Singer, songwriter, fashion icon, and influencer David Bowie died last night, two days after his 69th birthday and the release of his final album, “Blackstar.” The stars look very different today now that David Bowie has passed, and the world is mourning the loss of a legend.
To commemorate the Starman’s life, we bring you eye-opening tidbits about Bowie’s curious diet, the New York cafe he frequented, and the London pub where he started his career.
The Thin White Duke’s diet consisted of peppers, cocaine, and milk
According to David Buckley, the author of the book Strange Fascination: David Bowie: The Definitive Story, Bowie’s diet in the mid-1970s consisted of red peppers, cocaine, and milk. The year 1976 was the year Bowie released his tenth studio album, Station to Station, a vehicle for the singer’s “nasty” character The Thin White Duke. Because he was using cocaine so heavily during that time, Bowie says he remembers almost nothing of the album’s production—not even the studio sessions. The singer admitted, “I know it was in L.A. because I’ve read it was.”
Bowie frequented SoHo’s Caffe Falai
In 2012, a picture was snapped of a 65-year-old Bowie showing the singer’s “new image: flat cap, tatty grey hooded sweatshirt, faded jeans, carrying his lunch in a paper bag.” An article in The Telegraph—prompted by the photo—notes that “the photograph was shot after an excursion to Caffe Falai, an Italian restaurant on Lafayette Street in the trendy SoHo district of Manhattan. ‘He comes in two to three times a week,’ according to Rico, a waiter at the café. ‘He is very friendly. He usually buys a sandwich or some pasta.’ Caffe Falai is located on Lafayette Street, down the block from the £4 million [or about $5.8 USD] penthouse apartment Bowie called home. The cafe is known for its bomboloni, which Serious Eats included in its 2008 roundup of the best doughnuts in Manhattan.
The pub where Bowie launched his career is now an Italian restaurant
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The artist honed his craft at The Three Tuns pub in Southeast London. The pub is now a location of the Italian chain Zizzi, which is kind of a bummer, but at least there is a plaque on the outside of the restaurant commemorating Bowie. A Facebook commenter on the Beckenham Bowie page reminisces, “I remember him taking money on the door at The Three Tuns, always quiet and friendly and playing acoustic folk-style.”
R.I.P., David Bowie.
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