Toulouse Lautrec

Toulouse Lautrec is a 55-capacity live-music room in Kennington, London, with an unusually complete evening built into one address: French dining on the lower floors, a piano room, then an upstairs Jazz Club. The key distinction is scale. This is a table-seated, close-range room where a grand piano, house backline and full PA make space for proper small-ensemble shows, while the restaurant gives the night a supper-club shape.

A former pub turned family-run stage

Brothers Nolan and Florent Regent opened Toulouse Lautrec in December 2008, drawing on their family’s long restaurant background next door at The Lobster Pot. The venue occupies a restored Victorian building; a 2008 photographic record identifies its earlier lives as pubs called Liam Og’s and The Plough and Harrow. Nolan has described the original plan as a brasserie and wine bar, with his enthusiasm for live music pushing the project toward the performance-led room visitors find today.

Its first decade received a clear marker on November 27, 2018, when Toulouse Lautrec held a tenth-anniversary celebration split between jazz-club sets and piano-bar performance, including Francesca Confortini’s six-piece group alongside cabaret and burlesque artists. The format captured the Regent booking approach: jazz at the core, with cabaret given equal room in the programme. During the COVID-19 shutdown, the venue closed and launched a public crowdfunding appeal; the campaign finished on July 30, 2020, after seeking funds to cover rent, utilities and musicians.

The room today

Expect live acts instead of DJ sets: Nolan Regent describes a programme spanning straight-ahead and gypsy jazz, swing, blues and New Orleans styles, while the venue also hosts cabaret, soul, Latin and acoustic music. The Jazz Club sits on the second floor, up two stair flights, with limited seating and occasional table sharing during busy periods. A Yamaha G2 grand piano, drum kit, bass amps and a 36-channel Presonus desk underline its working-musician focus; French food, wine and cocktails remain central to the experience.