. The Good Mixer (30 Inverness Street, NW1 7HJ, thegoodmixer.co.uk) is as good a place as any other for any of these, and though her association with the Hawley is more celebrated, it’s the Mixer that’s said to have been her favourite pub (“I’m practically furniture at my local”, she once quipped of the place). Though the Mixer became famous through its Britpop connections — Jarvis Cocker and Bobby Gillespie were often in in the Nineties, and it’s said it was here the Blur vs Oasis rivalry kicked off — later Winehouse would come in to shoot pool, or join in with the jam sessions that broke out. Today, the place isn’t quite the fruit-machines-n-Grolsch boozer that it was back then, having been sanded down and polished up a few years ago, but there’s still a decent jukebox and a piano to sit and play at, and regular gigs too.
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There’s more of the same at the Dublin Castle (94 Parkway, NW1 7AN, thedublincastle.com), where bands play most nights and DJs join in on the weekend. Sidling beside landlady Peggy Conlon, it’s another spot Winehouse would pour pints at when she wasn’t performing, and her portrait hangs above the bar, nestled among the countless posters for the acts who’ve made it here (Madness, famously; Oasis; Supergrass; the Killers). On it is a tribute to Conlon — “thanks for letting me behind the bar – I need the tips!” — and an acknowledgement of her engagement to Blake Fielder-Civil; he proposed to her here. The lager’s cheap, the music is loud; the place is still all red paint and rock n’ roll, and arguably Camden’s best pub.
One other boozer that rarely gets mentioned but Winehouse drank at is the Old Eagle (251 Royal College Street, NW1 9LU, @old_eagle_camden), close by her home at the time. Another music pub, this time with a Celtic accent, it’s where Winehouse is said to have hidden out from the cameras from time to time — although not always successfully, as it’s where she and Fielder-Civil were spotted in the day after they’d abandoned an Essex rehab centre, at 3am, by helicopter.
A little further up the road, by Chalk Farm, is Marathon (87 Chalk Farm Road, NW1 8AR, 020 7485 3814). Since losing a court appeal in 2011, which stripped the place of its licence to sell booze, Marathon has been nothing more than a kebab shop. As such, any Winehouse fans visiting won’t get much of her experience. But when the singer went, the back stayed open till 5am, when everyone would be up dancing on the tables, buoyed by a six-night-a-week residency from French rock-n-roller Daniel Jeanrenaud.
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Winehouse did, of course, leave NW1; in Soho, Jazz After Dark (9 Greek Street, W1D 4DQ, jazzafterdark.co.uk) drew her in — supposedly, she first arrived looking for a job behind the bar but was offered a gig instead. Winehouse performed regularly here, but also drank here too, and it’s somewhere for cheap drinks and late nights. Inside, it’s a bit of an oddball, very “old Soho”, tiny and somewhat sticky, and something of a shrine to the singer, with paintings and portraits of her covering the walls. But regular gigs still go on, with entrance still about a tenner. Winehouse isn’t the only celebrity to have been in, either — they claim Greta Garbo and Charlton Heston both came for food in the Eighties. Afterwards? Try Trisha’s (57 Greek Street, W1D 3DX, 020 7437 9536), the rogue of a drinking den, where Winehouse was often spotted in the smoking area. Drinks are still about £6; everyone has a story.
Over to the Strand, and there’s Halfway To Heaven (7 Duncannon Street, WC2N 4JF, halfway2heaven.net), a long-standing and much-cherished LGBTQ+ cabaret bar, which from the outside looks like an old boozer but inside is festooned with pink glitter. To this day, it draws top drag talent. In 2006, Winehouse told BBC Radio London DJ, “I used to go to that gay club, [Halfway to] Heaven, cause I wouldn’t get bothered.” Afterwards, she went on, she’d sit on the Oscar Wilde statue nearby and chat to it.
The restaurants
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Famously, Winehouse was known more for drink than food, but apparently loved to eat. Pizzas were an essential on her gig rider, as were sweets — with the owners of Pat’s News, the now-shut newsagent on Kentish Town Road, on the record saying the Stronger Than Me singer would pop in for Haribo, boiled sweets (blackcurrant super sours) and ice pops. But eating out? Aside from KFC, tapas restaurant Jamon Jamon (38 Parkway, NW1 7AH, jamonjamon.uk.com) was her regular.
“You knew if she wasn’t eating at home, chances are she’d be at Jamon Jamon,” stepmother Jane Winehouse told the Camden New Journal in 2021. Albondigas y arroz — meatballs with rice — were the go-to order, alongside patatas bravas. Otherwise, she had fry-ups at Chris’s Kitchen (237 Royal College Street, NW1 9LT, 07531 160754), and had her own booth at Haché (24 Inverness Street, NW1 7HJ, hacheburgers.com). The burger of choice? A steak Canadien.
Given the tabloid obsession with Winehouse, she was often snapped out and about, wherever she happened to be. Some of her haunts have since closed, but those still going include Fishworks (across London, fishworks.co.uk), the late-night, open-til-6am Balans (60-62 Old Compton Street, W1D 4UG, balans.co.uk), where in 2010 she narrowly avoided being barred, after being caught smoking indoors, and Guanabana (85 Kentish Town Road, NW1 8NY, guanabanarestaurant.com). Guanabana is a Latin-Caribbean spot; Winehouse was an enormous fan of Caribbean food and was spotted regularly outside the Chalk Farm Cottons (55 Chalk Farm Road, NW1 8AN, cottons-restaurant.co.uk), which it was once reported she almost wrote a song about.
Otherwise, it’s always worth a pilgrimage to Beigel Bake (159 Brick Lane, E1 6SB, bricklanebeigel.co.uk), whether a Winehouse fan or not, but the famous 24-hour shop was also where she took Roots drummer Questlove once. The pair apparently added peanut butter to their salt beef bagels — reader discretion is advised.
The stages
RONNIE SCOTT’S
Ronnie Scott’s (47 Frith Street, W1D 4HT, ronniescotts.co.uk) loomed large in Winehouse’s life from the moment she was born: her grandmother, Cynthia, also a jazz singer, had once dated Scott himself, who would regularly invite the Winehouse family to gigs, right up until his death in 1996. Winehouse sang there soon after that, when she would have been only 13 — only to be interrupted by a megastar.
“After he [Scott] died we went down there, did a gig. I was singing a tune – and I don’t care if people are talking, in fact I like it if people are talking ’cause it gives me a chance to go into one with the band, and my dad was in the audience,” she told the New Camden Journal in 2006. “He turned around to whoever was in the audience and said: ‘Will you shut the f**k up’ and this man goes ‘sorry’ and it was Mick Jagger. And my Dad’s like: ‘It was only Mick Jagger!’”
Winehouse played the club many times over her career. But other places were just as special: she was a regular at Koko (1a Camden High Street, NW1 7RE, koko.co.uk), both on the stage and off it, playing their first when it was still the Camden Palace. It was also where she played a celebratory homecoming show in 2006, marking the release of Back to Black — the show, a sell-out bursting full, is remembered as one of the venue’s defining gigs. Down the road, Winehouse would also often perform at the Jazz Cafe (5 Parkway, NW1 7PG, thejazzcafelondon.com), which was said to be her favourite venue. It still holds tribute evenings to her now.
The Roundhouse (Chalk Farm Road, NW1 8EH, roundhouse.org.uk) was another local Winehouse loved. Iconic in its own right — Led Zeppelin, David Bowie and The Clash all played it, among countless others — Winehouse performed a number of gigs there, though the appearance most often spoken of is the one that came only three days before her death, her last public outing. She appeared on stage to surprise her 15-year-old godchild, soul singer Dionne Bromfield, who was on stage that night. Winehouse, seemingly a little worse for wear, danced in the background but didn’t sing as the mic was put to her. It was a far cry from the family-and-friends gig she had played only a week or so before at the 100 Club (Century House, 100 Oxford Street, W1D 1LL, the100club.co.uk), when she was said to be “back on track”. It came after she had been in rehab again; everything seemed on the up, until a disastrous gig in Belgrade that came two nights before the Roundhouse. A show utterly unlike that took place in 2007, for the I Told You I Was Trouble: Live in London album, which was recorded in Shepherd’s Bush Empire (Shepherd’s Bush Green, W12 8TT, academymusicgroup.com). It is worth seeking out.
The recordings
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Though her work with Mark Ronson often took her to New York, Winehouse recorded much of her music here, especially in the early stages of a piece. Mill Hill Music Complex (Unit 1, Bunns Lane Works, Bunns Lane, NW7 2AJ, millhillmusiccomplex.co.uk) was a favourite rehearsal spot of hers — studio nine was the room — and where she spent many of her formative years, shaping the sound. Later, some of these would be refined at Abbey Road Studios (3 Abbey Road, NW8 9AY, abbeyroad.com), which notably was the site of her last ever recording; she sang with Tony Bennett, for his Duets II album. The song was Body and Soul.
Videos featured London, too. Abney Park Cemetery (215 Stoke Newington High Street, N16 0LH, abneypark.org) was where the video for Back To Black was filmed, while much of the F*** Me Pumps video was shot in east London — notably on Chilton Street, just off Brick Lane, and outside Reflection House on at 110 Cheshire Street, E2 6EJ (it’s renamed Beyond Retro for the video).
One spot harder to visit will be 33 Portland Place, where Rehab, above, was filmed (as well as films including the King’s Speech). It once was the site of infamous sex parties hosted by “Fast” Eddie Davenport, but is now a private home on the market for some £75 million, having been entirely stripped and refurbished.
The rest
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The obvious here is Camden Market (camdenmarket.com), where Winehouse worked as a teenager, and where a lifestyle bronze statue of her stands. Otherwise, the singer is on the record as a fan of Primrose Hill and Highgate Woods. Also, some fans visit her former properties to leave tributes; these include flats and houses at Jeffrey’s Place, Prowse Place and Camden Square, all in Camden.
